Remote Senior Attorney

Position: REMOTE FULL-TIME SENIOR ATTORNEY
About the Legal Aid Justice Center:

The Legal Aid Justice Center is a nationally recognized, non-profit organization that partners with low-income clients and communities of color in Virginia to fight for racial, social, and economic justice. Together we are dismantling those systems through a combination of community organizing, litigation, policy advocacy, public relations, and individual legal services.

Civil Rights & Racial Justice (focuses on the criminal legal system), Housing & Consumer Justice, Youth Justice, Health Justice & Public Benefits, Immigrant Justice, and Worker Justice. As examples of LAJC’s recent work, our lawsuit and organizing against the state forced reform of Virginia’s unemployment insurance system, including advocacy that resulted in the distribution of over $1 billion in illegally withheld payments to over 160,000 Virginians.

During the pandemic, we demanded and secured a statewide eviction moratorium and emergency pandemic protections that helped hundreds of families avoid eviction. We reduced incarceration across the state, including reducing the population of a local immigration detention center down to historically low levels through a coordinated effort of organizing paired with impact and individual litigation. With a staff of over 90, the past few years have been a time of exciting growth and opportunity for the organization.

In addition to the growth of programmatic efforts including increased organizing capacity, LAJC has expanded its operations and administrative capacity, created new opportunities for professional growth and leadership among staff, engaged in ongoing race equity work, and explored changes to organizational structure to deepen its efforts to create long-term, sustainable, community-driven change.

About the Position:  The Legal Aid Justice Center seeks to hire a Senior Immigration Attorney for our new Norfolk office. The attorney will be responsible for helping develop and implement strategies to end mass detention and deportation of immigrants across Virginia, break the ties between immigration enforcement and local and state government and law enforcement, ensure that immigrant communities remain intact and protected in Virginia, fight the separation of immigrant families and the exclusion of immigrant youth from state benefits like in-state tuition, and protect young immigrants across the Commonwealth whether they are in federal custody or in their communities.

This attorney will also establish LAJC's immigration resources in the Hampton Roads area.

This position involves the unique opportunity to help build LAJC's footprint and join our new office in the Hampton Roads region. Across six different programs, LAJC's standing advocacy has had profound positive impacts on low-income communities throughout the Commonwealth, including but not limited to Hampton Roads. In the past and currently, LAJC litigates cases in the area, works alongside communities on campaigns, and otherwise does statewide advocacy that benefits Hampton Roads residents.

This will be the first time, however, that LAJC is opening up a permanent physical office in Norfolk. As part of our strategic plan, LAJC is excited to work alongside community members to achieve deeply felt needs across the region.

Initially, this attorney will play a key initial role in establishing LAJC's presence in the region and building out the infrastructure of the office itself in collaboration with the Office Manager - Paralegal and other team members. The attorney will also take an active role in collaborating with existing community groups, coalitions, and organizations to build trust and assess community needs.

Over time and working alongside the Worker Justice Program (already present in the Hampton Roads region), the attorney will build a portfolio of legal advocacy to advance, defend, and protect the rights of immigrant workers and families in the region. For example, the attorney may work on a cross programmatic team to help develop and implement strategies to end mass detention and deportation of immigrants in Virginia, break the ties between immigration enforcement and local and state government and law enforcement, ensure that immigrant communities remain intact and protected in Virginia, fight the separation of immigrant families and the exclusion of immigrants from state benefits like in-state tuition, and protect immigrants across the Commonwealth whether they are in federal custody or in their…