Family Law Attorney

Family Law Attorney

Full-Time, Exempt

Hybrid (3 days minimum in-office)

About Us:

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” - Nelson Mandela

We believe that even the biggest problems can be broken down into small, achievable steps. Poverty and access to justice are part of the same problem. And to solve this, we just need to discover what the steps are. At Open Door Legal (ODL), we’re pioneering the country’s first system of universal access to civil legal representation to dramatically reduce poverty and prove that the law really can belong to all of us.

To achieve this ambitious goal, we’ve created an award-winning and best-in-class legal aid organization full of passionate, motivated, gritty, thoughtful, and team-oriented people.

We believe that injustice is the heart of poverty, and we're looking for someone to join us in having a systemic impact on how we, as a society, ensure justice for all.

As the Family Law Staff Attorney, you will provide critical support to our Family Law Team (currently one managing attorney, two staff attorneys, and one paralegal) by ensuring all of our family law clients receive excellent legal services. Our family practice team helps to heal families and communities, reduce conflict, and set our clients (and their children) up for future success.

Our unique and innovative model of practice involves advising and representing clients in all areas of family law, including child custody and visitation, child support and parentage, divorce, Domestic Violence Restraining Orders, guardianship, and adoption. Our clients are incredibly brave and resilient, and we seek to support them when they face an intense or contentious case in court.

The work is fast-paced and will require you to be organized, think critically and dynamically, and demonstrate empathy and awareness in understanding the needs of our community. Overall, this position is intended to be a challenging yet extremely rewarding experience for someone looking to make a difference in clients’ lives and willing to commit at least two years to an innovative, results-oriented, and fast-growing organization.

• Embrace and embody our mission of universal access to civil legal aid and ensure that everyone in our service area with a viable family law issue gets appropriate help, including legal advice and representation.
• Maintain a full caseload (as per team needs) while opening and closing cases in an efficient manner.
• Facilitate and lead Family Law intakes across multiple physical Open Door Legal office locations.
• Work with clients to assist with discovery requests and information gathering.
• Appear in San Francisco Superior Court to represent litigants in Family Law Cases, as needed.
• Provide clients with case management, including maintaining and providing necessary verbal and written follow-ups with clients. Review documents with clients and obtain their informed signatures.
• Oversee timely filings (including drafting and compiling forms to file in court, such as fee waivers, proofs of service, and other standard filings) and mailings, ensuring they are high-quality and within deadline. Communicate with court clerks and private vendors about scheduling or filing issues.
• Oversee service of process (personal, substitute, and mail). Understand the civil procedure behind service. Use creative methods to locate and serve evasive defendants. Coordinate with the sheriffs or private process servers to ensure personal service is completed by deadline.
• Provide services and support to our low-income clients with humility and awareness of cultural, socio-economic, and ability differences.
• Efficiently utilize Salesforce, our client management system (CMS), to document case activities, maintain accurate client records, and ensure timely record updates.
• Commit to leading the office in representing our mission and values externally to potential clients, clients, and others as well as internally to all teammates and volunteers. Our values are passion, grit, teamwork, caring, and dynamism.

• Membership in good standing with the California State Bar. Applicants without active California bar…