Staff Attorney- Children and Families Practice Group

For 50 years, LAF (formerly Legal Assistance Foundation) has provided free civil legal assistance to people living in poverty in Cook County. Each year LAF’s attorneys, volunteers, and staff help resolve legal problems, including domestic violence, consumer fraud, unfair evictions, and juvenile expungements. Our work impacts more than 30,000 people each year.

LAF’s Children and Families Practice Group (CFPG) is seeking a staff attorney. The CFPG represents clients in the areas of family law (domestic violence, divorce, child support, maintenance and custody), child welfare, education law, and juvenile expungements. The Staff Attorney in this position will work on the legal issues covered by the practice group’s work, and will focus on cases for clients whose family law issues impact the family’s ability to keep the home it owns. This includes work to avoid foreclosure of the home by ensuring property is properly classified as marital, consolidating pending foreclosure cases into the divorce case, assisting in loan modifications, and/or seeking child support and maintenance which can help to pay the mortgage. If the home cannot be retained, the Staff Attorney will work to preserve the home’s equity through a fair sale. The Staff Attorney will collaborate and advocate for LAF’s clients with other service providers in Illinois and with community-based organizations that serve them. The Staff Attorney will share the work of screening, advising, and referring individuals seeking assistance with all staff.

The Staff Attorney will also collaborate on projects within the Practice Group and with members of LAF’s Consumer Practice Group and other Practice and Work Groups, which could involve shared outreach or legal casework, or developing new strategies for serving our common homeowner clients.

The successful applicant will be collegial, well-organized, and demonstrate a commitment to working with people living in poverty. Fluency in Spanish Preferred.