Supervising Attorney, Families Together

Childrens Law Center; Washington; On-site; USD 110,000 - 160,000; Full time

Job summary

The Families Together Supervising Attorney at Children’s Law Center oversees training, supervision, and development of staff and volunteers, ensuring culturally humble and trauma-informed representation for DC children and families. The role balances case oversight with leadership responsibilities and program innovation.

You will conduct regular supervision meetings, review pleadings, mentor junior attorneys, coordinate with policy and external partners, and help advance guardianship, custody

Qualifications

• JD and DC Bar membership or immediate eligibility.
• At least two years of experience in family law matters in DC and/or related fields.
• Experience in a legal services setting and in at least one of: special education, housing, public benefits, child welfare.

Responsibilities

• Supervise and develop staff attorneys; mentor and train volunteers.
• Attend hearings and review pleadings; provide feedback and coaching.
• Ensure high-quality, culturally humble, trauma-informed representation.
• Lead program activities and coordinate with program leadership.
• Maintain a reduced caseload and provide brief advice and referrals.

Skills

Family law

DC legal services

Litigation

Advocacy

Education

Juris Doctor (JD) and DC Bar admission

Job description

Who We Are

Children’s Law Center is a mission-driven organization focused on providing high-quality legal services to children and families in DC. As an organization, we envision a world in which all children have a strong foundation of family, health and education and are free from poverty, trauma, racism and other forms of oppression. Our mission is to do this work together with DC children and families, Children’s Law Center uses the law to solve children’s urgent problems today, improve the systems that will affect their lives tomorrow and strengthen our community so that change endures. A key part of our mission is to challenge and reduce ways in which racism and other biases – structural and interpersonal – prevent each of us, our organization and the systems in which we work from providing children a strong foundation from which to thrive.

Our greatest assets are our people. We recognize that people with diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives fuel our ability to provide the best outcomes for our clients and our community. Staff members at Children’s Law Center advance the organization’s mission through their leadership, result-oriented mindset and commitment to cultural humility. We are looking for individuals who like to be challenged to grow both personally and professionally and value the opportunity to make a difference in their community. Children's Law Center's continued success depends on recruiting and retaining individuals who possess and exemplify these attributes.

Program Description

Children's Law Center (CLC) has a long history of working with parents and caregivers to help them solve problems that threaten a child’s health, safety and well-being. By providing legal services at the right time, attorneys can lift burdens of poverty that often drain a client’s capacity to care for their child. Through our Families Together program, Children’s Law Center expands the range of legal assistance provided to parents and caregivers.

Families Together supports pregnant persons, parents and caregivers in achieving their goals for their families, with the long-term outcome of mitigating the risk of child welfare involvement and ensuring children can remain safely at home. When appointed, Families Together attorneys also achieve positive outcomes for children by representing their best interests in contested custody disputes.

To reach families, Children’s Law Center partners with community-based organizations, the Court and governmental agencies that share our commitment to strengthening DC families impacted by poverty.

Job Summary

The Families Together Supervising Attorney serves as the primary supervisor and is responsible for the training, supervision, professional development and evaluation of supervisees. The supervising attorney is responsible for ensuring that their supervisees provide high-quality, culturally humble and trauma-informed representation. Supervision tasks include being regularly available to supervisees, attending hearings, reviewing pleadings, actively participating in trial preparation, providing consistent and timely feedback on performance and ensuring compliance with program and organizational policies. The supervising attorney meets regularly with their supervisor to review case issues and trends, spot supervision and mentoring issues, assess plans for assisting in the professional development of their supervisees and assist with innovation and evaluation efforts.

In addition to supervising staff attorneys, the supervisor maintains a reduced caseload, provides brief advice and services, mentors and trains volunteer pro bono attorneys, supports program partnerships, and leads specific projects as delegated by the Families Together program leadership and/or Chief Legal Officer.

Supervisory Responsibilities

Supervision: Quality Supervision Meetings

• Conduct regular meetings with supervisees to develop case strategies and ensure high-quality representation and services to clients and potential clients.
• Meet regularly with the Families Together program leadership to discuss issues and develop strategies for their cases and those of their supervisees, review supervising tasks and techniques and assess and plan for professional development and performance.
• Ensure attorneys are spotting and referring cases to the Appellate Team in accordance with the Targeted Appellate Strategy Issue List.

Supervision: CLC Policy and Protocol Adherence

• Ensure compliance with applicable policies and protocols, including case planning notes, litigation protocol, timekeeping policy, client visitation and contact protocol, and supervision standards.
• Ensure organizational and program goals related to data collection, case and intake handling and timelines are met.

