https://www.justice4all.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Bilingual-Immigration-Attorney-Richmond-2.pdf
About the Legal Aid Justice Center
BILINGUAL IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY Legal Aid Justice Center Richmond, VA
The Legal Aid Justice Center is a nationally recognized nonprofit organization that partners with communities and clients to achieve justice by dismantling the systems that create and perpetuate poverty. Justice means racial justice, economic justice, and social justice. From its offices in Charlottesville, Richmond, Petersburg, and Falls Church, LAJC is a fierce advocate for low-income clients and communities in Virginia.
Founded in 1967, LAJC provides services under four key program areas: Civil Rights & Racial Justice, Economic Justice, Youth Justice, and Immigrant Advocacy. LAJC boldly tackles issues of systemic injustice and aims to raise public and policymaker awareness of some of the most pressing challenges facing low-income Virginia residents. For more information, visit www.justice4all.org.
Legal Aid Justice Center seeks a Bilingual (Spanish-English) Immigration Attorney for our Richmond office, serving Richmond and the surrounding communities. The attorney will represent individual clients, with a focus on creative forms of removal defense. The attorney will partner with a community organizer to meet the needs of the immigrant community, and advocate for pro-immigrant policies at the local and state level, with a special focus on disentangling local and state government and law enforcement from federal immigration enforcement. The attorney will create and supervise a robust pro bono project, and advocate for stakeholders (including local governments) to support immigration legal services. The attorney will provide regular know-your-rights and immigration update clinics, in Spanish and English, to community members and to service providers.
• Strong commitment to social, economic, and racial justice
• Strong commitment to immigrants’ rights
• Experience working directly with immigrant community members
• Prior experience handling immigration cases, 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
• An ability to multi-task and balance a variety of responsibilities
Just in the past year, we permanently
repealed Virginia’s driver’s license suspension for court debt scheme, secured an injunction slashing the number of immigrants detained by ICE at the largest detention center in the Mid- Atlantic and passed a law giving Virginia oversight authority, won the nation’s first COVID- specific, statewide, and enforceable workplace safety standards, passed legislation enabling communities to set up civilian oversight for law enforcement, and decriminalized school-based disorderly conduct, which was a leading contributor to the school-to-prison pipeline,
especially for Black girls.
About the Position
Required Qualifications
123 E. Broad Street, Richmond, VA 23219 • (804) 643-1086 237 North Sycamore Street, Petersburg, VA 23803 • (804) 862-2205
6066 Leesburg Pike, Suite 520, Falls Church, VA 22041 • (703) 778-3450 1000 Preston Avenue, Suite A, Charlottesville, VA 22903 • (434) 977-0553
Preferred Qualifications
Location Salary Benefits
• 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)
This role will be based in our Richmond office. Occasional travel between offices will be required.
Salary range is $55,000 to $70,000 based on years of relevant experience and LAJC’s formal salary scale.
Our mission is compelling, and our team members are passionate about their work, and so we recognize the need to provide generous benefits and encourage rest and a healthy work environment. For example, we provide:
• Generous paid time off every year, including 3 to 6 weeks of vacation, 12 days of health leave, 6 weeks parental leave, and 14 holidays (not including bonus holidays/rest days allocated as needed)
• 100% employer paid health, dental, and vision insurance, plus excellent family insurance with annual max of $2,400 premium contribution to LAJC-sponsored health plan
• 403(b) retirement plan with 4% employer contribution (no required match)
• Strong commitment to professional development
• Full mileage reimbursement at IRS rates
• Law school loan repayment assistance and full reimbursement for VA bar and CLE
expenses
• Relocation package
Email a cover letter, resume, a legal 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 “Richmond Bilingual Immigration Attorney” in the email subject.
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.
Application Instructions
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 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.
The Richmond Adjudication Center for DHS detainees was established by the Trump regime and has been continued by AG Garland over the unanimous and vigorous objections of advocacy groups. The Government uses “civil” immigration detention and “captive courts” embedded in these “civil prisons” to coerce individuals into abandoning claims, restrict access to counsel, and inhibit the proper preparation and documentation of cases. The latter is particularly egregious, given the intentionally hypertechnical and unnecessarily complicated administrative requirements developed by the BIA in an overt effort to restrict asylum access.
One on the “unwritten assumptions” is that detention will make it easier for DHS and DOJ to railroad unrepresented migrants, thereby increasing “productivity” and “weaponizing” the Immigration Courts as a deterrent to individuals’ asserting their legal rights. It also helps create bogus and distorted statistics about the merits of Immigration Court cases.
A great way of combatting this outrageous and abusive Government “strategy” is by vigorously representing individuals in detention. This not only saves lives, but it also thwarts the Government’s coercive and abusive strategy.
Additionally, representation exposes the grossly substandard conditions that prevail in most DHS detention facilities and the fiction that mass detention, without fair and impartial individualized determinations, serves a legitimate governmental purpose.
