PDS-2026-16 Civil Litigation Attorney

The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS) is a federally funded, independent organization governed by an eleven-member Board of Trustees. PDS provides legal representation to individuals who are facing a loss of liberty in criminal, delinquency, and mental health cases in the local District of Columbia justice system, but who are financially unable to obtain adequate representation. PDS’s staff consists of approximately 100 attorneys, social workers, investigators, administrative, and technical staff. Most employees work at the main office at 633 3rd Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. District of Columbia residency is not a requirement for employment. PDS is funded by federal appropriations, and all employees are entitled to participate in certain federal benefit plans: health and life insurance, federal retirement, and the Thrift Savings Plan. PDS recognizes creditable federal service for leave accrual and retirement purposes.

Employment at the Public Defender Service is at will and is neither federal nor District of Columbia government employment.

Work Schedule: This is a full-time permanent position. Due to the nature of the position, civil attorneys are often required to work nights, weekends, and other non-traditional schedules. Currently, civil lawyers are required to work in-office at least three days a week and may work remotely only up to two days a week. Absent unusual circumstances, certain duties must be performed in person, such as oral arguments, moot courts, and visiting detention facilities. For this position, the attorney will be responsible for ensuring that any remote work they perform complies with the ethical and practice requirements of the remote jurisdiction.

This is not a remote location position.

PDS was the first indigent defense program in the nation to protect clients facing criminal prosecution from the collateral consequences of their involvement in the criminal justice system by providing them counsel in related civil proceedings. PDS’s civil practice is founded on the understanding that there is a direct and immediate relationship between the criminal legal system, race, poverty, and injustice. Thus, our civil practice is centered around a model of representation that addresses client needs beyond liberty, guilt, and innocence. PDS’s Civil Division handles a wide array of civil matters arising from our criminal defense practice. This civil work can include housing-related litigation, civil forfeiture defense, tort defense, child custody, employment, bankruptcy, civil protection order cases, restitution proceedings, civil contempt proceedings, child abuse and neglect proceedings, and special education advocacy. While these are the most common types of cases the Civil Division handles, our practice is eclectic due to the complexity of our clients’ lives and has, for instance, included work in interpleader litigation over the right to receive life insurance benefits, guardianship issues, specific performance suits, wage theft litigation, and probate issues. Though it is the smallest legal division at PDS, the Civil Division’s two programs provide significant assistance to PDS clients. Three of the Division’s lawyers focus exclusively on special education cases. The other lawyers handle general civil litigation matters referred from one of PDS’s other divisions. Representation is provided in both judicial and administrative forums. The Civil Division’s lawyers handle active litigation matters and also provide counsel and advice to lawyers in PDS’s other divisions to assist clients in resolving the many civil issues that can arise in the context of a criminal or juvenile case.

The Civil Division’s general civil practice is both sophisticated and complex, and includes every phase of litigation, including discovery, use of experts, pretrial motion practice, and trial work. It is sophisticated because of the level of attention, trial preparation, and resources the Division brings to bear on each case it handles. Team defense is practiced at PDS. Depending on the nature of the criminal matter and its posture, there is frequently close coordination with the criminal defense attorney. PDS’s resources allow us to staff even complex civil cases. For example, the Civil Division has utilized the services of medical experts, drug addiction experts, housing experts, psychologists, forensic experts (in the area of cell phone and tower data analysis), DNA experts, fingerprint experts, child abuse/pediatric medical experts, and even a cultural anthropologist in a child abuse and neglect case. Our Civil Division attorneys have ready access to the Trial Division’s Forensic Practice Group to assist with certain types of scientific evidence.

Beyond being interdisciplinary, the Civil Division’s general civil practice is also made complex because many cases generate questions that affect a client’s criminal procedure protections. Fifth Amendment concerns are implicated in any case where the client has a parallel criminal case pending or potential criminal exposure. As an initial matter, this means that in many cases, clients are unavailable to testify in the civil case. More broadly, what is done in the civil case, for example, in discovery, implicates the Sixth Amendment’s Assistance of Counsel and Right to Present a Defense Clauses, each of which strongly protects against requiring the defense to disclose its evidence, strategies, or theories to the government. Because these constitutional safeguards can be adversely impacted by how the civil case is handled, these concerns necessarily drive many tactical and strategic decisions in the Division’s civil cases. This dynamic adds a layer of complexity to discovery. Thus, civil discovery and work-product issues abound in many of our cases. The cases are intellectually challenging and require the highest level of skills to navigate these issues and achieve good outcomes for our clients.

Civil Division generalists must be able to work on a broad array of civil issues and be comfortable lawyering in unfamiliar areas of the law, often with short notice or on an emergency basis. Further, the attorney must be able to work well with clients and work collaboratively with colleagues in the Civil Division and across PDS’s other Divisions. Other responsibilities include assisting in the preparation of practice guide materials on civil issues for use by PDS’s other Divisions and advising PDS attorneys in other Divisions on a wide array of civil legal issues.