Executive Director
Vermont Legal Aid Seeks an Executive Director
Vermont Legal Aid (VLA) seeks an Executive Director to lead a nationally recognized, statewide civil legal aid organization. Our mission is to advance fairness and justice in the civil legal system, address the social and economic interests of our clients, and confront the underlying causes of poverty, discrimination, and inequality. VLA advocates on behalf of Vermonters who are low-income, elderly or disabled through a number of statewide projects focusing on health care, long-term care, economic benefits, education, housing, mental health, disability, and victims’ rights.
The Executive Director will be responsible for:
- Engaging and inspiring staff members, board members, clients, and other stakeholders in realizing VLA’s mission, and refining and adapting that mission to meet new challenges and opportunities;
- Promoting diversity and inclusion in all aspects of program activities, including bringing a racial justice lens to delivery of legal services, hiring, retention, and leadership development;
- Hiring, supervising, evaluating, and meeting regularly with the management team to provide direction, advice, and oversight as appropriate;
- Ensuring the organization’s financial health and stability by developing and maintaining sound financial planning and management systems, including preparation of budgets and oversight of financial systems and controls;
- Maintaining and evolving VLA’s culture, emphasizing inclusiveness, openness, transparency, and support;
- Articulating and achieving the desired balance between effective systemic reform work and high-quality individual client assistance;
- Maintaining VLA’s leadership role among city, state, and national poverty advocacy organizations and coordinating its work with those groups;
- Ensuring the long-term sustainability of VLA through on-going careful cultivation of long-term legislative support for VLA funding, pursuit of new state and federal grants, and development of additional financial resources needed to sustain and grow VLA;
- Serving as an effective ambassador for VLA, by nurturing collaborative relationships with funders, legislators, private bar and judicial leaders, private donors, and business and civic organizations throughout the state;
- Maintaining and growing an effective communications program designed to continually enhance VLA’s profile in the legal community, with client communities, and with the public at large; and
- Coordinating organizational goals, visions and activities with its partner organization, Legal Services Vermont, to ensure the maintenance of a unified legal services delivery system.
About Vermont Legal Aid: VLA has five offices and a staff of 85 with a total budget of $9.5 million in the current fiscal year. Revenues come from a wide variety of public and private sources. VLA partners with Legal Services Vermont (LSV), Vermont’s LSC- funded agency. LSV coordinates case representation with VLA and operates the statewide legal helpline and legal services website. VLA and LSV share a Board of Trustees. In addition to working together to serve more than 25,000 individual clients annually, VLA focuses on achieving systemic change for its client communities and has a robust presence in the Vermont legislature, before state agencies, and in the State’s Supreme Court. Supporting the Executive Director, the Leadership team includes the Deputy Director, three fiscal staff members, including a Chief Financial Officer, an HR Administrator, Project Directors for each of the program’s substantive projects, and an IT staff of three.
Read about VLA’s core values and commitment to diversity and inclusion at work at: VLA Core Values and VLA Diversity Statement and our services for clients at VTlawhelp.org.
The successful Executive Director candidate will:
- Be a licensed attorney in good standing with significant legal experience;
- Demonstrate a passion for social and racial justice;
- Possess exceptional leadership skills and have substantial management experience, such as in a successful legal services program, social services agency, or other organization;
- Have grant writing and/or fundraising experience;
- Understand financial matters, including development of budgets, compliance with grant and contract requirements, and financial oversight;
- Be skilled managing scarce resources and allocating resources appropriately;
- Exhibit excellent communication skills and the ability to inspire the trust and confidence of the staff, board members, client communities, and other stakeholders and allies;
- Champion diversity, equity and inclusion, and be culturally responsive;
- Have experience in building a team environment, encouraging professional development of staff, and supporting staff in the program’s work; and
- Convey vision, integrity, courage, intelligence, creativity, energy, and humor equal to the challenges of this demanding position.
APPLICATION PROCESS
VLA is assisted in its search for a new director by:
Patricia Pap
Executive Director
Management Information Exchange
105 Chauncy St., Fl 6, Ste 3
Boston, MA 02111
Materials should be submitted electronically to ppap@mielegalaid.org in Microsoft Word or PDF format. Candidates with questions about the position or process are encouraged to contact her at the email address above or at 508-737-4010.
Screening of applicants begins immediately and will continue until the time of selection. To receive full consideration, you are encouraged to submit your
application materials by May 23 or sooner if possible. Please submit a letter expressing your interest in the position, your qualifications for the job, bar status, and what you hope to contribute to the organization’s future. Please include a résumé and the names and contact information for three professional references.
Salary depends on experience based on a competitive public interest salary scale. Benefits include a generous leave policy, excellent family health insurance, life & disability insurance, and a 401(k) plan.