The Employment Law Unit (EU) seeks an attorney for a two-year fellowship to develop worker-owned cooperatives and foster community economic development. EU’s mission is to provide the best legal representation possible to workers who are most susceptible to exploitation, while helping to foster systemic change to address growing inequality that has a disparate impact on our clients.
The fellowship project is a new direction for the unit’s work and responds to requests by our client groups to address systemic oppressions that have resulted in underpaid and/or pervasive unemployment in the African American and immigrant communities. A growing national movement to build a solidarity economy has identified worker-owned cooperatives as a key component to create community wealth, control and empowerment in low income communities.
The project attorney’s role is to provide legal capacity for worker-owned cooperatives, specifically by providing tax and transactional law capacity for cooperatives located in African American and immigrant communities. This work is complementary to EU’s work representing immigrant and low wage workers in cases involving wage theft, tax issues, sealing criminal records, and securing access to unemployment benefits and job training.
GBLS is an AA/EO/Handicapped-accessible employer, committed to diversity in the workforce and regards differences as assets.
Qualifications: Four or more years of legal experience and a commitment to engage in community lawyering. Experience with transactional and/or tax law and proficiency in a language commonly spoken by GBLS clients is preferred but not required.
Qualified candidates should submit resume, cover letter, and a brief writing sample to Sonia Marquez, Director of Human Resources, at Greater Boston Legal Services, via e-mail at [email protected]. Please refer to job code: LTT-EMPATT. Applications accepted until position is filled.