Description:
About the Role: The Council on American-Islamic Relations, Greater Los Angeles Area office (CAIR-LA) is seeking a passionate and dedicated Civil Rights Staff Attorney, licensed to practice law in California, with two or more years of experience. The staff attorney will play a vital role in protecting the civil rights of American Muslims and other marginalized communities through direct legal services, advocacy, and litigation. The ideal candidate will demonstrate a commitment to public interest advocacy and will be a highly motivated, organized, and detail-oriented individual with strong time management skills. This is an ideal role for an attorney with two to five years' experience who is eager to use their legal skills in the service of social justice and systemic change. The position offers meaningful opportunities to collaborate with coalition partners, engage in movement lawyering, help shape litigation strategy, and use creative legal and grassroots advocacy solutions to address systematic issues facing the American Muslim community.Practice Areas: Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Constitutional Law, Employment Law, National Security & Law Enforcement Practices, Public Accommodations, Incarceree Rights, K-12 and Higher Education Issues, Hate Crimes/Incidents, etc.
Duties & Responsibilities:
- Review and investigate an array of legal claims brought by a diverse community
- Manage and work on assigned litigation efforts, including preparing pleadings, motions, discovery, and briefs
- Independently manage a considerable caseload
- Depending on experience, identify, develop, lead and manage assigned litigation efforts
- Legal research and writing and non-legal writing including drafting community advisories, issuing briefings, and reports
- Maintain legal calendaring system for statutes of limitations, deadlines, and timely filings of extensions, pleadings, petitions, and applications for cases assigned to or including staff attorney
- Communicate with outside parties such as attorneys, employers, law enforcement agents, administrative agencies, media contacts, etc.
- Engage in effective and zealous client representation, communications, and management
- Educate and empower community members on their rights through community presentations, know your rights workshops, and drafting and distributing educational material
- Support partnership and network building by attending partnership and network meetings, identifying and developing new partner and network relationships
- Prepare and assist in CAIR-California reports
- Organize and participate in special civil rights events, forums, community outreach, and trainings
- Travel for outreach including participating in community events and coalition meetings
- Assist in supervision of interns and law clerks, as assigned, including scheduling check-ins and reviewing and/or assigning work product
- All CAIR staff are required to assist in general duties such as answering phones, weekly outreach, fundraising, and other office tasks as required
Qualifications:
- Law degree from an American Bar Association accredited law school
- California State Bar admission, in good standing
- Minimum 2+ years of experience practicing law, preferably in the areas of civil rights, religious discrimination, employment law, national security, constitutional law, public accommodation, or public interest
- Strong time management skills with a demonstrated ability for meeting deadlines
- Demonstrated problem-solving skills with outstanding attention to detail
- Comfort working productively in a fast-paced, team-oriented environment
- Excellent legal research, legal writing, and oral advocacy skills
- Access to a working vehicle and the ability to drive throughout the Greater Los Angeles Area
- High degree of self-motivation and creativity
- A strong commitment to civil rights and CAIR's mission
- Cultural competence and sensitivity when working with people from diverse cultural, religious, and socio-economic backgrounds
- Basic computer proficiency including knowledge of Office 365, OneDrive, and WestLaw Next
- Knowledge of cloud applications such as SharePoint and social media applications (preferred)
- Conversational proficiency in Arabic, Spanish, Farsi, or Urdu (preferred but not required)
