The Legal Aid Society’s Criminal Defense Practice has a staff attorney position available in the Prisoners’ Rights Project. The Prisoners’ Rights Project represents prisoners of the New York State and New York City prison systems in litigation – primarily civil rights class actions and test cases – to enforce the constitutional and other rights of incarcerated persons. Recent litigation has focused on medical and mental health care, violence and sexual abuse by staff and by other prisoners, young prisoners’ right to public education, disability rights, and re-entry issues, often in collaboration with law firms pro bono. Some of the Project’s work is post-judgment enforcement and compliance monitoring. The Project engages in policy advocacy on behalf of clients with State and City legislatures, correction and health departments, and correctional watchdog agencies. It also engages in administrative advocacy on behalf of individual prisoners who complain of such issues as denial of medical or mental health care, violence or threats by correctional staff or other prisoners, confiscation of property, interference with mail and visiting rights, and many other issues.
The ideal candidate must have: excellent written and oral advocacy skills; ability to work independently as well as collaboratively in a team and manage a high volume of cases; ability to coordinate and collaborate successfully with other groups and organizations; ability to work with pro bono lawyers; excellent organizational skills; a minimum of two years litigation experience; proficiency in languages other than English is desirable, but not required.
The Legal Aid Society is reducing its carbon footprint and therefore paper applications are not accepted. All applicants must submit a cover letter, resume, transcript, writing sample, references, the Applicant Questionnaire (http://www.legal-aid.org/questionnaire.html) and the Applicant Information Form (http://www.legal-aid.org/info_form.html) electronically in a single PDF document by 3/31/16 to: [email protected] and include the Job Reference Code: CDP-2016-012 in all correspondence and in the subject line of your email. IF ONE OR MORE OF THE REQUIRED ITEMS ARE MISSING OR IF THE APPLICATION IS NOT IN A SINGLE PDF, YOUR APPLICATION WILL NOT BE RPOCESSED.