[Foundation-l] Hiring of Interim Executive Director and Legal Counsel

[Jimmy Wales]

Following a long discussion, both publicly and privately, the board of
the foundation voted recently to hire an interim Executive Director and
legal counsel.  We offered the position to Brad Patrick, and he
accepted.  We have discussed at length the parameters of the
position, including job responsibilities, and so on.  (This has been
posted and discussed publicly as well.)

Who is Brad?  Brad has been our pro-bono legal counsel for the past
several months, has become very active in foundation matters and in the
projects.  He is of course a huge fan of free software, Larry Lessig,
and Wikipedia, and lives and breathes this stuff.  Rather than doing
"merely" legal work (nothing mere about it, of course) for us, he has
gotten involved in helping the board think about policy, in helping
Danny deal with various "customer support" issues, etc.

The need for fulltime legal counsel should be obvious to everyone
involved with the projects.  We are increasingly approached with
interesting opportunities to partner with various organizations in ways
that are consistent with our community values and missions, and we
really need fulltime legal support to make sure these deals are done in
a way which is safe for the foundation.  Additionally, of course there
is an ever increasing burden as we grow more popular of legal complaints
that we continue to try to deal with in a timely and effective manner.

The need for help in the executive arena is also obvious to
most of you... particularly any of you who have had to deal with the
critical lack of human bandwidth at the foundation level to get things
done in a timely fashion.

Brad was selected first and foremost because he is of the community,
actively involved for several months, and deeply committed to our mission.

Additionally, when I consulted recently with our volunteer attorneys,
including Alex Roshuk, Jean-Baptise Soufron and Michael Snow, as well
as consulting with Eben Moglen of the FSF and Larry Lessig of Creative
Commons, a common refrain was that we need someone who is familiar with
the particulars of Florida law, as well as someone who can effectively
co-ordinate and manage pro-bono legal resources.

This is important to emphasize: we are not hiring an in-house counsel
*instead of* seeking pro-bono help, but hiring in-house counsel *so
that* we can effectively seek and manage pro-bono help.  As an example:
when I asked Eben Moglen for help, he said that he can (starting this
fall, most likely) arrange for us the equivalent of a half-time lawyer,
except he was quite adamant that he could do so only if we could manage
the pro-bono hours effectively, and he was very strongly in support of
us having someone fulltime.

Additionally, Brad will be taking on a number of job responsibilities
that fall outside of the strictly legal scope, *on an interim basis*.
We, the board, have been overwhelmed for many months, and we need help
and assistance with business deals, legal matters, finance, audit,
planing, etc., etc., the list goes on and on.

We intend to hire a fulltime Executive Director following a very careful
process of consulting with the community, building support globally,
defining what the foundation needs, and a comprehensive search for a
good candidate, both *within the existing community* and *outside the
community*.  It is my intention that we be very very careful in this
process to preserve our fundamentally community-driven model, while at
the same time adding professionalism to the organization in order to
empower and defend the community model. :)

Among Brad's duties will be to assist in co-ordinating and managing that
search process, in conjunction with the board and community leaders of
all kinds.

We expect there to be significant press attention to this hiring, and
significant support and attention from the community.  If you have been
following the discussion on foundation-l, you will know that there are
serious excitements and of course concerns in the community about what
this direction means for the future of the foundation and for the community.

I intend to keep repeating my same message strongly and simply: it is my
intention to build upon and extend our radical methods of openness and
community involvement, while at the same time playing close attention to
the needs of the organization which makes all of that possible.
Whatever side any of you personally may come down on, relating to some
of the details of all that, I hope that you will join me in saying that
our similarities and hopes and dreams for the future are more important
than any minor differences, and that we can work our way forward as we
always have... slowly and carefully, with genuine respect for everyone
who is taking part in the discussions in a constructive way...

It is important to emphasize that the ED position is primarily about the
organization, not about the community.  That is to say, now is not the
time to start leaving "please unblock me" messages on Brad's talk page. ;-)

Brad is starting work immediately.

--Jimbo






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