BayLegal's Legal Advice Line (LAL) is an innovative and nationally recognized hotline model through which theteam provides immediate legal assistance to low-income individuals and families throughout the San Francisco Bay Area in the areas of housing, family law, public benefits, and consumer law. The LAL team play a critical role empowering client with tools to address their immediate legal needs and crisis, identifying systemic issues and patterns and engaging in advocacy.
Health Consumer Center (HCC) is BayLegal’s health law access practice team. BayLegal is part of a statewide network of community-based legal services providers, the California Health Consumer Alliance (HCA), who together work to protect health care rights and a stable health care delivery system. BayLegal’s HCC team serve low-income communities in seven Bay Area counties, namely: Alameda, San Francisco, Contra Costa, Santa Clara, Marin, Napa, and Sonoma. The HCC staff operate a legal hotline providing legal assistance and representation to address client's needs as they relate to accessing health care. In addition to providing direct legal services, HCC attorneys participate in various stakeholder workgroups with state agencies and other health advocate groups. The HCC team also engage advocacy to address systemic barriers and issues impacting access to effective and eligible healthcare services and coverage, including affirmative lawsuits challenging the application of administrative procedures, and through informal advocacy with our government partners regarding insurance coverage and enrollment.
Supervising Attorney Position: BayLegal seeks an attorney with a strong commitment to public interest and social justice advocacy to become the Supervising Attorney of the Health Consumer Center and Legal Advice Line. This position is based in our Oakland office serving clients throughout the Bay Area. The Supervising Attorney works closely with the LAL/HCC Managing Attorney and is responsible for supervising and supporting the staff attorneys and their work to ensure clients receive high quality legal services, there is effective and impactful project management and grant deliverable compliance.
As a Supervising Attorney you will have the opportunity to:
- Learn about and engage with the diverse legal needs of low-income communities in the broader Bay Area and contribute to BayLegal’s work and mission to reduce homelessness, enhance stability, break systemic cycles of poverty, and address social injustice.
- Provide day‐to‐day legal supervision and support to HCC and LAL staff.
- Ensures HCC participation in relevant local, regional, and statewide taskforces and policy advocacy efforts that further the interests of our HCC client community and access to healthcare generally.
- Monitor and manage call flow on BayLegal’s hotlines.
- Provide direct client services as appropriate.
- Conduct training, mentoring, evaluation, and professional development of HCC and LAL staff.
- Develop, support, and engage in collaborations with community partners to address systemic barriers facing BayLegal's client community.
- Engage the team in annual planning, periodic reviews of priorities, and responses to emerging issues in the client community.
- Work with BayLegal's development, grants and contracts, and communications teams to promote BayLegal's mission and resource development.
- Engage in other tasks and projects that further BayLegal's mission and operations as a non-profit.
Requirements/Qualifications/About the Successful Candidate:
- Humility in working with colleagues and clients across the spectrum of diversity, including race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, immigrant status, religious identity, physical and mental disabilities, and/or limited English proficiency.
- Membership in good standing in the California State Bar.
- Five or more years practice as a licensed attorney with experience developing projects and leading diverse teams.
- Legal supervision experience strongly preferred.
- Direct service experience, particularly in the areas of healthcare access and/or housing, consumer, family, or public benefits law.
- Knowledge of and demonstrated commitment to practices addressing secondary trauma, burnout, and sustainability for staff.
- Excellent attention to detail in ensuring compliance with complex federal regulations for legal services programs.
- Comfortable/highly efficient using cloud-based technologies such as Justice Server and NICE InContact.
- Experience providing direct legal services on a legal advice hotline preferred.
- Positive attitude, sense of humor and proactive problem-solver.
- Strong personal work ethic and ability to organize time, manage diverse activities, and meet critical deadlines.
- Excellent writing, editing, and proof‐reading skills, with ability to be detail oriented.
- Strong interpersonal skills and an ability to work collaboratively with a dynamic team and recognize, address, and resolve interpersonal conflict.
- Ability to develop and implement effective training and mentorship programs for new staff.
- Ability to take decisive action and ensure accountability.
- Ability to multitask and complete goals and objectives in stressful situations, which can include responding to emergency client situations/complaints and constant interruptions by hotline staff triaging calls.
- Diverse candidates and those fluent in languages widely spoken in BayLegal's client communities are strongly encouraged to apply.
COVID-19: BayLegal is committed to the health and safety of our staff, clients, and community. Being accessible to our client communities is integral to our mission and commitment as a direct services community-based law firm. BayLegal has implemented detailed health and safety protocols to minimize risk of exposure and continues to increase in-person services and activities in our offices and community-based advocacy sites. Currently, most BayLegal employees work a hybrid model including on-site and in-person work and working from home on a part-time basis. All employees are expected to reside in California and at a distance allowing them to commute to their physical BayLegal base location and service delivery locations as needed during the standard work week and in compliance with public health advisories.
Compensation and Benefits: We offer a diverse, family friendly environment, and compensation based on competitive public interest salaries along with a generous benefits package. The estimated starting annual salary range for this position is: $95,000 - $105,000 (placement in range determined primarily by years of related experience). BayLegal's benefits package includes 100% employer covered medical, dental, and life insurance for employees and up to 40-50% for dependents; long term disability insurance; stipends for bilingual employees whose language skills are used in the provision of work tasks; student debt repayment program; dependent childcare employer contribution program and 401k retirement plan following first year. Paid leave policy includes sick leave; parental leave; 15 holidays each year and vacation (starting at 13 days and increasing with additional years of employment).
Application Instructions: BayLegal thrives on our diversity, and we are proud to be an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a culturally diverse workplace and strongly encourage women, LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual) and QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) individuals, veterans, individuals who have been impacted by the criminal justice system, persons with disabilities, and persons from other underrepresented groups to apply. We are committed to equal employment opportunity and providing reasonable accommodations to qualified candidates and employees pursuant to applicable law. We value and encourage diversity and solicit applications from all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, gender, sex, age, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability, medical condition, military and veteran status, gender identity or expression, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. If you require a reasonable accommodation as part of the application process, please contact BayLegal’s Human Resources Manager at (510) 250-5225.
BayLegal will begin reviewing applications upon receipt and continue until the position is filled. Please submit (1) cover letter that includes a response to the question below (no page limit), (2) resume, (3) references, and (4) a writing sample through BayLegal’s career application portal.
As part of your cover letter,pleaseaddress the following:
BayLegal’s clients are low-income and very low-income members of our communities. They include LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer, Intersex, Asexual) and QTBIPOC (Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) individuals, the working poor, seniors, people who are limited English proficient, veterans, persons with disabilities, survivors of abuse and exploitation, individuals impacted by the criminal justice system, and people who are experiencing or at risk of homeless, and persons from other underrepresented groups. To ensure our organization is best serving these populations, BayLegal strives to promote an evolving set of behaviors and attitudes amongst our staff, as well as policies that enable us to work effectively across cultures, with clients, with our coworkers, and with the community. We see this as a commitment to enhance the provision of our services to all clients; to raise the level of positive client outcomes; and to create an inclusive and respectful workplace in which differences are acknowledged and valued.
How do you think your experiences, professional or otherwise, prepared you to serve our diverse client base effectively, work effectively with colleagues from different backgrounds than your own, and to contribute to our commitment to humility, inclusion, and diversity? Feel free to think broadly about your response to this question, applying various aspects of your life and personal experiences.