Paralegal, Family Defense Practice (Manhattan)

The Center for Family Representation Inc. (CFR) is an award-winning, innovative law and policy organization that serves primarily Black and Brown families and youth in Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx with an interdisciplinary legal defense model that serves more than 2400 clients every year. CFR was originally founded in 2002 to dramatically change the trajectory of indigent parents being prosecuted by the City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). Our goal is to defend and protect our clients’ rights, reduce the harm of family separation and prevent or minimize the time any child spends in the foster system. CFR provides interdisciplinary family defense with a model that was unique at our founding and that is now being replicated nationally: we assign every client an attorney and a social work staff member, and teams have the support of parent advocates, who are parents with direct personal experience of being investigated and prosecuted by ACS. CFR was the first agency in the country to integrate parents with lived experience into legal teams and now has 6 parent advocates working in all three of our family defense locations. CFR’s Community Advocacy Project represents parents during a child protective investigation (to avoid court involvement where possible) and assists parents in clearing their names from state maltreatment records.

As an agency committed to securing justice for families, we built the Youth Defense practice (YDP) to defend youth at risk of family separation through incarceration. YDP uses the same interdisciplinary model to represent youth being prosecuted in Queens and Manhattan in Supreme Court Youth Parts, during Probation Adjustment and in Delinquency proceedings in Family Court. CFR’s Home for Good program provides legal and social work services to clients in immigration, civil legal services and criminal defense matters, to afford clients an efficient and well-coordinated one-stop solution to a range of issues that threaten family stability.

Recognized as experts in our fields, we annually train over 500 practitioners in the city, state and around the country on strategies to promote family preservation and interdisciplinary representation, and we provide community based “Know Your Rights” presentations to parents, youth and service providers. We advocate at the city, state and national level for policies that reduce the harm of family separation, and promote parent engagement and justice for youth and families.

The Paralegal’s primary responsibility will be to work collaboratively with attorneys representing parents in Family Court who are respondents in Article 10 and Termination of Parental Rights proceedings, and to support attorneys in CFR’s Civil, Criminal, and Immigration practices.

Tasks and responsibilities include the following:

• Assist with the borough office’s file maintenance organization and upgrades
• Assist with front desk coverage, including answering and directing phone calls, sorting mail and packages, and greeting visitors
• Prepare and serve legal papers throughout the five boroughs and Long Island
• Open and close client virtual and physical files
• Initiate and follow up on requests for records, including travel to NYC, courthouses, hospitals, clinics and other agencies
• As a member of the paralegal team, support other paralegals by occasionally covering tasks for paralegals in other offices and by assisting with training of newer paralegals
• Produce practice and training materials
• Support program staff in person on intake days by tracking cases filed, participating in intake interviews, obtaining and organizing case information and supporting the team in any additional intake matters when requested
• Participate in office-wide policy initiatives
• Research case citations on Westlaw
• Enter all client data into the database accurately
• Conduct timely conflict checks in the client database
• Bilingual paralegals help interpret for clients and translate documents
• Initiate and follow up on time sensitive transcript requests
• Assist with the administration of our Continuing Legal Education program
• Assist program staff with case preparation and management
• Prepare letters to clients

Paralegals receive ongoing supervision and support from Litigation Supervisors. Paralegals participate in CFR’s internal professional development training opportunities for program staff on our Cornerstone Advocacy model, child welfare, family court, client interviewing, and other critical skills. CFR is dedicated to providing ongoing professional development in best practices in all these areas in a variety of training forums for all staff.

• Applicants should be able to demonstrate a strong undergraduate academic record, strong interpersonal and communication skills, a commitment to supporting families, and a desire to share in both the exhilaration and challenges of a growing endeavor.
• Applicants who are bilingual are strongly encouraged to apply.
• Applicants must have a Bachelor’s degree, preferably with some prior experience, including internships, with the NYC child welfare, education, housing or public benefits’ systems or other social justice experience.