Senior Litigation Attorney

Position Description

About the Legal Aid Justice Center:

The Legal Aid Justice Center is a nationally recognized, non-profit organization that partners with low-income clients and communities of color in Virginia to fight for racial, social, and economic justice. We understand that the harms our clients endure are inextricably linked to overarching systems of injustice. Together we are dismantling those systems through a combination of community organizing, litigation, policy advocacy, public relations, and individual legal services.

Founded in 1967, LAJC has offices in Charlottesville, Richmond, Petersburg, and Falls Church and provides services under six key program areas: Civil Rights & Racial Justice (focuses on the criminal legal system), Housing & Consumer Justice, Youth Justice, Health Justice & Public Benefits, Immigrant Justice, and Worker Justice. As examples of LAJC’s recent work, our lawsuit and organizing against the state forced reform of Virginia’s unemployment insurance system, including advocacy that resulted in the distribution of over $1 billion in illegally withheld payments to over 160,000 Virginians. During the pandemic, we demanded and secured a statewide eviction moratorium and emergency pandemic protections that helped hundreds of families avoid eviction. We reduced incarceration across the state, including reducing the population of a local immigration detention center down to historically low levels through a coordinated effort of organizing paired with impact and individual litigation. Our staff are on the front lines of some of the most important anti-poverty fights happening today.

With a staff of over 90, the past few years have been a time of exciting growth and opportunity for the organization. In addition to the growth of programmatic efforts including increased organizing capacity, LAJC has expanded its operations and administrative capacity, created new opportunities for professional growth and leadership among staff, engaged in ongoing race equity work, and explored changes to organizational structure to deepen its efforts to create long-term, sustainable, community-driven change.

LAJC’s latest strategic plan is available at https://www.justice4all.org/lajc-strategic-plan-2022-2026/#area d.

For more information about LAJC’s work and programs, visit www.justice4all.org.

About The Position

You are a justice-seeking changemaker in the Charlottesville/Richmond office and statewide. Partnering with communities and clients, you are responsible for both routine advocacy (case handling, etc., particularly through the clinics) and for managing systems change campaigns that seek to achieve justice by dismantling systems that create and perpetuate poverty. In your work, you use a variety of tools, including litigation, policy advocacy, community organizing, research, and communications. As a senior litigation attorney on the CRRJ team, this attorney will also strategize with the CRRJ team on campaigns - both the ones they are staffed on as well as the others - and assist with the development of impact litigation to advance CRRJ's work.

Job Duties

• Serve as litigation specialist for the CRRJ program, litigating major cases, including serving as LAJC’s primary attorney on Scott v. Clarke, a class action on behalf of 1,200 women incarcerated at Fluvanna women’s prison.
• The attorney will work with the CRRJ team to identify, file and litigate other impact cases to challenge the reach of the criminal legal system in Virginia with a community driven advocacy approach. Specifically, the attorney will file and handle impact cases arising from CRRJ campaigns with the goal of bringing systemic changes and building the power and leadership of marginalized communities most impacted by the harm the lawsuit seeks to remedy. It is critical that the attorney work to integrate impact litigation as well as any individual representation into existing and newly developing campaigns and grassroots advocacy.
• The attorney will both handle cases independently and serve as co-counsel with experienced pro bono, civil rights attorneys around the state. In cases where we work with pro bono partners and external organizations, the attorney will assist with managing of the litigation team.
• As a part of the CRRJ team, this attorney will also strategize with the CRRJ team on campaigns – both the ones they are staffed on as well as the others – and assist with integrating litigation or courtroom advocacy with other tools in campaigns that will advance CRRJ’s work.
• This attorney will have an opportunity to teach a clinic at the University of Virginia School of Law.
• Racial Equity: Promote racial equity across all dimensions, including within LAJC, by doing the following:
• Helping to recruit, retain, and support both staff and leadership that reflect the racial composition of our community.
• Cultivating respect for the work of and expanding resources for non-attorney staff that are disproportionately people of color.
• Creating spaces for staff to discuss issues of racial, gender, and all other issues of marginalization.
• Pushing for institutional and cultural changes by management, the board, and staff to further promote racial equity.