BayLegal’s Youth Justice Team works to advance the needs and rights of youth by providing wrap-around civil legal services to young people experiencing homelessness, systems involvement, high rates of abuse, neglect, and sexual exploitation. The Team believes that all young people should be treated with respect and have the resources they need to meet their goals. To that end, we engage in civil legal representation, social work, community collaborations, and systemic advocacy, in partnership with the young people we serve.
Position: BayLegal seeks an attorney with a strong commitment to social and racial justice to join our Youth Justice Team, which advocates for vulnerable youth in the San Francisco Bay Area. The attorney will work on a diverse range of legal issues, including foster care entry, public benefits, probate guardianships, education advocacy, immigration relief, and other civil legal practice areas. This position can be based in our Richmond, San Francisco, or Oakland offices and involves traveling throughout the county and potentially the Bay Area as necessary to best serve our low-income clients.
Duties and Responsibilities:
- Learn and advocate for the diverse legal needs of underserved and vulnerable youth in Contra Costa County and the broader Bay Area to reduce homelessness, enhance stability and address social and racial injustice;
- Represent youth in education proceedings, including but not limited to school enrollment, due process hearings, school discipline defense, special education advocacy, and McKinney-Vento advocacy;
- Represent youth in a range of other civil legal practice areas, including but not limited to guardianships, foster care entry and benefits, and domestic violence/family law.
- Provide workshops and technical assistance to community partners and client community on a broad range of civil legal issues;
- Develop relationships and engage in collaboration with a range of public and private community partners, including governmental agencies, courts, and community-based organizations, to ensure integrated services and address systemic barriers facing BayLegal’s client community;
- Work with BayLegal’s development, grants and contracts, and communications team to promote the importance of civil legal services in addressing poverty and social justice, BayLegal’s mission and resource development;
- Engage in other tasks and projects that further BayLegal’s mission and operations as a non-profit.
Requirements/Qualifications/About the Successful Candidate:
- Humility in working with colleagues and clients across the spectrum of diversity, including race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, immigrant status, religious identity, physical and mental disabilities, and/or limited English proficiency
- Membership in the California State Bar, or admitted to practice in another state and eligible to practice in California for 3 years under the California State Bar rules for the Registered Legal Services Attorney Program (must pass CA bar at a later date)
- Three years of experience as a practicing attorney
- Experience providing direct legal services, including court room experience
- Education advocacy experience preferred
- Experience working with and interviewing youth preferred
- Experience working with exploited, trafficked, abused, and neglected youth preferred
- Multi-lingual in languages commonly spoken by our client communities preferred
- Experience organizing time, managing diverse activities, and meeting critical deadlines with minimal supervision.
- Excellent writing, editing, and proof-reading skills, with ability to be detail-oriented
- Sense of humor, curious and self-directed
- Demonstrated experience simultaneously managing cases in different practice areas.
HYBRID WORK OPTION: BayLegal is committed to the health and safety of our staff, clients, and community. Being accessible to our client communities and reducing barriers for them to access our services is integral to our mission and commitment as a direct services community-based law firm. BayLegal has health and safety protocols to minimize risk of exposure. BayLegal has an evolving plan to continue to safely increase in-person services and activities in our offices and community-based advocacy sites. Currently, most BayLegal employees work a hybrid model including on-site and in-person work and working from home on a part-time basis. Employees are expected to reside in California and at a distance allowing them to commute to their physical BayLegal base location, and to other service delivery locations as needed, during the standard work week.
Compensation and Benefits: We offer a diverse, family friendly environment, and compensation based on competitive public interest salaries along with a generous benefits package. BayLegal’s benefits package includes 100% employer covered medical, dental, and life insurance for employees and up to 60% for dependents; BayLegal student debt reimbursement program; long term disability insurance; employee assistance program; wage differentials for multi-lingual employees whose non-English language skills are regularly used in the provision of work tasks and pass a request test of fluency and/or proficiency; dependent childcare employer contribution program; employer paid CA Bar license and/or social work license fees; and 401k retirement plan with BayLegal contribution following first year. BayLegal has a generous paid leave policy which includes sick leave; parental leave; 15 holidays each year; 3 floating holidays each year (days chosen by employee); and vacation (starting at 13 days and increasing with additional years of employment). This is a union position (Bay Area Legal Aid Workers, “BALAW”), and the salary ranges from $74,629-$109,570 depending on years of experience. Please see our BayLegal union positions salary scale for more details.
Applications: BayLegal thrives on our diversity, and we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a culturally diverse workplace and strongly encourage women, LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual) and QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) individuals, veterans, individuals who have been impacted by the criminal justice system, persons with disabilities, and persons from other underrepresented groups to apply. We are committed to equal employment opportunity and providing reasonable accommodations to qualified candidates and employees pursuant to applicable law. We value and encourage diversity and solicit applications from all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, gender, sex, age, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, medical condition, military and veteran status, gender identity or expression, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. If you require a reasonable accommodation as part of the application process, please contact BayLegal’s Human Resources Manager at (510) 250-5225.
BayLegal will begin reviewing applications upon receipt and continue until the position is filled. Please submit (1) cover letter including response to question below (no page limit), (2) resume, (3) references, and (4) writing sample through our career application portal.
As part of your cover letter, please address the following:
BayLegal’s clients are low-income and very low-income members of our communities. They include LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual) and QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) individuals, the working poor, seniors, people who are limited English proficient, veterans, persons with disabilities, survivors of abuse and exploitation, individuals impacted by the criminal justice system, and people who are experiencing or at risk of homeless, and persons from other underrepresented groups. To ensure our organization is best serving these populations, BayLegal strives to promote an evolving set of behaviors and attitudes amongst our staff, as well as policies that enable us to work effectively across cultures, with clients, with our coworkers, and with the community. We see this as a commitment to enhance the provision of our services to all clients; to raise the level of positive client outcomes; and to create an inclusive and respectful workplace in which differences are acknowledged and valued.
How do you think your experiences, professional or otherwise, prepared you to serve our diverse client base effectively, work effectively with colleagues from different backgrounds than your own, and to contribute to our commitment to humility, inclusion, and diversity? Feel free to think broadly about your response to this question, applying various aspects of your life and personal experiences.