Director of Legal Advocacy

Director of Legal Advocacy

Legal Services for Prisoners with Children’s Director of Legal Advocacy is a seasoned attorney with significant supervision and management experience who leads LSPC’s legal advocacy work and supports the Executive Director in ensuring the overall health of the organization.

The Director of Legal Advocacy works as part of LSPC’s management team to ensure that the legal work advances the overall vision, mission, and goals of the organization. Lawyers at LSPC utilize a variety of traditional and creative advocacy strategies, including: policy advocacy, litigation, legislative and administrative work, collaborative systems reform campaigns, public education and media advocacy, legal and non-legal training and political education, and technical assistance. The Director of Legal Advocacy works closely with the Managing Director to ensure effective and strategic collaboration between attorney and non-attorney staff members working on a variety of efforts, and to follow the lead of those with lived experience of incarceration in all our work.

In addition to providing strategic oversight of the legal work of LSPC, the Director of Legal Advocacy will, in collaboration with LSPC’s management team, engage in tasks including fundraising, budgeting, external and internal communications, and strategic planning to ensure that the overall work of the organization is successful, sustainable, and executed with integrity.

Position Responsibilities

• Ensuring that the work of the legal staff strategically and effectively advances the mission and vision of the organization
• Ensuring that LSPC’s legal advocacy efforts are both strategic and responsive to changing conditions
• Supervising a team of staff attorneys and legal Fellows, as well as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker and engaging in active collaboration across teams
• Addressing professional development needs of legal staff, including a special focus on investing in the leadership of formerly incarcerated and systems impacted team members
• Evaluating the work of the attorneys and identifying opportunities for growth within the context of the work and the organization
• Providing or developing systems for mentorship and coaching for legal staff
• Identifying, developing and implementing strategies to support diversity, equity and inclusion within the legal team
• Developing internal and external communications systems to ensure team cohesion, successful integration of LSPC’s legal, policy and organizing work, and to encourage broad external support for the work
• Developing and executing systems for the creation and assignment of legal work
• Identifying, developing, and maintaining funder relationships to support the work of the legal team and LSPC more broadly, with a specific focus on State Bar funding
• Understanding, communicating, and tracking funding restrictions and grant and contract deliverables, with a particular focus on State Bar funding
• Supporting ongoing budgeting and finance processes
• Facilitating weekly legal team meetings, ongoing strategy meetings, and larger organization-wide meetings as needed
• Providing updates to LSPC’s Board of Directors on an as-needed basis
• Directing LSPC’s legal internship program
• Overseeing and/or supporting any and all hiring processes, onboarding, and exits related to the legal team, including but not limited to legal fellowship opportunities

Qualifications

The Director of Legal Advocacy will be excited about leading in an organization utilizing both traditional and innovative movement lawyering strategies based on the actual and evolving needs of currently and formerly incarcerated individuals and their families, and about supporting the overall health of the organization to ensure the sustainability and quality of its work.

In addition, the Director of Legal Advocacy will have:

• A minimum of ten years of experience as an attorney utilizing a variety of advocacy strategies to accomplish strategic goals
• A minimum of five years of experience in supervisory or management positions
• Deep commitment to LSPC mission and values
• Technical proficiency in advocacy strategies, as well as creativity, passion, and vision to challenge the status quo
• Ability to identify how the work at LSPC is interconnected and how the work intersects with deeply-rooted structural inequities nationally
• Experience in nonprofit finance, development, fundraising, communications, and/or strategic planning, or a strong desire to learn and hone these skills
• Exceptional communication skills for working effectively with a variety of staff members and multiple stakeholders, including but not limited to the ability to facilitate and write persuasively and clearly
• Excellent legal, analytical, interpersonal, listening and organizational skills
• Ability to work well with diverse groups of people and a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace
• Capacity to take initiative, manage multiple tasks simultaneously, work independently, and meet deadlines
• Experience building and maintaining cross-team collaboration, supporting professional development, and evaluating team members
• Preference for candidates with lived experience as a formerly incarcerated or system impacted person.

Salary Range: $110,000-120,000

Benefits include health, dental, vision, acupuncture, chiropractor insurance, and generous PTO.

LSPC is an Equal Opportunity Employer. We believe in access and inclusion of multiple dimensions of diversity, including race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religion and disability. We are committed to implementing equitable practices and promoting diversity at all levels of our organization.

To apply, please submit a cover letter, resume, legal writing sample, and three professional references to:

jobs@prisonerswithchildren.org

LSPC

4400 Market St.

Oakland, CA 94608