Closing Date: 19th April, 2024
Description:
The Criminal Practice of A 501 Non-Profit Legal Aid Provider Based in New York City has an opening for a Staff Attorney in its Video Mitigation Unit. The Attorney is one of the Society's in-house experts in video mitigation matters and provides support for Criminal Practice attorneys and other attorneys. The Video Mitigation Unit creates short-form advocacy videos for pre- and post-conviction advocacy. The Video Mitigation Unit is comprised of an Attorney, A Project Manager, and a Creative Producer and is supported by student interns, law clinic students, and pro bono volunteers.The Video Mitigation Unit provides citywide support on cases where video mitigation can be used to achieve desired results. The Attorney must have expertise in creating videos from inception to distribution including an understanding of the strategic and legal decisions that need to be made before, during and after the creation of the video. The Attorneywill work closely with the Creative Producer but will also be required to perform filming and editing tasks. This citywide unit will develop, implement, and coordinate Society policy and litigation strategy concerning video mitigation matters.
The Attorney will have experience coordinating and managing a video mitigation project that is embedded in a public defender office and will coordinate all legal and structural decision-making regarding the videos, acting as a liaison between the assigned attorneys, the contracted psychologist, and other experts, the staff, students and volunteers.
Essential Duties/Responsibilities:
- Represent clients in criminal proceedings involving video mitigation advocacy
- Create processes to identify, analyze and recruit criminal cases for video advocacy
- Collaborate with other Society attorneys and social workers to create mitigation videos for cases
- Interview, coordinate and prepare clients, family members, experts and witnesses for participation in videos
- Assist in filming, sound mixing, storyboarding, and video editing alongside other members of the unit
- Legally analyze and monitor videos as they are filmed to protect clients' rights
- Supervise coordination of production scheduling for all projects
- Experience with retaining experts and consultants
- Coordinate defense team members including students and interns
- Guest lecture at collaborating college(s)/school(s), including clinics and seminars
- Provide in-house and external trainings on video mitigation
- Collaborate with external organizations involved in video advocacy
- Conduct trainings on topic of video Mitigation
- Work toward the promotion of the mitigation video as an innovative tool in criminal defense
- Other duties as assigned
Requirements:
Mandatory training/ Qualifications
- Admitted to practice law in NYS
- Substantial experience litigating felonies in Criminal and Supreme Court
- Experience in the production of mitigation videos and storytelling
- Experience in negotiating dispositions in felony matters specifically with submissions of pre-pleading reports
- Substantial experience in working with social workers and experts to achieve desired outcomes
- Excellent strategic judgment in negotiating with adversaries and judges
- Excellent communication, organizational, interpersonal and written advocacy skills
- Familiarity with video, sound and light equipment
- Familiarity with filming, sound mixing, lighting, and storyboarding
- Proficiency in video editing in Adobe Suite post-production software, Trint, and Frame-io
- Excellent ability to provide training for attorneys and social workers, and as needed, Society-wide
- Ability and willingness to work as part of a team
- Ability to work flexible hours, including evenings and weekends, and off-site throughout the city
- Familiarity with Teams and other methods of virtual communication/recording
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience in and commitment to social justice, racial equity and holistic defense of clients
- Experience as supervisor of interns and students
- Strong people and interviewing skills desired
- Experience with networking within the video advocacy community preferred
- Education in Film/Documentary production preferred
