Description:
Job Purpose:
A Progressive Judicial Advocacy Group and A Progressive Judicial Advocacy Group Action Campaign are
seeking a lawyer with two or more years of experience to serve in the
role of Building the Bench Counsel. The Counsel will be part an integral
part of the Justice Team and will help develop and achieve A Progressive Judicial Advocacy Group and A Progressive Judicial Advocacy Group's Building the Bench (BtB) goals. Those goals include
transforming our courts by developing a pool of highly qualified state
and federal judicial nominees to put forward for selection, as well as a
complementary campaign to highlight the importance of filling those
vacancies with professionally and demographically diverse movement
lawyers.
The BtB Counsel will assist with our
tracking, training, advocacy, research, coalition leadership, and
Judicial Legacies events. At times, the Counsel will also assist the
federal court team and the state courts team with post-nomination work
like advocacy, nominee reports, substantive reports, and multimedia
campaigns.
Duties and Responsibilities:
The Counsel will report to the Deputy Director for Building the Bench and will be responsible for the following:
- Help set team strategies, identify geographic priorities, and craft a continually developing work plan for BtB and judicial legacies;
- Identify and research potential qualified candidates for the BtB pipeline;
- Oversee the research of potential nominees, including in coordination with law firms, initiative partners, outside counsel, and volunteers;
- Review and edit research, op-eds, fact sheets, and reports for our federal and state courts work, including those about specific nominees as well as substantive topics like judicial diversity;
- Help draft, review, and edit press and collateral materials for BtB, including fact sheets, blogs, web presence, social media, press, and reports;
- Support meetings with key legislative and executive offices in coordination with the state and federal courts teams;
- Help engage and support the BtB Advisory Council and A Progressive Judicial Advocacy Group Action board;
- Liaise and help build relationships with partner groups, nominations coalition, A Progressive Judicial Advocacy Group members, and other thought-leaders and allied organizations;
- Work with A Progressive Judicial Advocacy Group's networks of attorneys and community leaders to source referrals for potential candidates;
- Speak at legal and policy conferences, and brief academics, member organizations, and other audiences on BtB and other initiatives;
- Identify state and federal judges who should be honored for their legacies and do outreach to the clerk networks of those judges;
- Help plan and execute judicial legacies events (in coordination with other internal teams);
- Work with the communications team on the external presence for building the bench and judicial legacies initiatives;
- Coordinate with the state and federal courts teams to develop relationships with key judicial gatekeepers;
- Coordinate with law firms, outside counsel, law students, and non-attorney volunteers to advance the above initiatives; and
- Other duties as assigned.
Desired Qualifications:
- J.D. and 2+ years of experience in legal, policy and advocacy work;
- Experience in judicial pipelines, judicial clerkships, civil rights, labor, consumer, public interest and/or constitutional law is preferred;
- Ability to work quickly and independently under pressure, with shifting deadlines and priorities;
- Strong networking experience with progressive coalitions and legal communities;
- Capacity to manage multiple long-term and short-term projects simultaneously;
- Experience coordinating staff across various geographies and issue areas;
- Excellent oral and written communications skills, shifting for different audiences;
- Demonstrated commitment to underrepresented and diverse constituencies;
- Strong attention to detail and ability to multitask;
- Strong project and data management skills, and experience working with CRM databases preferred;
- Ability to keep all job-acquired information confidential;
- Ability to inspire and work collegially with others;
- Passion for civil rights, social justice, and judicial advocacy; and
- Strong interpersonal skills and positive attitude.