Job o’ the Day: Staff Attorney with the Family Defense Center in Chicago
The Family Defense Center’s mission is to advocate justice for families in the child welfare system. It advocates for families threatened with losing their children to foster care, which many child protection systems frequently do as a first resort instead of a final resort. Many families lose custody because of financial issues or because they are victims of abuse themselves, and the FDC is the first legal advocacy organization of its kind to provide high-level systemic advocacy and grassroots activities for families treated unfairly by state child protection agencies.
The FDC is currently looking for a staff attorney to join its office in Chicago. From the PSJD job listing:
A staff attorney at the FDC has primary responsibility for handling a caseload of 15-25 individual client cases at various stages of child protection proceedings (pending investigations, negotiations, expungement appeals, and juvenile court cases); co-counseling with and supervising attorneys in major law firms who handle referred cases pro-bono; co-counseling affirmative civil rights cases in addition to handling a regular caseload; supervising and managing the work of law clerks and paralegals on the FDC’s staff, assisting the Executive Director in researching, writing, and drafting briefs and memoranda as assigned in major cases (in addition to performing such tasks in the attorney’s own caseload) and assisting other staff on an as-needed basis to cover cases accepted in the office; assisting in development of training materials and self help materials for FDC programs; developing legislative proposals and materials as the FDC expands its legislative policy work; and representing the FDC in relevant bar association activities.
Starting salary for 2012 graduates will be $45,000. The deadline to apply is January 2, 2013. For more information on qualifications and application instructions, view the full job listing at PSJD.org (log-in required).