Attorney in Charge - YAD Fall River

The Youth Advocacy Division of the Committee for Public Counsel Services (CPCS), the Massachusetts public defender agency, is seeking to fill the Attorney in Charge position in its Fall River Office.

We fight for equal justice and human dignity by supporting our clients in achieving their legal and life goals. We zealously advocate for the rights of individuals and promote just public policy to protect the rights of all.

Our Values

Courage • Accountability • Respect • Excellence

DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION MISSION STATEMENT

CPCS is committed to protecting the fundamental constitutional and human rights of our assigned clients through zealous advocacy, community-oriented defense, and the fullness of excellent legal representation. We are dedicated to building and maintaining strong professional relationships, while striving to accept, listen to and respect the diverse circumstances of each client, as we dedicate ourselves to meeting their individual needs. It is our CPCS mission to achieve these goals, and in furtherance thereof, we embrace and endorse diversity, equity and inclusion as our core values as we maintain a steadfast commitment to: (1) Ensure that CPCS management and staff members represent a broad range of human differences and experience; (2) Provide a work climate that is respectful and supports success; and (3) Promote the dignity and well-being of all staff members. CPCS leadership is responsible for ensuring equity, diversity, and inclusion. The ability to achieve these goals with any level of certainty is ultimately the responsibility of each member of the CPCS community.

AGENCY OVERVIEW

CPCS is the state agency in Massachusetts responsible for providing an attorney when the state or federal constitution or a state statute requires the appointment of an attorney for a person who cannot afford to retain one. The agency provides representation in criminal, delinquency, youthful offender, family regulation, guardianship, mental health, sexually dangerous person, and sex offender registry cases, as well as in appeals and post-conviction and post-judgment proceedings related to those matters.

The clients we represent are diverse across every context imaginable and bring many unique cultural dimensions to the matters we address. This reality creates a critical need for CPCS staff to be culturally competent and able to work well with people of different races, ethnicities, genders and/or sexual orientation identities, abilities, and limited English proficiency, among other protected characteristics.

DIVISION OVERVIEW

The Youth Advocacy Division (YAD), the juvenile defender division of CPCS, is committed to ensuring that every indigent child in Massachusetts has access to zealous legal representation in delinquency, GCL Revocation, juvenile murder, juvenile appeals, and youthful offender cases from a diverse and ever improving community of juvenile defenders consisting of both private assigned counsel and staff public defenders. YAD provides leadership, training, support, and oversight to the indigent juvenile defense bar in Massachusetts.

As youth in Massachusetts have a right to jury trials, the Attorney in Charge (AIC) oversees a trial office which integrates the work of attorneys, a social service advocate, and an administrative assistant to fully address the legal and developmental needs of our clients. The Attorney in Charge plays a significant leadership role by managing the local office, helping with the management of YAD as a whole, representing individual clients, and working closely with the private bar to build a strong community of juvenile defenders actively addressing practice and training issues.

OFFICE OVERVIEW

Fall River is a city in Bristol County, Massachusetts. As of 2020 Fall River's population was 94,000 at the making it the tenth-largest city in the state. Located along the eastern shore of Mount Hope Bay at the mouth of the Taunton River, the city gained recognition during the 19th century as a leading textile manufacturing center in the United States. While the textile industry has long since moved on, its impact on the city's culture and landscape is still prominent. Fall River's official motto is "We'll Try", dating back to the aftermath of the Great Fire of 1843. Nicknamed The Scholarship City after Irving Fradkin founded Dollars for Scholars there in 1958. Fall River is known for its numerous 19th-century textile mills and Battleship Cove, home of the world's largest collection of World War II naval vessels (including the battleship USS Massachusetts).

POSITION OVERVIEW

The Attorney in Charge (AIC) oversees a trial office to fully address the legal and developmental needs of our clients. The AIC plays a significant leadership role by managing the local office, helping with the management of YAD as a whole, representing individual clients, and working closely with the private bar to build a strong community of juvenile defenders actively addressing practice and training issues. All juvenile defenders in Massachusetts focus their work on reducing the racial and ethnic disparities that are so harmful to our clients.

The YAD Fall River office is comprised of one AIC, three staff Trial Attorneys, one Social Services Advocate (SSAs), and an AA. The Fall River Office covers four juvenile courts located in Fall River, New Bedford, Taunton, and Attleboro. The Fall River office is also co-located with the Fall River Child and Family Law Office (CAFL) and the AIC will be expected to collaborate with the CAFL AIC regarding crossover representation of clients.

The AIC will report directly to one of the Managing Directors of YAD. The AIC will be expected to participate in regular meetings with other YAD AICs, the local Juvenile Supervising Attorneys, as well as the YAD management team. The AIC also will collaborate extensively with private assigned counsel.

RESPONSIBILITIES

The responsibilities of the Attorney in Charge include, but are not limited to:

• Managing and supervising a juvenile public defender office by overseeing legal representation to the office’s clients utilizing the YAD model of a positive youth development approach (PYD) to inter-disciplinary representation in delinquency, youthful offender, and related proceedings;
• Maintaining a reduced caseload of delinquency, youthful offender, and related proceedings and taking the lead on difficult and potentially precedent-setting cases;
• Ensuring that all cases are assigned promptly and opened and closed in a timely fashion;
• Ensuring that annual performance evaluations are completed for all staff in a timely and comprehensive manner;
• Embracing the Positive Youth Development Approach to Zealous Advocacy, including the use of education advocacy and the use of both staff and private social workers;
• Fully embraces the CPCS case management system, including the ability to generate and interpret case statistics and reports, to ensure the collection of data for performance management, program evaluation, and policy advocacy;
• Actively participating, supporting, and providing leadership to the local juvenile defender communities and stakeholders and encouraging staff to engage meaningfully in client communities;
• Providing on-going in-house training for staff and working closely with the YAD Training Director to help develop and deliver private counsel trainings;
• Building and maintaining strong working relationships with the local Juvenile Court, Probation, DYS, DCF, community agencies and other stakeholders in the Juvenile Justice System, including representing YAD in select circumstances; and,
• Other duties as assigned.

In performing duties and responsibilities, CPCS AICs are expected to adhere to the requirements set forth in the agency’s enabling legislation (G.L. c.211D), the Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct, as well as in CPCS performance guidelines, and other practice standards promulgated by the agency.