Description:
Description:Who We Are:
Founded in 1999 as the Housing Preservation Project, Housing Justice Center (HJC) is a nonprofit public interest advocacy and legal organization whose primary mission is to preserve and expand affordable housing for low-income individuals and families. Using legal advocacy, impact litigation, policy analysis, research, and community education HJC works to encourage the production of affordable housing, the preservation of affordable housing and the protection of the right of people who need affordable places to call home. HJC attorneys work with tenant and advocacy organizations, public and private housing funders, owners, developers, and policy makers in their efforts to protect and expand affordable housing. Based in Minnesota, HJC works nationwide.
Wages
$95,000 - $102,000 annual salary
Benefits:
Paid vacation and sick time, plus 12 paid holidays and one floating holiday per year; HJC offers a medical and dental reimbursement and will contribute 100% toward regular full-time employee's medical and dental insurance premiums after 90 days of employment with the organization; and HJC offers a 3% contribution to employees who participate in a SIMPLE IRA account administered by Vanguard.
Housing Justice Center Litigation
The Housing Justice Center focuses primarily on state and federal impact litigation that furthers and strengthens housing justice, expands affordable housing, and protects the rights of tenants. The litigation team of the Housing Justice Center includes six attorneys, a paralegal, and an intake coordinator. In the past five years, Housing Justice Center has served as counsel in high-impact tenant rights litigation in state and federal court, including class actions and private attorney general actions involving cutting-edge legal theories combining housing law, consumer protection law, antidiscrimination law, and environmental law.
About the Position:
The Director of Litigation reports to the President and is responsible for setting organizational litigation strategy; hiring, supervising, and mentoring the team of housing justice litigators and support staff; developing and managing relationships across the organization and with other litigation organizations; and participating directly in litigation as first-chair attorney on high-leverage activities in litigation, including trial and appellate arguments.
Responsibilities will include the following:
Setting Organizational Litigation Strategy
- Work with President, Directors, and litigation team to set overall litigation strategy and priorities for the organization
- Make final decisions as to what litigation matters to pursue and the staffing levels associated with each matter
- Develop and execute proactive plan to recover attorneys fee awards in successful litigation
- Identify, recruit, and manage relationships with litigation partner organizations (private and nonprofit)
- Negotiate co-counsel agreements that include substantial attorneys' fees division provisions where possible
- Manage staff workflow when working with partner organizations
- Devise litigation strategy in conjunction with client and litigation team
- Act as first-chair litigator at trial, major depositions, major hearings, and appeals
- Support and engage in the work of HJC's legal and policy response to federal actions, including litigation related to federal response work
- Assign work to litigation teams.
- Supervise and support legal staff, including managerial support to ensure smooth day-to-day operations
- Provide leadership to staff attorneys with a focus on professional development and building legal expertise
- Engage in brief writing and letter writing as necessary; review and edit brief and letter writing of others as necessary
- Engage in legal research and document review as necessary
- Lead settlement conferences and settlement negotiations
Position Requirements:
Education and Experience:
- Juris doctor degree.
- Law school honors indicating high performance (e.g., academic honors, law journal editor, competitive moot court).
- Minimum of 8 years of work experience in complex civil litigation and/or class action litigation.
- Track record of success in litigation results.
- Federal or appellate state court clerkship preferred.
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities:
- Commitment to high performance.
- Commitment to serving clients from diverse communities and lived experiences with humility, respect, and cultural competency.
- Proven track record of providing thoughtful, practical legal and strategic guidance to clients and legal team.
- Experience leading litigation teams, including successful systems for tracking several ongoing litigation matters and managing caseloads.
- Working knowledge of affordable housing law and policy, including fair housing, housing finance, land use, and administrative enforcement, and the ability to apply that knowledge strategically to impact litigation.
- Working knowledge of housing law and policy and the legal frameworks to litigate in state and federal courts to enforce statutory, regulatory, and constitutional housing protections.
- Excellent writing, courtroom and oral advocacy skills.
- Excellent communication, interpersonal, and public speaking skills.
- Ability to anticipate legal issues or risks and to “see around the corner”.
- Ability to develop legal strategies and objectives.
- High degree of professional ethics, integrity and gravitas.
- Experience successfully working in a highly collaborative manner.
- Proven attention to detail with organizational skills.
- Ability to travel to court and client locations throughout Minnesota.
- Law degree.
- Member in the good standing of the Minnesota bar or member in good standing of the bar of any jurisdiction and eligibility to promptly gain admission to Minnesota bar.
Diversity and open expression are central to the work of Housing Justice Center. We are committed to fostering an inclusive and equitable workplace where everyone belongs and where diverse perspectives strengthen our ability to understand challenges and create meaningful solutions. We encourage all qualified applicants to apply, especially those who are underrepresented in our sector, including individuals who identify as BIPOC, LGBTQI+, gender fluid or gender nonconforming, people with disabilities (visible and invisible), veterans, and people of any age or family status. We also encourage you to apply even if you do not meet 100% of the listed qualifications.
Housing Justice Center is an Equal Opportunity Employer. All qualified applicants will be considered without regard to race, color, creed, ancestry, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, familial status, disability, age, marital status, public assistance status, criminal history, housing status, height, or weight.
Our organization has a partnership with Metropolitan Alliance of Connected Communities (MACC) to provide administrative services including management of the hiring process. If you apply for this position, you may see references to MACC in some online materials.