Staff Counsel - Youth Advocacy Division, Trial Panel Unit

YAD is seeking attorney applicants with trial experience in juvenile delinquency and youthful offender law to work as a Staff Counsel with the YAD Trial Panel Unit, to support and oversee over 300 private attorneys who make up the juvenile, GCL, parole, and youthful offender panels in Massachusetts.

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION MISSION STATEMENT

CPCS is committed to protecting the fundamental constitutional and human rights of its clients by providing zealous advocacy, community-oriented defense, and excellent representation. In fulfilling its mission, CPCS is committed to fostering diversity at all levels of the agency. We are dedicated to building a strong professional relationship with each of our clients, to understanding their diverse circumstances, and to meeting their needs. In striving always to achieve those goals, CPCS embraces diversity and inclusion as core values and is steadfast in our commitment to: (1) ensuring that CPCS management and staff members represent a broad range of human difference and experience; (2) providing a work climate that is respectful and that supports success; and (3) promoting the dignity and well-being of all staff members. CPCS's leadership is responsible for ensuring excellence, diversity, and inclusion. Our ability to achieve these goals depends on the efforts of all of us.

POSITION OVERVIEW

The Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS) is the state agency in Massachusetts responsible for providing legal services to indigent persons in criminal and civil matters in which the law requires the appointment of counsel for any person who cannot afford to retain counsel. The agency provides representation in criminal, delinquency, youthful offender, child welfare, mental health, sexually dangerous person and sex offender registry cases, as well as appeals and post-conviction cases related to those matters.

The Youth Advocacy Division (YAD), the juvenile defender division of CPCS, is committed to ensuring that every indigent child in Massachusetts has access to zealous legal representation, which incorporates a Positive Youth Development approach, in delinquency and youthful offender cases from a diverse and ever improving community of juvenile defenders consisting of both private appointed counsel and staff public defenders. In addition to delinquency and youthful offender cases, YAD advocates handle juvenile appeals, GCL revocation cases, juvenile lifer parole release hearings, juvenile murder cases, and a range of other juvenile related matters. YAD provides leadership, training, support, and oversight to the entire juvenile defense bar in Massachusetts.

The Trial Panel Unit provides supportive leadership, while assuring adherence to performance standards, to over 300 private attorneys who make up the juvenile, GCL, parole, and youthful offender trial panels in Massachusetts. The Trial Panel Director, along with the Staff Counsel, also manages the certification and recertification processes for all YAD Panels.

This Staff Counsel position will be based in YAD’s Boston office with the possibility of working in another YAD location for some portion of the work week. Location flexibility depends, in part, on the needs of the office and on available space.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The Staff Counsel will assist the Director of the Trial Panel with all aspects of supporting and overseeing the juvenile trial panels. The Staff Counsel:

- Provides support and oversight to Juvenile Supervising Attorneys (JSAs). Ensures attorney compliance with performance
standards, continuing legal education, and billing requirements;
- Ensures bar advocate programs are in compliance with the terms of their contracts with the agency;
- Develops and manages contracts with Bar Advocate Programs and with Juvenile Supervising Attorneys;
- In collaboration with the JSAs and Bar Advocate Programs, conducts certification and recertification of panel members.
Recruits, reviews, and certifies new applicants to panels on an ongoing basis;
- Ensures proper assignment of cases. Responds to emergency situations where there is an urgent need for representation
or reassignment of cases;
- Reviews records and other documents submitted by attorneys in response to Threshold Billing Inquiries;
- Administers the Division’s Complaint Investigation Procedure and other strategies for assuring quality representation;
- Proposes, drafts, and reviews Division performance and training policies;
- Collaborates with IT and the Billing Department to collect accurate data regarding various types of juvenile cases; and,
- Other tasks as assigned.

EEO Statement

The Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS) is an equal opportunity employer and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, ethnicity, sex, disability, religion, age, veteran or military status, genetic information, gender identity, or sexual orientation as required by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and other applicable federal and state statutes and organizational policies. Applicants who have questions about equal employment opportunity or who need reasonable accommodations can contact the Director of Human Resources Management, Lisa Bacon, at [email protected]