Attorney - Public Defender’s Office, Immigration Practice

The Travis County Public Defender’s Office (PDO) is a comprehensive public defender office envisioned to be client-centered, independent, and innovative to the needs of Travis County residents. Consistent with nationally recognized best practices, the PDO provides high-quality holistic defense representation and other support to people, including youth and those living with serious mental illness/intellectual or developmental disability, accused of criminal offenses via its three divisions—General, Juvenile and Mental Health.

The Public Defender’s Office is seeking an Attorney specifically trained in immigration law to join our team. The immigration attorney is a key member of the PDO team with responsibility in providing zealous representation and advocacy for indigent, noncitizen clients facing charges in Criminal Court and Juvenile Court. For many noncitizens, an arrest can result in serious immigration consequences, such as being placed in detention and/or deportation.

PDO immigration attorneys understand the complex intersection between criminal and immigration law and, from the beginning of the case, work as a team with clients, their families, the defense attorney and other holistic practice advocates to advise clients of and mitigate against potential adverse immigration consequences.

This is the first in a series of seven attorney-related job classifications within the Attorneys job family. This classification handles cases and matters that are the least complex and may result in the least serious consequences with supervision.

• Work with non‑citizen adults and youth to advise them regarding the full range of immigration consequences associated with their criminal and/or juvenile delinquency cases and works with the defense attorneys to mitigate the associated consequences.
• Provides client‑centered representation to indigent clients.
• Works as a part of a multidisciplinary team to provide holistic representation.
• Performs legal research and writing, including factual and persuasive memos. Searches resources and studies legal records and documents to obtain information applicable to case or issue under consideration.
• Performs other job‑related duties as assigned.

Eligible to complete J.D./LL.B. from an accredited law school no later than Summer 2026.

Will consider delayed start dates for highly qualified candidates who will take the Texas Bar by July 2026 (offer contingent on successful admission).

Please attach resume to application.

• A cover letter detailing interest in the position, including why you want to work for the Travis County Public Defender’s Office.
• Recent legal writing sample.
• Hearing and/or trial experience consistent with years of practice.
• Mission‑aligned experience (work or lived) advocating on behalf of people/communities directly impacted by the criminal/immigration/indigent civil legal systems, including work with youths.

• Spanish fluency, written and oral, required.
• Immigration law, specifically as it relates to the intersection of criminal and immigration law both for adults and youth.
• Various forms of relief from deportation for adult and youth clients to provide advice on the immigration consequences of criminal convictions in criminal court and delinquency adjudications in juvenile court.
• Enmeshed penalties and collateral consequences triggered by criminal‑legal system contact related to housing access, employment/occupational license access, public benefits access, or healthcare access.
• Best practices in socially and culturally competent representation of marginalized people.
• Jurisprudence, criminal and civil law and procedures, including constitutional and statutory law.
• Federal, State, Local and County applicable laws, rules, regulations and guidelines.
• Effective techniques for presentation of cases in court or to effectively present facts and precedents…