California Staff Attorney (around about 3-5 years experience)

TechTonic Justice seeks a full-time staff attorney licensed to practice in California and with extensive experience actively representing clients in a civil legal aid, disability protection and advocacy, or other advocacy organization.

If you meet many, but not all, of the requirements, please still consider applying or email us to ask about where you fall short.

About TechTonic Justice: Governments, landlords, employers, and other powerful actors use artificial intelligence (AI), algorithms, and related technologies to make decisions about how low-income people work, live, learn, and survive. When people are hurt by AI decision-making, they have few places to turn. TechTonic Justice exists to change this. TechTonic Justice fights the ground-level harms AI causes low-income communities. We do this mainly by supporting local justice movements--legal aid organizations, frontline service providers, grassroots organizers, and affected communities--to identify and fight harmful uses of AI. We emphasize a multidimensional advocacy approach that blends litigation, community activation and organizing, public education, and narrative advocacy. We are based in Los Angeles and offer our services nationwide, with emphasis on the South and the West Coast.

Position description: This permanent, full-time Staff Attorney position is located in California. The person will work remotely from within California, with ready access to Los Angeles or the San Francisco Bay Area preferred. Candidates should anticipate 1-2 overnight trips per month within California and occasional trips elsewhere. As discussed below, candidates must be licensed to practice in California and have extensive experience–around at least 3-5 years, though this is not a firm threshold–actively representing clients in a civil legal aid, disability protection, or other advocacy organization. See below for more details.

The Staff Attorney will work as part of TTJ’s Legal Department with three other attorneys. The Staff Attorney will be hired alongside TTJ’s State Organizing Director for California. Together, these roles are intended to operate in close partnership—integrating organizing, legal advocacy, public education, and narrative strategy to surface AI-related harms and build durable pathways to accountability and protection.

• Build relationships with and networks among frontline legal aid providers, worker centers, labor unions, community health clinics, social service providers, community-based organizations, policy professionals, and low-income communities
• Educate and learn from these audiences to understand how AI harms low-income people and how to fight back
• Directly support communities and advocates to resist harmful AI by offering multidimensional strategic assistance and, as appropriate to the situation, capacity to litigate or do litigation-adjacent work
• Educate the broader public about the ways AI harms low-income communities, including through OpEds, conference presentations, other speaking engagements, and other contributions to our communications efforts
• Devise and disseminate scalable strategies to challenge AI-based decision-making in core legal aid issue areas, like public benefits, employment, education, and housing, among others
• Devise and disseminate scalable strategies leveraging the new regulations issued pursuant to the California Consumer Privacy Act and Fair Employment and Housing Act to benefit low-income California subjected to AI-based decision-making
• Research and track reported uses of AI in core legal aid issue areas
• Review, revise, and otherwise comment upon legislation and regulations at the local, state, and federal levels
• Work in coalition with other organizations opposing the harmful use of AI
• Build infrastructure to facilitate engagement by affected communities and their frontline advocates in AI policy discourse, including, for example, through accessible policy analysis, participation opportunities and guidelines, and storytelling skills
• Supervise legal interns and fellows
• As needed, support internal organizational compliance with applicable laws around taxes, employment, tax-exempt status, lobbying, and the practice of law

Job requirements:

• Active license to practice law in California
• Extensive experience actively representing clients in a civil legal aid, disability protection and advocacy, or other advocacy organization). Successful candidates will have experience with at least some of the following:
  • the pressures that frontline legal aid attorneys with significant caseloads face
  • the emotional toll of injustice on low-income client communities and their attorneys
  • litigating cases with imperfect facts under less-than-ideal circumstances
  • the tensions between adequate resolutions for individual low-income clients and opportunities for systems-level advocacy
  • laws that regulate the activities of federally-funded legal aid organizations
• *Note:
• We anticipate gaining the requisite experience would take someone around 3-5 years in a civil legal aid organization. However, this is not a strict threshold. Candidates who are familiar with these issues and otherwise meet the job requirements should still apply.
• Experience advocating around AI-related injustices is preferred, but we recognize relatively few people in the country have this experience. So, we also welcome applications from people who’ve learned about AI-related injustices, are committed to learning more, and are confident in their ability to advocate in issue areas that are new to them.
• Experience collaborating with community organizers in some capacity, whether through legal clinics, “know your rights” workshops, other community education activities, coordinated campaigns, or volunteer efforts
• Substantive expertise in issues of concern to low-income Californians, particularly workers’ rights, public benefits, housing, and/or K-12 education. Other issues, including child welfare, domestic violence, and consumer matters, are also relevant.
• Experience with fact-finding investigations through Freedom of Information laws, community relationships, and outreach
• Demonstrated capacity for affirmative litigation and/or appellate advocacy to effect systemic change, including the risk tolerance to litigate cases with narrow, but reasonable, paths to victory
• Familiarity with California’s access to justice ecosystem and social services infrastructure
• Extensive experience with trainings and/or presentations to audiences that include other attorneys, policy professionals, and affected communities
• Excellent public-facing communication skills, both verbally and in writing
• Independent initiative that does not require intensive, detail-heavy supervision
• Ability to manage several different kinds of work activities concurrently, prioritize appropriately, and deliver quality work product promptly
• Flexibility to adapt as needed to a fluid environment of a startup nonprofit organization where immediate needs and timelines may shift
• Empathy and righteous fury
• Collaborative spirit and the skills needed to work affirmingly with teammates, partners, coalition members, and the communities we exist to serve
• Comfort articulating the intersections between poverty, race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, language, age, disability, and related characteristics
• Driver’s license, access to a car, and proximity to a convenient airport for travel

