Senior Staff Attorney

The Position

Baykeeper is seeking an experienced senior attorney to join our high-impact environmental enforcement and legal advocacy program. Baykeeper’s legal team manages a docket of 10-15 cases, leveraging the Clean Water Act and other environmental laws to achieve concrete legal victories for the Bay and Bay Area communities. In addition to litigation, the position will also work collaboratively with our staff scientists, lawyers, and outside partners to strengthen water quality policies through legal advocacy. This is a leadership position instrumental to the continued success of Baykeeper’s legal program and our mission to help the Bay thrive. This position is currently remote, due to Covid-19.

About San Francisco Baykeeper

Baykeeper defends San Francisco Bay from the biggest threats and holds polluters accountable. For more than 30 years, using science, policy, and law, we’ve achieved over 280 legal victories to stop pollution from industrial facilities, reduced sewage spills to the Bay by 75% from 10 cities, passed new state laws to keep fossil fuel pollution out of the Bay, and strengthened local regulation of toxic pollutants like mercury and selenium to protect the Bay’s wildlife and residents.  Press coverage has called Baykeeper "one of the region's most active and most effective defenders of the marine environment." 

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Litigate to support Baykeeper’s mission to defend the Bay from the biggest threats and hold polluters accountable by identifying, evaluating, and implementing new cases. 
• Coordinate with legal and science teams to manage and fulfill program priorities. 
• Collaborate with legal team to maintain an annual organizational docket of 10-15 cases. 
• Support and supervise the legal team, currently comprised of two experienced Staff Attorneys and an experienced legal volunteer. 
• Advise pollution investigations and ensure advocacy positions are supported by sound legal analysis. 
• Advocate in meetings and hearings before regulatory agencies and local officials. 
• Assist communications staff with legal updates for outreach materials and website. 
• Assist fundraising staff with requested information for grant proposals and reporting.
• Speak with media, supporters, and others as necessary to further Baykeeper’s program message. 
• Contribute to a cohesive and collegial Baykeeper team. 
• Other duties as needed or required.

Essential Qualifications

• Admission to California bar required.
• Minimum eight years litigation experience in California, including developing and initiating cases, drafting and negotiating settlements, writing briefs, conducting discovery, delivering oral arguments, and working with technical experts and outside counsel. 
• Experience with federal and state environmental laws — most importantly the Clean Water Act — and with state and federal civil procedure, citizen suit enforcement, and attorney fee recovery. 
• Experience directly supervising attorneys in a collaborative professional environment.
• Experience managing litigation with multiple attorneys and case budgets involving outside consultants.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills and ability to integrate technical and scientific information into legal advocacy. 
• Ability to set and meet internal and external deadlines under pressure. 
• Ability to exercise sound judgment and maintain respect of others in stressful situations. 
• Comfort traveling (post-COVID) to meetings around the Bay Area, and investigating pollution reports and incidents in the field, including in inclement weather and occasionally outside of normal business hours. 
• Strong team ethic with a desire to play a lead role at a collaborative, inclusive, and effective organization. 
• Demonstrated personal or professional passion for Baykeeper’s mission to protect the Bay. 

Supervisory Responsibilities

This position will supervise other employees and volunteers

Physical Demands 

The physical demands of this position include utilizing computer equipment, traveling to and actively participating in public meetings, verbal communications with partners, counsel, media representatives, and others both in person and by video and telephone, occasional travel by boat to conduct visual and sensory inspections on and around the Bay. These demands are representative of those that must be met by an employee to successfully perform the essential functions of this job. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Baykeeper is committed to a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace where we learn and work together to protect the Bay and Bay Area communities. We strongly encourage applicants from underrepresented backgrounds in the environmental movement to apply.

Compensation, Benefits, and Values 

This is a full-time, exempt position reporting to the Executive Director. The salary for this position ranges from $92,000 to $107,000 depending upon relevant experience and qualifications. Baykeeper places the highest value on its employees and employee retention and is committed to continuously building on our collaborative and flexible workplace environment. We value a healthy work-life balance and offer a competitive benefits package, which currently includes comprehensive medical and dental coverage for eligible employees with no employee premium contribution, an employer 401(k) contribution following one year (budget dependent), options for pre-tax flexible spending accounts for medical, transit, and dependent care costs, professional development opportunities and training, including coverage of California Bar dues and reasonable MCLE costs, and generous paid time off for a diverse range of holidays and social justice activism.

Applications 

If you are interested in this position and meet a majority of the essential qualifications, please send a cover letter, resume, and recent legal writing sample (no longer than 25 pages) in PDF format to jobs@baykeeper.org, subject line “YOUR LAST NAME, Senior Staff Attorney.” If your materials indicate a potential match for our requirements, we will contact you. Please, no phone calls or emails to the office regarding this opening. Position open until filled; applications will be reviewed starting week of January 18, 2021 with an anticipated start date in March or April, 2021.