Senior Staff Attorney, Education Advocacy

The Center for Family Representation Inc. (CFR) is an award-winning, innovative law and policy organization that serves primarily Black and Brown families and youth in Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island with an interdisciplinary legal defense model that serves more than 2400 clients every year. CFR was originally founded in 2002 to dramatically change the trajectory of indigent parents being prosecuted by the City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). Our goal is to defend and protect our clients’ rights, reduce the harm of family separation and prevent or minimize the time any child spends in the foster system.

About CFR: CFR provides interdisciplinary family defense with a model that was unique at our founding and that is now being replicated nationally: we assign every client an attorney and a social work staff member, and teams have the support of parent advocates, who are parents with direct personal experience of being investigated and prosecuted by ACS. Early Defense represents parents during a child protective investigation (to avoid court involvement where possible).

As an agency committed to securing justice for families, we built the Youth Defense practice

(YDP) to defend youth at risk of family separation through incarceration. YDP uses the same

interdisciplinary model to represent youth being prosecuted in Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx in Supreme Court Youth Parts, during Probation Adjustment and in Delinquency proceedings in Family Court. CFR’s Home for Good program provides legal and social work services to clients in immigration, civil legal services and criminal defense matters, to afford clients an efficient and well-coordinated one-stop solution to a range of issues that threaten family stability.

Recognized as experts in our fields, we annually train over 500 practitioners in the city, state and around the country on strategies to promote family preservation and interdisciplinary

representation, and we provide community based “Know Your Rights” presentations to parents,

youth and service providers. We advocate at the city, state and national level for policies that

reduce the harm of family separation, and promote parent engagement and justice for youth and

Families.

The Senior Staff Attorney, Education Advocacy will represent CFR clients and their families in educational matters, advocating for their preferred educational outcomes and providing advice. The Senior Staff Attorney, Education Advocacy will work with CFR’s early defense practice to support families experiencing family policing investigations and prosecutions. This position will have an early defense focus but may assist and collaborate with the family defense and other practice areas. The Senior Staff Attorney, Education Advocacy will support CFR staff by consulting on educational matters and providing trainings. This position is full time and will be supervised by the Supervising Attorney of Policy and Early Defense.

Specific Responsibilities may include but are not limited to:

Direct Client Representation

• Maintain a docket of education cases in the boroughs in which CFR practices determined on a case-by-case basis
• Support CFR clients in initiating and obtaining appropriate early intervention or special education evaluations for their children
• Review evaluations, Individualized Education Program (IEP)s
• Attend IEP meetings and advocate for families to receive appropriate special education services
• File Impartial Hearing Requests to attain appropriate special education evaluations, services, and school placements
• Challenge exclusionary school discipline through litigation and mediation
• Assist students and families transitioning into and out of the foster system with educational challenges including school stability
• Consult with, advise, and occasionally partner with early defense and family defense staff on educational challenges their clients are facing
• Support CFR staff in obtaining early intervention and OPWDD eligibility for clients and their children

Community Advocacy and Engagement

• Participate in community engagement events through "Know-Your-Rights" events and conducting training for partner organizations and DOE staff
• Represent CFR in various coalitions and external stakeholder meetings
• Assist with external legal education efforts, including the planning and provision of workshops, drafting and development of legal education materials, and outreach to social service and community based organization

Practice Stewardship

• Work collaboratively with the Director of Early Defense and the Supervising Attorney of Policy and Early Defense to to report on, create, and manage internal tracking and referral systems.
• Participating in routine and regular management meetings to discuss specific issues regarding the Early Defense and the Education Advocacy practice and agency-wide routines, concerns, policies, best practices
• Collaborate with CFR’s wraparound and practice areas including criminal, immigration, and civil defense
• Working with the Fiscal and Development Departments, respectively, and other internal stakeholders, to provide updated qualitative and quantitative reports to funders on a quarterly or as-needed basis and troubleshoot any programmatic issues that arise on contract or funding requirements.
• Where appropriate, providing assistance and guidance in the development of new practice areas and protocols and helping to ensure these are well integrated into the applicable practice and collaborating with CFR’s other practice areas.
• Delivering a variety of written and oral communications including practice resources, internal memos, and important messaging to staff about practice and administrative issues at staff meetings, via email

Administrative and Supervision

• Supervise staff, fellows, or externs as needed
• Comply with CFR rules and policies on file retention, reporting and CMS data entry
• Shepherding progressive discipline where necessary, and ensuring necessary conversations and written communications are timely completed; this may include providing supervision and guidance to managers on writing and executing professional development reviews and performance improvement plans and making suggestions and recommendations as to the hiring, firing, advancement, promotion or any other change of status of other CFR staff.

Minimum Qualifications:

• A JD
• Admitted to practice in New York
• A minimum of 3 years experience in education representation.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, an ability to work as part of a team and a desire to share in both the exhilaration and challenges of a growing endeavor
• Demonstrated commitment to working alongside impacted communities to achieve change
• Demonstrated ability to take initiative, manage projects, and problem-solve independently
• Strong interpersonal communication skills, demonstrated sensitivity to DEIB issues, teamwork skills and an aptitude for problem solving
• Experience in public speaking, facilitating meetings, and conducting internal and external trainings

Preferred Qualifications:

• Experience working in an interdisciplinary representation environment
• Experience in indigent defense, civil legal services, parent or youth defense
• Clear understanding of the disparities within the family policing and other carceral systems as well as disparities within the education system
• Candidates who are bilingual in Spanish, or another language, are strongly encouraged to apply.

Salary & Benefits

CFR offers a generous compensation package, including a competitive base salary as well as health, 403(b) and vacation benefits.

CFR strives to create an inclusive and antiracist environment for all of its staff, and candidates from all backgrounds are encouraged to apply; CFR is an Equal Opportunity Employer.

Annualized Salary: $100,800 (L3) - $124,900 (L13)

For internal promotions, CFR uses the staff member's current salary level placement plus the appropriate stipend (i.e. $10,000 for Senior Staff) when determining the above annualized salary.

Location: CFR is a primarily in-person workforce. This role is not based in any one office. With approval of the Supervising Attorney of Policy and Early Defense and COO, the individual may be seated in any of CFR’s offices, subject to office hoteling policy. CFR has offices in New York, Bronx, Queens, and Richmond Counties. CFR has a generous telecommuting policy that allows staff the flexibility to work from home when there are no in-person client or organizational obligations. The Senior Staff Attorney, Education Advocacy should expect to be in person for a variety of work related needs and should expect to attend school-based meetings or hearings in-person when preferred by their client or when necessary.

Travel: Training sessions are often a mix of in-person and hybrid and may be held in any of CFR’s offices. This is a cross borough position. They may need to travel to any borough in which CFR operates should client or organizational needs arise. Travel to conferences and other work events may also be required.

How to Apply: Interested candidates should submit their cover letter and resume through CFR’s Career Portal

In lieu of a cover letter, please submit a 250 word statement addressing the following question: Why do you think educational advocacy is important for families experiencing family policing investigations or family separation by the foster system?

403b

generous PTO, sick time and personal days

Fully vested pension after 3 years