Senior Employment Law Attorney

Open Door Legal; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 90,000 - 112,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Loan Repayment Assistance

Medical/Dental/Vision 100% coverage

Four weeks vacation and two weeks sick

Generous parental leave

401K/Retirement plan

Professional development

Job summary

Open Door Legal is seeking a Senior Employment Law Attorney to lead the Employment Law/Public Benefits Team within the Litigation and Economic Justice Group. You will oversee the delivery of employment law and public benefits services, including wage and hour, wrongful termination, harassment, and discrimination matters, reporting to the Managing Litigation and Economic Justice Attorney.

The role emphasizes strategic leadership, trauma-informed advocacy, and collaboration with government

Qualifications

• Licensed attorney in CA or another state in good standing.
• Minimum 6 years of relevant experience as an attorney.
• At least 2 years in employment law.
• Experience supervising paid staff attorneys.
• Knowledge of CA public benefits and admin hearings.
• Commitment to serving low-income clients and trauma-informed advocacy.
• Strong time management and ability to supervise in a fast-paced setting.
• Excellent writing, editing, and proofreading skills.
• Ability to work in office at least 3 days/week and collaborate with diverse partners.

Responsibilities

• Lead the Employment Law/Public Benefits Team within the Litigation and Economic Justice Group.
• Oversee legal advice and representation for clients and guests.
• Hire, train, mentor, and manage staff, interns, fellows, and volunteers.
• Develop relationships with government agencies and community partners.
• Use data-driven strategies to increase department capacity and impact.
• Drive knowledge management with templates, checklists, and best practices.

Skills

Leadership

Legal advocacy

Team management

Trauma-informed advocacy

Cultural humility

Communication

Time management

Mentoring

Self-learning

Writing/editing

Interpersonal diplomacy

Education

Juris Doctor (JD) or equivalent

Tools

Salesforce

Dropbox

Google Suite

Job description

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” - Nelson Mandela

We believe that even the biggest problems can be broken down into small, achievable steps. Poverty and access to justice are part of the same problem. And we’re solving this problem together. At Open Door Legal (ODL), we’re pioneering the country’s first system of universal access to civil legal representation to dramatically reduce poverty and prove that the law really can belong to all of us. We’ve grown 150x in 10 years, and in the next 2 years, we hope to finish scaling across San Francisco. To achieve this goal, we’ve created an award-winning and best-in-class legal aid organization full of passionate, motivated, gritty, thoughtful, and team-oriented people. We believe that injustice is the heart of poverty, and we're looking for someone to join us in ensuring justice for all.

Overview of Position

We’re hiring a Senior Employment Law Attorney who will lead our Employment Law/Public Benefits Team. They will further our mission of universal access by ensuring legal services in employment law and public benefits matters. This includes wage and hour, wrongful termination, harassment and discrimination claims. For the public benefits context, this includes Social Security, MediCal, CalFresh, CAAP/General Assistance, and Unemployment Insurance. This will be a full-time position designed to expand the capacity of our employment and public benefits team. The Employment Law and Public Benefits practice group is part of the Litigation and Economic Justice Team, and you would report directly to our Managing Litigation and Economic Justice Attorney, who also has a background in SSDI appeal representation.

Overall, this position is intended to be a challenging and rewarding experience for someone looking to grow in their substantive and strategic leadership and help us dramatically reduce poverty. You should approach problems with curiosity and enthusiasm. Your leadership is demonstrated in the quality of the people you’ve led AND the work you’ve produced together. Cultural humility is not just conceptual to you, you embody it and commit to growth. Success in this role requires grit, dynamism, teamwork, care, and passion (also our team’s five values).

