Assistant Editor Jobs

Do you want to use your editing skills to advance individual rights? We are seeking an entrepreneurial Editor and Publications Coordinator to join the Institute for Justice’s Strategic Research team at our headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. The precise job title is flexible to fit the successful candidate’s experience and skills.

The Strategic Research team creates data-driven research to complement IJ’s litigation and advocacy. The Editor and Publications Coordinator will play a vital role in the editing, production, and promotion and distribution processes for our reports, helping our team produce and disseminate impactful social science research related to IJ’s mission for an audience of journalists, policy advocates, legislators, judges, academics, and members of the general public.

Primary Responsibilities:

• Coordinating with IJ’s communications, legislative, and activism teams on report promotion and distribution, including developing and maintaining distribution lists for key audiences when needed.
• Assisting on special projects to improve the team’s efficiency and effectiveness.
• Managing production of reports, including coordinating internal review, evaluating and incorporating reviewer’s input along with authors, coordinating with print and web designers to ensure reports look compelling, managing proofreading, and ensuring production timelines and budgets are met.
• Various administrative duties as assigned, including tracking impacts of IJ reports and managing report inventories.
• Writing and editing supplementary materials for a variety of audiences, including key messages, press releases, op-eds, and conference handouts.
• Reviewing and refining authors’ report outlines for logical structure and flow of argument, messaging, completeness, and concision.
• Editing, and occasionally substantially revising, draft reports and working with authors to present findings in clear, accessible language that makes compelling arguments for IJ issues and that is consistent with IJ’s house style.
• Ensuring reports are thoroughly and accurately cited.

Qualifications:

Required:

• An enthusiasm for collaboration with colleagues
• A willingness to pitch in with tasks large and small to get the job done
• Superior written and oral communication skills, especially the ability to simplify complex information into clear, persuasive text for non-technical audiences
• A drive to solve difficult challenges, both intellectual and practical
• Meticulous attention to detail and excellent proofreading skills
• Top-tier organizational and critical thinking skills
• An ability to manage multiple projects simultaneously
• 2+ years of professional experience in a full-time editing role or in a writing role with a significant editing component; experience editing others’ writing is a must
• Passion for social science and policy research and for advancing IJ’s mission

Preferred:

• 4+ years of professional experience in a full-time editing role
• Administrative experience in an office environment
• Experience with research in the social sciences in undergraduate, graduate, or professional settings
• Solid knowledge of AP Stylebook and APA citation guides

Benefits:

• Hybrid work schedule
• HSA employer contributions
• Free Short-Term Disability, Long-Term Disability, and Life insurance plans
• Health, Dental, and Vision insurance (IJ covers 100% of individual premiums)
• Casual dress code
• 401(k) with employer matches
• Generous PTO including a paid personal day and 12 paid holidays
• Flexible work hours with our core business hours of 10am and 4pm
• Work from home equipment reimbursement

More about the Institute for Justice's SR Team: IJ’s Strategic Research team creates social science and policy research, but our studies don’t just sit on a library shelf collecting dust. We put our research to work by combining it with IJ’s unique brand of cutting-edge litigation, award-winning communications and top-notch activism and legislative outreach. Our studies have been cited by the White House and the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as leading news outlets nationwide. Our work has helped certify a victorious class action lawsuit against Philadelphia’s civil forfeiture machine, ensure the return of cash wrongfully seized by the IRS, roll back needless occupational licensing, dismantle speech-squelching campaign finance laws, and protect programs that empower parents to choose the best schools for their children.

IJ is an equal opportunity employer.

Don’t meet every single requirement? Studies have shown that women and people of color are less likely to apply to jobs unless they meet every single qualification. At IJ we value a diverse workplace, so if you’re excited about this role but your past experience doesn’t align perfectly with every qualification in the job description, we encourage you to apply anyway. You may be just the right candidate for this or other roles.