Legal Advocate
SAFE Legal Services seeks a full-time legal advocate. The SAFE Legal Advocate is responsible for providing short/long-term advocacy and support to survivors of domestic violence felonies prosecuted by the Travis County District Attorney’s Office. The role also utilizes and supports volunteers as court support for their caseload.
About SAFE:
- SAFE’s mission is our name: Stop Abuse For Everyone. We achieve our mission by acknowledging and responding to the intersection of child abuse, sexual assault, human trafficking, and domestic violence.
- The SAFE Alliance grew out of the courageous work of the Center for Battered Women, the Austin Rape Crisis Center, and the Austin Children’s Shelter, all respected, women-led human service agencies created by volunteers and informed by survivors who needed support, safety and justice.
- With over 20 programs and 400 staff, we have been serving the Austin community and beyond for over 30 years.
- The SAFE Alliance strongly encourages members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply, including people of color, LGBTQ+ identified people, gender-nonconforming people, individuals with disabilities, veterans, and people who speak a language in addition to English.
About this position:
- The role of SAFE Legal Advocate is a full-time, salary exempt position that works at the Travis County District Attorney site with regular check-ins with the SAFE Director of Legal Services. We will pay you an annual salary of $41,000 – 43,000 dependent upon experience.
Key Duties:
- Serves as an on-site resource at the Travis County District Attorney’s Office providing client-focused advocacy, counseling and referrals for victims in felony domestic violence assault cases prosecuted by the Travis County District Attorney’s Office.
- Manages client crisis effectively, professionally, and with a high level of resiliency.
- Conducts victim contacts within 24-48 business-hours from receiving case information.
- Assesses victims’ short and long-term safety concerns and offers on-the-spot safety planning.
- Determines if case qualifies as “high-risk” safety concern and refers case to Travis County Domestic Violence High Risk Team (DVHRT).
- Participates in the DVHRT and is the primary liaison to the DVHRT Coordinator.
- Communicates daily with Travis County District Attorney’s Office Family Violence Unit team members regarding client contacts.
- Is available for walk-in crisis clients when Family Violence Unit team members are out-of-office or in court.
- Is available to refer requests to SAFE Alliance for expert witness testimony.
- Employs resourcefulness when developing new training or modifying and improving existing trainings/presentations, and consistently aims these efforts toward improving collaborations, court and client engagement.
- Is consistently above board, beyond reproach and trustworthy when handling confidential victim information.
- Communicates effectively and professionally with attorneys, court staff and the judiciary when advocating on behalf of SAFE clients.
- Ensures accountability in maintaining documentation and program statistics/evaluations to meet requirements of both SAFE Alliance and grant reporting requirements. Compiles monthly statistical reports for SAFE Alliance.
- Multi-tasks with strong situational adaptability and a keen eye for optimizing work processes.
- Uses high-decision quality when reporting any incident of child abuse immediately to the Department of Protective and Regulatory Services and informs Director of Legal Services and the Travis County District Attorney’s Office Family Violence Chief and the Director of Special Victims Unit.
- Participates on task forces and in community groups, as requested by the SAFE Director of Legal Services.
- Attends SAFE All-Staff meetings, legal services team scheduled meetings, legal advocates support meetings and supervision with SAFE Director of Legal Services.
- The Legal Advocate is responsible for training, supervising and supporting volunteer legal advocates in the provision of court accompaniment and emotional support for their direct clients.
- The Legal Advocate assumes the lead role for developing, coordinating, scheduling and delivering court accompaniment trainings for volunteer advocates. The Legal Advocate participates in developing and implementing the cross training with the SAFE Family Court Legal Advocate.
- Other duties as assigned.
Qualifications:
- Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work or other related field or equivalent experience and training. Master’s degree in Social Work preferred.
- Three years’ social work or counseling experience in a human services agency or a criminal justice system agency required. Experience providing one-on-one advocacy to survivors of violence very highly preferred.
- One year of training or community education experience preferred.
- Bilingual in Spanish preferred.
- Pass all required criminal history background checks (including an FBI fingerprint check), as well a pre-employment drug screen and TB test (if applicable).
- All employees are required to comply with policies regarding COVID-19, which may be subject to change. COVID vaccines are still highly recommended, and we encourage employees to get vaccinated if they are able.
About our benefits:
- Full-time employees receive employer paid health insurance, short-term disability, and life insurance. *
- Optional dental, vision and pet insurance. *
- 403(b) retirement plan with an employer match, and 15 days of Paid Time Off (PTO), 4 Personal Holidays, 7 Paid holidays, and more. *
- We’ll provide you with an amazing work environment where you’ll get to make a difference every day.
Please Note: All new employees regardless of employment status will be required to start their employment on either the 1st or 16th of the month and will be required to attend a three-day new employee orientation that is held both in-person and virtually on the first three days of the month.
*Benefits are prorated based on date of hire and hours worked. Eligibility is dependent upon FTE, status, etc.
For the most up-to-date and comprehensive list of our job openings, please visit our career page.