Responsibilities

• Embody our mission of universal access to civil legal aid and work with the team to make sure that employment law and public benefits needs of all clients in our service area are met by ourselves or others and Open Door Legal gets good legal outcomes and maintains high client satisfaction.
• Ensure you have mastery in legal advocacy and the relevant practice areas to oversee the legal advice and representation provided by your team to our guests and clients.
• Hire, train, support, mentor, and manage all employment law and public benefits staff, interns, fellows, and volunteers in collaboration with the Director of Talent and Culture. This includes performance management, professional development, and building a cohesive team culture.
• Develop and maintain public relations with government agencies, decision-makers, other legal aid organizations, and the community.
• Use creative strategies and data to ensure that your team is working smarter, not harder, in order to increase the capacity of the department and reach the collective strategic vision for your department.
• Lead the knowledge management of all areas of employment law and public benefits for Open Door Legal. Drive the creation of uniform systems, checklists, and templates to increase the capacity of all team members to deliver consistently high-quality work products with minimal supervision, and ensure you and your team are following best practices.
• Along with team members, bring and develop innovative solutions to tricky issues around case capacity concerns, intake distribution, case opening standards, department success criteria, verification of quality control, and onboarding new attorneys.
• Drive the creation of uniform systems, checklists, solutions, best practice protocols, and templates to increase the capacity of all team members to deliver consistently high-quality work products with minimal supervision.
• Provide and ensure your team is providing services and support to our low-income clients with sensitivity and awareness to cultural, socio-economic, and disability barriers to service and can skillfully navigate difficult or tense situations. Ensure that the employment law/public benefits department’s client feedback rating continues to be positive.
• Embrace and embody our values of teamwork, grit, caring, passion, and dynamism.

Requirements

Applicants who are members in good standing with the State Bar of California, or licensed in good standing with another state bar, may be considered.

• At least six (6) years of relevant professional experience as a licensed attorney.
• At least two (2) years of employment law experience.
• Experience directly supervising paid staff attorneys. Must be able to provide references from attorneys supervised.
• Knowledge of California public benefits and experience representing clients at administrative law hearings.
• Must genuinely enjoy and be motivated by working with low-income clients, many of whom are people of color, and be able to work effectively with clients impacted by trauma (emotional, mental, and physical).
• Strong time management skills to effectively supervise and perform legal work in a fast-paced environment and high-volume practice.
• Show an enthusiasm for and commitment to self-learning and professional development.
• Excellent writing, editing, and proofreading skills, with the ability to be detail-oriented.
• Excellent interpersonal and diplomacy skills to excel in providing constructive feedback to people you supervise and in building relationships with other organizations and agencies as ODL's ambassador.
• Must be able and willing to work out of one or more of our office locations at least three (3) days/week.
• High level of comfortability learning and using technology and case management systems. We use Salesforce, Dropbox, and the Google Suite.
• Active demonstration of cultural humility and sensitivity to barriers low-income San Franciscans face when attempting to access the justice system.
• Demonstrated understanding of how to effectively provide trauma-informed advocacy for clients in crisis.
• Dogged perseverance in the face of bureaucratic barriers.
• Must be legally authorized to work in the U.S without sponsorship.

Bonus Points

• Comfort translating and interpreting from English to Spanish, Mandarin, or Cantonese and vice versa legal information without assistance (this comes with a slight compensation increase).
• Experience working with low-income and vulnerable populations.
• Experience working in a high-volume direct services legal aid or similar environment.
• Having lived a significant period of your life in San Francisco proper, specifically, a connection to the Bayview/Hunters Point, Excelsior, Sunset, Western Addition, Tenderloin, or Mission neighborhoods.

Starting compensation (annually) is $89,500-$111,500 based on experience.

• Loan Repayment Assistance - for staff pursuing 10-year public interest debt forgiveness, we will pay the minimum payment on all qualifying loans so that you don’t need to worry about student loan debt (this is a conditional benefit).
• Medical/Dental/Vision Plan offerings at 100% coverage
• Generous paid time off (four weeks vacation and two weeks sick/care)
• Generous paid parental leave
• 401K/Retirement Account
• We believe everyone is always learning. We financially invest in individual professional development for each staff member which can include mentorships, coaching, and learning opportunities (conferences, workshops, etc.).
• We are a fun and hard-working office with best-in-class technology solutions for anyone who’s passionate about making a meaningful and measurable difference.

Applications submitted prior to November 13, 2026 will receive priority consideration.

Open Door Legal is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or any other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local law including the San Francisco Fair chance Ordinance.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance or accommodations due to a disability, please let us know at whitney [at] opendoorlegal [dot] org.

Open Door Legal is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or any other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local law, including the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance.

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance or accommodations due to a disability, please let us know at whitney[at]opendoorlegal[dot]org.