Supervision: Formal Advocacy and Litigation

• Accompany supervisees to court appearances for the first three months of new staff attorneys’ employment, and thereafter at the supervisees’ request or as required in the supervisor’s judgment.
• Review all written work prepared by new staff during their first six months of employment and as needed following that period.
• Provide ongoing feedback on informal and formal advocacy, court appearances and written materials, including trial preparation.
• Lead litigation meetings for supervisees.

Supervision: Professional Development

• Partner with and support direct reports on their professional development and promotion readiness.
• Set annual goals, participate in quarterly and annual goal reviews and exchange timely feedback (e.g., coaching, appreciation, evaluation) to assist in staff development.
• Identify supervisees’ strengths and provide support and direction around professional development.
• Identify supervisees’ challenges and formulate plans, timelines and measures of success to address them.
• Regularly address supervisee performance with support of the program leadership.

Supervision: Personnel Management

• Interview, hire and train new staff.
• Provide constructive and timely performance evaluations.
• Provide tools, resources and training to support and hold direct reports accountable to:
  • Role expectations (job requirements).
  • Compliance with programmatic requirements.
• Identify and elevate trends related to morale, culture, and programmatic and organizational issues.
• Support and strengthen a positive work culture.
• Keep program leadership or supervisor apprised of:
  • High-performing direct reports.
  • Direct reports ready for promotion.
  • Direct reports failing to perform adequately.
• Partner with program leadership or supervisor:
  • If there are conflicts among staff.
  • If direct report requests or supervisor believes modification of job function is needed.
  • If direct report requests or supervisor believes deviation from organizational policy is needed.
• Handle discipline and termination of employees in accordance with CLC policy.
• Partner with program leadership or supervisor and HIRED:
  • When progressive discipline is appropriate.
  • When accommodation or other deviations from standard performance are warranted.

Supervision: Program Activities

• Attend and at times facilitate Families Together team and other CLC meetings as directed.
• Take a leadership role in program activities as assigned, including conducting trainings and preparing training and other materials.
• Participate in office-wide and program-wide supervisor meetings as scheduled.

Role Responsibilities

Organizational and Program Leadership

• Work with the Families Together program leadership to instill a shared vision and values throughout the program and CLC.
• Work with the Families Together program leadership to ensure effective communication and support across programs, including effectively cascading information and messaging to staff around program initiatives.
• Coordinate with the Policy and Special Legal Projects teams and other in-house CLC direct legal services programs to maximize CLC’s impact.
• Work with the Families Together program leadership and supervisors to ensure the Families Together team consistently provides high-quality, culturally humble and trauma-informed representation and services to clients and potential clients.
• Maintain expertise in the Program’s legal issue areas, including but not limited to custody, guardianship, adoption matters and guardian ad litem representation in custody cases as well as other legal issue areas such as housing, special education and/or public benefits.
• Work with the Families Together program leadership, as well as the Chief Legal Officer, as appropriate, to develop and implement new approaches and cutting-edge legal strategy.
• Help lead program evaluation, innovation and improvements in casework, supervision, training and service delivery.
• Ensure organizational and program goals related to outcomes, data collection, case and intake handling and timelines are met by collaborating with the Families Together program leadership.

Project Management and Program Support

• Support the development and improvement of program systems for communication, case handling and service delivery, as assigned.
• Nurture and build relationships with external program partners, including medical and agency partners, to expand impact and increase effectiveness of Families Together, as assigned.
• Support program evaluation, grant-related work and other program initiatives, as assigned.
• Support legal intake processes and participate in case assignment and workload planning.

Case Handling

• Maintain a reduced caseload (depending upon the needs of the Program and supervisory responsibilities), providing high-quality, culturally humble and trauma-informed legal representation to individual clients.
• Support and handle program intakes as assigned, and provide brief advice, brief services and referrals.
• Ensure timely and accurate input of case information into LegalServer.

Pro Bono Support

• Mentor external pro bono volunteer attorneys handling legal matters referred by CLC that are within the Supervising Attorney’s areas of expertise.
• Develop and conduct pro bono trainings as assigned.

Systemic Work

• Provide support to CLC’s Policy team in areas of expertise to address the systemic needs of CLC’s clients.
• Participate in community advocate meetings and collaborate with other legal services providers and family-law and child-welfare advocates on practice issues, coordination and systemic improvements.
• Participate on court or other external committees as needed and requested by the Families Together program leadership.

Other duties as assigned.

Required Skills and Experience

• JD and D.C. Bar membership or immediate eligibility for admission without examination.
• At least two years of experience in each of the following areas; experience may overlap between the two categories:
  • Providing legal services in family law matters in DC, including custody, child support, guardianship, adoption matters and/or guardian ad litem representation in custody cases.
  • Working in a legal services setting and providing legal services in at least one of the following practice areas: special education, housing, public benefits, child welfare or related fields.
• Prior litigation experience.
• A commitment to fostering