Senior Attorney

Job Summary

Catholic Charities Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston is seeking a Senior Attorney for their Cabrini location.

The Senior Attorney is a member of supervisory team of Cabrini Center who helps set strategic priority, formulate policies and procedures for the whole program. She or he is responsible for supervising a legal team in the provision of immigration legal services to clients served by St. Frances Cabrini Center for Immigrant Legal Assistance. Legal services include community outreach and legal education, legal workshops, legal intake, legal research and individual legal representation. The Senior Attorney is expected to have and develop expertise in the immigration law as well as stay up-to-date on immigration law and policies and to provide supervision, guidance and mentorship to attorneys, pro bono counsels, paralegals and/or law student interns. The Senior Attorney will contribute to identifying issues for impact advocacy and litigation to be undertaken by Cabrini Center and/or other partners to advance immigrant rights and to make systemic changes.

The successful candidate will be detail-oriented and organized, with excellent time management and collaboration skills.

Job Duties

Direct Representation: Provide direct representation to immigrant clients before the USCIS, Asylum Office or Immigration Court as well as state courts on a range of immigration matters, including affirmative asylum and removal defense. Direct representation encompasses the following tasks: conduct legal intake and screening; interview clients, affiants, witness, experts, case managers, and others who can provide information or statement in furtherance of the principal client’s immigration matters; draft, prepare and assemble relevant immigration petitions; conduct legal research; write memoranda of law, motions or briefs in support of applications and petitions filed before USCIS, Asylum office, State, Immigration and Federal Courts, board of Immigration Appeals, Administrative Appeals Office, EOIR and other immigration agencies; prepare client for interviews and court hearings.

Case Management: Maintain client physical and electronic files according to program requirements, including case notes, correspondence, filings, calendars, and dockets. Maintain a case status list and case service statistics for Cabrini Center and program funders. Participate in case reviews with attorney staff and support staff, and/or Managing Attorney/Legal Director, as applicable. Maintain a minimum of 30-40 active cases.

Meetings: Attendance and participation in mandatory unit and Cabrini staff meetings, and other agency meetings. Participate on calls and meetings organized by funders, city-wide advocacy groups, local service providers and national support centers when appropriate and helpful.

Contract and Agency Compliance: Comply with all contract requirements. Provide data and statistical information for grant, contract and other reporting purposes. Provide accurate and timely monthly data, time logs, and reports for internal use, funder use, and other entity use. Participate in trainings, meetings, calls, etc. as required by funders or to serve program needs.

Outreaches: Participate in charlas by presenting and performing legal consultations. Participate in program and agency community legal education and outreach efforts, particularly as they relate to issues of immigration law, providing direct information to prospective clients, attending information sessions on asylum, deportation and other immigration relief, and conduct legal workshops and engage pro bono counsel in the provision of legal services.

Personnel: Provide day-to-day supervision to the legal team comprising staff attorneys, legal fellows, pro bono counsel, paralegal/legal assistants, administrative clerks and interns. Provide periodic evaluation of staff performance.

Substantive Expertise: Develop expertise in general immigration law, including but not limited to Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, asylum, U visa, T visa, adjustment of status and other immigration relief available to Unaccompanied Minors, as well as naturalization, family immigration, DACA and Temporary Protected Status.

Advocacy: Identify policy issues and coordinate with other units within Cabrini Center and the immigration bar in advancing advocacy agenda to promote immigrant rights.

Meeting Community Needs: Work with Cabrini leadership to evaluate program efficacy and engage in priority setting in line with community needs.

Program Administration: Develop and implement policies and procedures to ensure that Cabrini Center provides high quality legal services to clients, and provide periodic training to Cabrini staff to maintain quality and standard of service.

Shelter Team: Oversee the staffing and operation of the assigned shelter team, to provide back-up support to facilitate detained children work as necessary; conduct regular team meeting to organize shelter schedule, allocate staffing resources and manage stakeholder relationships.

And, perform other duties as assigned.