Staff Attorney, Juvenile Law Center

Posted by Juvenile Law Center on March 21, 2016

Juvenile Law Center seeks a dedicated, creative, and experienced lawyer to join our office as a staff attorney. The attorney should have a minimum of five years of experience in juvenile justice, child welfare, criminal justice, civil rights, or a closely related field. Juvenile Law Center is committed to building a culturally diverse staff and strongly encourages people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, individuals with disabilities, and those with personal experience in the juvenile justice or child welfare systems to apply.

Juvenile Law Center is a national public interest law firm located in Philadelphia. Juvenile Law Center plays a leadership role nationally and in Pennsylvania in shaping and using the law on behalf of children in the child welfare and justice systems to promote fairness, prevent harm, secure access to appropriate services, and ensure a smooth transition from adolescence to adulthood. Our strategies include litigation, appellate advocacy and submission of amicus briefs, policy reform, public education, training, and strategic communications. We strive to ensure that laws, policies, and practices affecting youth are rooted in research, consistent with children’s unique developmental characteristics, applied fairly, and reflective of international human rights values.

Our current work focuses on:

• Keeping kids in the community: reforming juvenile detention, de-criminalizing typical adolescent behavior
• Advocating for fairness and due process: fighting for procedural due process, access to counsel, and promoting racial and economic justice for youth in the child welfare and justice systems
• Protecting youth in out-of-home placement: ensuring safe and supportive conditions for incarcerated youth and youth in congregate care in the child welfare system, ensuring high quality education for system-involved youth
• Confronting problems with the criminal justice system: challenging harsh sentencing of youth, including life without parole, and reducing transfers to the adult system
• Promoting second chances: challenging the disclosure of juvenile records and promoting community and school re-entry for youth in the justice system
• Supporting successful transitions to adulthood: supporting normalcy and extended care for older youth in the foster care system, ensuring educational opportunities for court-involved youth, supporting system-involved youth with disabilities

Responsibilities:
The new staff attorney will work on projects in many of our work areas, collaborating in a highly collegial atmosphere with attorneys, communications, development, and administrative staff, and in partnership with colleagues around the state and country. The work will include litigation, policy advocacy, public education, media advocacy, legal and non-legal writing, training, technical assistance, coordinating state or national reform efforts including organizing and facilitating meetings, and other duties as assigned. The job will require some travel in Pennsylvania and nationally.

http://jlc.org/about-us/who-we-are/working-at-jlc/staff-attorney