Director of Advocacy for Children and Families

The Maryland Legal Aid Bureau, Inc. Statewide Advocacy Support Unit announces an immediate opening for a full-time Director of Advocacy for Children and Families to be responsible for the statewide coordination of the work of Maryland Legal Aid on behalf of children and families.

Duties and Responsibilities: 

1.         Work closely with Maryland Legal Aid advocates across the state to ensure high quality representation of children in Child in Need of Assistance (“CINA”) cases and qualified individuals in domestic matters;

2.         Assist in management of state contract for representation of CINA children, including preparation of responses to Requests for Proposals, and auditing and monitoring of the contract.

3.         Provide leadership, coordination and supervision of appellate, impact litigation and advocacy, and other legal work on behalf of children and family litigants, including co-counseling complex litigation; 

4.         Provide advice, consultation, support, mentoring, informal training and substantive law updates to staff on issues affecting children and families;

5.         Conduct and assist staff with permissible legislative work and community education and outreach;

6.         Work closely with the appropriate task forces and workgroups to identify systemic barriers experienced by clients across the state, develop strategies to address those barriers, work in collaboration with staff to implement the strategies, and monitor the outcomes;

7.         Provide leadership and assist in the planning and provision of appropriate formal training of advocacy staff on issues affecting children and families; 

8.         Coordinate interaction and collaborative advocacy efforts with other legal services providers and advocacy groups, government agencies, the bench, the bar, and community groups on behalf of children and families;

9.         Develop new and innovative projects designed to improve the rights of children and low-income family litigants and work with the firm’s development team to craft new funding proposals and provide reports to funders to evaluate Maryland Legal Aid’s performance on grants related to advocacy involving children and families;

10.       Assist with external and internal communication efforts on issues affecting children and families, including the production of scholarly articles, reports, brochures and other publications focusing on children and families;

11.       Incorporate Maryland Legal Aid’s Human Rights framework and strategic plan into advocacy affecting children and families;

12.       Other duties as assigned.

To apply online, click here.