Overview
The Center for Family Representation, Inc., (CFR) is an award-winning, innovative law and policy organization that was founded in 2002 to dramatically change the trajectory of indigent families impacted by child welfare and to reduce the number of children entering foster care. CFR introduced a new model of legal services to parents charged with abuse or neglect: we assign every client an attorney and a social work staff member, and teams are additionally supported by Parent Advocates. CFR’s Parent Advocates are parents with direct personal experience of being impacted by the Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), such as having been investigated or prosecuted by ACS or lost temporary custody of their children to foster care or otherwise due to the ACS involvement. CFR was the first agency in the country to integrate parents with lived experience into legal teams. Beginning with just a handful of staff, CFR now has more than 120 staff serving more than 2400 parents annually in Manhattan and Queens. CFR has been the primary, county-wide provider of legal services to indigent parents in Manhattan Family Court since 2007 and in Queens Family Court since 2011. In 2015, CFR expanded its practice to provide legal and social work services to parents in immigration, civil legal services and criminal defense matters. In 2019, we launched two new initiatives: a Youth Defense Practice that provides holistic, interdisciplinary defense to youth being prosecuted in the Family Court, and in the Youth Parts in Manhattan and Queens Supreme Courts; and a Community Advocacy Project, to represent parents during a child protective investigation (prior to court involvement) and to assist parents in clearing their names from state maltreatment records. We regularly train over 500 practitioners annually around the country on strategies to promote family preservation and on holistic, interdisciplinary representation and advocate at the city, state and national level for policies that promote parent engagement and justice for families.
CFR has an immediate opening for a Staff Housing Attorney in its Civil Defense Practice.
Primary responsibilities
Under the supervision and guidance of CFR’s Civil Defense Supervisor, the Staff Housing Attorney’s core responsibilities will be to help us further expand our interdisciplinary work and assist our clients in a wide variety of matters, including preventing eviction, securing repairs and otherwise maintaining safe housing, and obtaining and maintaining public benefits. Staff attorneys will work closely with Family Defense, Criminal & Youth Defense attorneys, Social Work and Parent Advocacy staff, Housing Specialists, Client Coordinators and other support staff. Therefore, strong interpersonal and communications skills are required. This is a unique opportunity for a competent and creative professional to assist CFR in expanding its civil practice and improving the stability of our clients and families.
This position will have a docket of housing cases in Manhattan, Bronx and Queens, including holdovers, nonpayment proceedings, HP actions, NYCHA and other administrative hearings.
The Staff Housing Attorney will:
- respond to client referrals from CFR staff, provide advice and counsel, and open cases for litigation where appropriate;
- monitor housing and other civil legal developments and create advisories, best practices and other resources for CFR staff;
- assist clients in completing necessary paperwork and attending appointments if appropriate; participate in Civil Practice team meetings as well as agency wide meetings;
- identify systemic housing and public benefits issues impacting CFR’s clients and explore advocacy to address those;
- maintain data on their work and outcomes, including deliverables related to funding for civil legal services work;
- and 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 organizations.
Qualifications
- Candidates for this position should have a minimum of two (2) years of experience representing indigent clients in housing court and administrative fair hearings related to housing as well as public benefits.
- Experience with social security benefits, including administrative hearings, is a plus.
- Candidates who are bilingual in Spanish are strongly encouraged to apply.
- Candidates should be able to demonstrate 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.