Education Program Legal Assistant
The Alliance for Children’s Rights is seeking a dedicated individual to join our Education Program as a Legal Assistant. This is a non-exempt, full-time paid position.
The Alliance: The Alliance for Children's Rights is a nonprofit organization that provides free holistic legal services and advocacy to youth and families impacted by child welfare and juvenile justice systems in Los Angeles County, and works to enact policy changes statewide. Our lawyers, advocates, and social workers, together with hundreds of pro bono attorneys and community volunteers, work to ensure that those we serve have the tools to overcome barriers to stability and success, and have access to the education, healthcare, and financial supports that they need. Since 1992, we have helped over 150,000 children. For more information visit: www.allianceforchildrensrights.org.
The Education Team: The Education Program prides itself on providing its team members with the support and resources to be successful. We believe that education (including early intervention) services are essential in creating opportunity for youth facing systemic barriers to success, especially for children of color and children with disabilities – both of whom are disproportionately overrepresented in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. We ground our advocacy in our clients’ goals and our vision for creating education equity from an intersectional perspective.
What Your Impact Will Be:
- Support program attorneys by conducting client interviews, maintaining case files, gathering documentation for case advocacy from multiple sources, and communicating with caregivers regarding the status of the case.
- Request and compile medical, mental health, and education records.
- Supervise student interns.
- Maintain communication with pro bono attorneys.
- Communicating with monolingual Spanish clients, provide Spanish oral and written translation for attorneys, and develop bilingual project materials.
- Administrative duties including data entry, filing, and drafting letters.
- Schedule IEP/IFSP meetings for program attorneys.
The Ideal Candidate Will Possess:
- Bilingual (Spanish/English) skills to effectively communicate and translate orally and in writing.
- College Graduate or Paralegal Certification.
- Personal, educational, or professional experience/interest in regional center early intervention and/or school district special education advocacy; child welfare, juvenile justice, and/or education systems (e.g., former teacher or social worker, CASA,); and/or working with diverse populations, towards goals of equity and racial justice.
- Strong interpersonal and organizational skills
This job description is of a general nature and is not an exhaustive list of all responsibilities and duties of the position.
Covid-19 Considerations:
Normally, this position would work from our Los Angeles office. However, due to Covid-19, this position will temporarily work remotely from home. This position may be asked to return to work in the office at any time and at the employer's discretion.
Applying: To be considered, please send a cover letter and resume to our Associate Director, Sam Paneno, at spaneno@alliancecr.org. Include in your cover letter any relevant experiences, background, or perspective, professional or otherwise, you have in working with diverse populations and/or towards goals of equity and racial justice. Salary is commensurate with experience. Benefits include health, dental, and life insurance plans, as well as vacation and sick leave policies.
The Alliance for Children’s Rights is committed to building and supporting a culturally diverse and inclusive environment that values all staff members’ backgrounds and perspectives in our work. We strongly encourage individuals from all traditionally underrepresented communities to apply. We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations to qualified individuals with disabilities. We are an Equal Employment Opportunity employer, and prohibit discrimination against employees or applicants because of race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, national origin, ancestry, age, marital status, veteran status, or any other unlawful basis.