Bilingual Attorney - Immigration Litigator/Advocate
LAJC’s Immigrant Advocacy Program supports low-income immigrants in their efforts to find justice and fair treatment. In addition to representing clients with individual legal issues, we promote systemic reforms to reduce the abuse and exploitation of immigrants, and advocate for state and local policies that protect immigrant communities from aggressive immigration enforcement and promote their wellbeing. Current campaigns include challenges to ICE detention, resisting family separation in all its different forms, and our De-ICE Virginia campaign seeking to sever cooperation between state and local government and federal immigration enforcement.
LAJC seeks a Bilingual Attorney - Immigration Litigator/Advocate for our Falls Church office. The attorney will represent individual clients in creative forms of removal defense, with a special focus on individuals with prior removal orders or otherwise at imminent risk of deportation, and individual and systemic challenges to immigration detention and ICE enforcement.
The attorney will also partner with community organizers (both LAJC staff and other community organizations) to support local and statewide policy advocacy efforts challenging immigration detention, the jail-to-deportation pipeline, and state entanglement in federal immigration enforcement.
The attorney will also manage an immigration advice clinic in Arlington County, and hold regular office hours and coordinate know-your-rights presentations in English and Spanish at community centers that serve immigrant communities.
- Strong commitment to immigrants’ rights;
- Experience working directly with immigrant community members;
- Prior experience with immigration litigation, whether professionally or through a law school clinic;
- A sufficient level of Spanish fluency to interview and counsel clients in Spanish without the assistance of an interpreter; and
- An ability to multi-task and balance a variety of responsibilities.
Preferred Qualifications
- Membership in the Virginia bar, confirmed eligibility to waive in, or willingness to sit for the February 2022 Virginia bar (LAJC provides bar study leave and application fees)
Salary
Salary range is $61,600 to $78,400 based on years of relevant experience and LAJC’s formal salary scale.
Benefits
- Generous leave
- Flexible hours and hybrid in-office/work-from-home schedule
- Excellent health, dental, and optical insurance
- 403(b) retirement plan
- Personal budget for professional development
- Full mileage reimbursement at IRS rates
- Law school loan repayment assistance and full reimbursement for VA bar and CLE expenses
Email a cover letter, resume, legal or advocacy writing sample, and three references to Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg at hiring@justice4all.org. If you’re able, please submit your application as a single PDF titled “[date submitted in yyyy.mm.dd format][last name][first name][position sought].” Please include “Falls Church Immigration Attorney” in the email subject.
The Legal Aid Justice Center is an equal opportunity employer, committed to inclusive hiring and dedicated to diversity in our work and staff. We strongly encourage candidates of all identities, experiences, and communities to apply. The Legal Aid Justice Center is committed to strengthening the voices of our low-income clients, working in collaboration with community partners, and rooting out the inequities that keep people in poverty. We strive to take on the issues that have broad impact on our client communities and to be responsive to client input. Recognizing the particular impact of racism on our clients and staff, we devote special attention to dismantling racial injustice. All applicants must be dedicated to working in and sustaining an environment that enables staff and clients to feel empowered, valued, respected, and safe. In reviewing applications, we look for evidence that applicants have experience and/or thoughtfulness in working with traditionally marginalized populations.