Other valued attributes:

• Functional fluency in a second language that is used by significant numbers of low-income Californians

Be Encouraged to Apply

If you meet many, but not all, of the requirements, please still consider applying or email us to ask about where you fall short.

We encourage applications from Black, Indigenous, and other people of color, women, LGBTQI+ people, people with disabilities, formerly incarcerated people, and people most impacted by systemic injustice.

Employment decisions are made based on qualifications and organizational needs, without regard to race, national origin, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, religion, citizenship status, disability, marital status, veteran status, or any protected characteristic under applicable law.

Salary: $100K-$130K, depending on experience. Current budget projections anticipate annual cost-of-living salary increases. Service time raises are anticipated but still to be determined (subject to budget considerations). TechTonic Justice covers mileage, airfare, hotels, meals, and other necessary travel costs associated with this role.

Schedule Flexibility: TechTonic Justice will allow flexibility in scheduling regular work hours to fit the successful candidate’s personal situation, including health needs or caregiving responsibilities. This flexibility will be limited by reasonable organizational needs, including sufficient availability for internal meetings, external meetings, and community relationships. Candidates should anticipate occasional deviation from scheduled work hours to complete deadline-driven projects.

• * Presently, we do not anticipate offering regular four-day workweeks. ***

Benefits: The benefits package presently includes (1) 100% of quality medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance for the employee, (2) 50% of dependents’ medical, dental, and vision insurance, (3) an automatic contribution by TechTonic Justice of 4% of annual salary to a Vanguard 403(b) retirement account (employees may also choose to contribute a portion of their salaries), (4) unlimited paid time off, subject to approval by leadership in accordance with relevant operational considerations, (5) monthly internet reimbursement up to $75, and (6) a professional development fund of $1,500.

To apply: Submit the following to our Careers page by 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on March 1. Applications received after this time will not be considered. Please include the following:

• Resume of up to 4 pages
• Cover letter of up to 2 pages explaining your specific interest in and qualifications for the job (please, no generic or AI-generated cover letters)
• Litigation-based writing sample (pleading, brief, or memo) of up to 10 pages, plus up to 2 pages of explanatory context needed to orient the reader. Please submit the writing sample and explanation as a single combined document.

Process: Applications will be reviewed as they come in. The most promising applicants will be selected for a first interview. The most promising interviewees will be selected for a second interview. There is a possibility that we will ask candidates to complete a short exercise. We will check references of finalists. We reserve the option to conduct a third round of interviews if necessary. We plan to extend an offer in early April with the successful applicant starting in April or May.

Accommodations: We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities during the application process and after hiring. Please write people@techtonicjustice.org to request any needed accommodations.

Questions: Please submit any questions to people@techtonicjustice.org. Please do not call unless needed for purposes of accommodations.

Salary: $100K-$130K, depending on experience. Current budget projections anticipate annual cost-of-living salary increases. Service time raises are anticipated but still to be determined (subject to budget considerations). TechTonic Justice covers mileage, airfare, hotels, meals, and other necessary travel costs associated with this role.

Schedule Flexibility: TechTonic Justice will allow flexibility in scheduling regular work hours to fit the successful candidate’s personal situation, including health needs or caregiving responsibilities. This flexibility will be limited by reasonable organizational needs, including sufficient availability for internal meetings, external meetings, and community relationships. Candidates should anticipate occasional deviation from scheduled work hours to complete deadline-driven projects.

• Presently, we do

not anticipate offering regular four-day workweeks. ***

Benefits: The benefits package presently includes (1) 100% of quality medical, dental, vision, life, and disability insurance for the employee, (2) 50% of dependents’ medical, dental, and vision insurance, (3) an automatic contribution by TechTonic Justice of 4% of annual salary to a Vanguard 403(b) retirement account (employees may also choose to contribute a portion of their salaries), (4) unlimited paid time off, subject to approval by leadership in accordance with relevant operational considerations, (5) monthly internet reimbursement up to $75, and (6) a professional development fund of $1,500.

Accommodations: We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities during the application process and after hiring. Please write people@techtonicjustice.org to request any needed accommodations.

Questions: Please submit any questions to people@techtonicjustice.org. Please do not call unless needed for purposes of accommodations.

English proficiency is required. Functional fluency in a second language that is used by significant numbers of low-income Californians is highly valued.