Staff Attorney, Healthy Together (Medical-Legal Partnership)

Who We Are

At Children's Law Center, everything we do is focused on one thing - delivering better client outcomes for kids and families in DC. Our staff are empowered to open minds, shape decisions, and offer solutions. We encourage intellectual curiosity, innovation, diversity, and mutual respect.

Our greatest assets are our people. We strive to attract and cultivate a vibrant, creative, and diverse community. We recognize that people with diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives fuel our ability to provide the best outcomes for our clients. Our staff drive Children's Law Center's mission with their leadership, result-orientated mindset, and commitment to cultural humility and centering the needs of our clients. We are looking for an individual who enjoys working in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment, likes to be challenged, and values the opportunity to make a difference.

Children's Law Center's success depends on recruiting and retaining individuals who possess and value these attributes.

Program Description

Healthy Together is a medical-legal partnership for DC’s children. Children’s Law Center partners with Children’s National Health System, Mary’s Center and Unity Health Care to provide legal services to children and families who have health-harming legal needs. Through the partnership, Children’s Law Center advocates for landlords to adhere to the law and fix housing conditions that harm a child’s health, ensures school systems provide appropriate, quality educational programs to students with disabilities, and holds government agencies and health insurance providers accountable for providing medical necessary services to children. By focusing on critical social determinants of health and working side-by-side with the community, Healthy Together reduces the health inequities and racial disparities that many of our client families face.  

Job Summary 

The Healthy Together Staff Attorney is responsible for providing high quality legal representation and legal assistance to parents and caregivers with limited financial resources where legal solutions are required to address children’s health problems. Healthy Together Staff Attorneys also perform community and medical partner outreach activities. 

The primary responsibility of the Healthy Together Staff Attorney is to represent parents and caregivers in education/special education, health care access and housing matters, along with representation in other legal service matters as needed. The Staff Attorney is also responsible for conducting intakes with potential clients and providing advice and referral information. Many of the clients are Spanish-speaking and therefore the Staff Attorney must be bilingual in English and Spanish. The Staff Attorney works from Children’s Law Center’s main office (when staff returns to the office) and may also work from one of our medical or community settings as needed. This role has an established career path with the potential for promotion to a Senior Attorney. 

Duties/Responsibilities 

Case Handling  

• Provide high-quality direct legal representation in extended representation cases for parents/caregivers to address health-harming legal needs of their children. 
• Carry a caseload of approximately 30 extended representation cases in the areas of education/special education, health care access, housing conditions, public benefits and other poverty law areas as needed. 
• Ensure timely and accurate input of case information into case management system and adhere to applicable policies and protocols, including case planning, case-handling timelines, and case notes/timekeeping policies in order to achieve positive outcomes for client families. Per CLC’s policy, this is a minimum of 30 hours to be entered weekly, to include other job duties. 

 Handle Healthy Together Intakes  

• Serve as a point of contact for community members and receive referrals from the Healthy Together Program Director, attorneys, health care and other community partners. 
• Conduct preliminary and subsequent intake interviews with potential clients to determine legal issue, and whether and how Children’s Law Center can assist the potential client and family. 
• Enter intake information into our case management database and conduct intakes within Children’s Law Center guidelines. 
• Independently assess whether potential clients need full representation, brief service, advice, referral, or information. 
• Conduct legal research and/or identify other community resources for intakes. 

Referrals, Advice, and Brief Service to Parents and Caregivers 

• Provide brief advice, counsel, and referral information to parents and caregivers in need of legal assistance to address health-harming legal needs of their children.  
• Provide brief service to parents and caregivers in need of legal assistance in the areas of education/special education, health care access, housing conditions, public benefits and other poverty law areas. Examples of brief service include but are not limited to: helping parents and caregivers with initial child Supplemental Security Income applications and requests for reconsideration; ghost-writing letters for parents requesting evaluations or other services from school; writing letters to landlords and/or property managers detailing housing conditions concerns, request remediation, and providing notice; providing troubleshooting assistance through phone calls or emails to agency personnel to try to resolve a legal problem. 
• Recommend cases for extended representation. 
• Revise and/or prepare outreach and education materials such as tip-sheets, referral sheets, know your rights flyers, etc. to improve the efficacy and timeliness of legal service delivery to parents and caregivers.  

Medical Partner Relationship-Building, Site Management and Community Outreach 

• Nurture and build relationships with Children’s National, Mary’s Center, and/or Unity to expand impact and increase effectiveness of Healthy Together. 
• Provide consultation, training and technical assistance to healthcare partners in legal needs screening and substantive legal areas.  
• Provide trainings and outreach geared to caregivers and patient families in client advocacy support and specific legal areas related to children’s health outcomes. 
• Develop, provide input on, and implement medical-legal partnership processes with a focus on any clinic location where Staff Attorney is located.  

Engage in Evaluation and Data Management Activities 

• Ensure timely and accurate input of case and intake information into case management system and adhere to applicable policies and protocols, including but not limited to case planning, intake and case-handling timelines, and case notes/timekeeping policies. 
• Maintain accurate, timely data entry for non-case-related activities including but not limited to medical partner trainings and consultations, community outreach efforts, systemic advocacy and/or coalition activities. 

 Participate in and Contribute to Learning, Systemic Advocacy and Coalition-Building Opportunities  

• Attend and participate in all Healthy Together staff meetings, CLC attorney and staff meetings, and other internal committees and working groups as requested by the Program Director.  
• Provide support to Children’s Law Center Policy Team in areas of expertise to address the systemic needs of the Children’s Law Center client community. 
• Participate in community partner coalitions or external committees as needed and requested by the Program Director.

Skills/Abilities 

• A demonstrated commitment to social, economic, and racial justice.
• Strong legal analysis and research, writing and oral advocacy skills. 
• Cultural humility as shown through demonstrated openness to self-reflection and commitment to understanding and respecting other cultural experiences and points of view and viewing individuals as the experts on their own culture and experience.  
• Exceptional interpersonal, communication and relationship-building skills. 
• Excellent organizational and time management skills. 
• Demonstrated capacity to work independently and collaboratively. 
• Intellectual aptitude and curiosity.
• Bilingual English/Spanish communication skills strongly preferred.

Education and Experience 

• JD and DC Bar membership or immediate eligibility to waive in required.  
• Experience in legal services or other community lawyering. Experience that will be considered includes job experience, law school clinics, clerkships, and internships.