Director of Legal Access Programs, Acacia Center for Justice

Director of Legal Access Programs, Acacia Center for Justice

Acacia Center for Justice (Acacia) is a new non-profit that seeks to deliver and advocate for meaningful and effective access to justice and freedom for immigrants at risk of detention or deportation. Acacia partners with an independent and accountable nationwide network of immigrant legal service providers and community partners.
Robust access to legal information, orientation, and advice is a key part of ensuring and protecting freedom and due process for all immigrants at risk of detention or deportation. To that end, Acacia and its partners operate and manage a portfolio of nationwide legal access programs funded by the federal government. These legal access programs provide legal orientation and information and limited legal advice to people in deportation proceedings, as well as to the custodians of children in immigration proceedings, so that they understand their legal rights in the complex, adversarial, and high-stakes immigration legal system.
Position:
Acacia’s Director of Legal Access Programs will play a key role in protecting, strengthening, and expanding programs and expanding robust and meaningful legal access for all immigrants. The compensation range for this position is $155,000-$165,000. The salary provided within this range depends on factors including but not limited to professional and lived experience. The salary range listed is just one component of Acacia’s total compensation package for employees. Supporting Acacia staff—both personally and professionally—is our priority. To do this, we invest in the well-being of our staff through other rewards including generous paid time off, a comprehensive health insurance plan, student loan repayment benefits, professional development training opportunities and up to $2,000 annual for education costs and fees relevant to Acacia work, employer-funded retirement plan, and flexible time and remote work schedules.
Responsibilities:
Creating a unified vision of core standards for provision of legal access, orientation, and advice services
Identifying and challenging barriers to robust and meaningful legal access that prevent people in immigration detention and in deportation proceedings from accessing the promise of equal justice under the law
Refining and transforming legal access programs to better support and enhance the reach and impact of legal representation programs
Supervise Acacia’s legal access programs, supporting each Program Director to ensure optimal program functioning, to navigate key stakeholder relationships, and, over time, to expand and strengthen the legal access programs
Collaborate with Acacia’s Director of Technical Compliance to provide consultation on technical contract issues that impact the functioning and impact of the legal access programs
Through collaboration with internal and external stakeholders, including researchers, practitioners, and impacted communities, identify and implement into Acacia’s programs the best practices in operating and managing legal access programs.
Ensure the highest level of coordination among Acacia’s various legal access programs in all aspects of program functioning – management, operations, training, research and evaluation, and related areas
Build relationships in the field and with and among other stakeholders to press for access to justice and freedom for all immigrants
Represent Acacia in the field and among other stakeholders in program, policy, legal, and strategy discussions regarding immigrant legal access
Build consensus in the field around the core components of meaningful legal access, identify the barriers to legal access and innovate and advocate for solutions to these barriers
In collaboration with the Chief Programs Officer and Chief Strategy and Program Innovation Officer, advance principles and standards for meaningful legal access and orientation programming and champion policies that promote meaningful legal access for all people facing detention and deportation
In collaboration with the Chief Programs Officer and Chief Strategy and Program Innovation Officer, push the field toward transformation of legal access programs to enhance the reach and impact of legal representation programs, including by briefing funders and other external stakeholders
Work to forge and cement alliances, coalitions, and allyship in the field even where disagreements about strategies, emphasis, or goals exist
Bring in new allies to the field, including allies from the criminal defense, mental health advocacy, and community organizing fields
In partnership with key internal and external stakeholders, envision and drive the strategic innovation of Acacia’s legal access work, including the creation of ambitious standards for expanding robust, meaningful, and person-centered legal access for people in deportation proceedings and immigration detention
In collaboration with the Chief Programs Officer and Chief Strategy and Program Innovation Officer, propose new legal access models and program approaches, such as a strengthened Friend of the Court model or other successful legal self-help models, and pilot and measure the impact of those models
In collaboration with the Chief Programs Officer and Chief Strategy and Program Innovation Officer, propose new ways in which legal access programs can strengthen and serve as the gateway to expanded full legal representation models
In partnership with key internal and external stakeholders, study and assess the implications of other historical and contemporary movements for legal access and orientation and pilot the application of best lessons from that study to maximize the reach of Acacia’s legal access programs
Work with Acacia leadership to ensure that staff on Acacia’s legal access programs have meaningful opportunities for growth and professional development, including through fundraising and relationship building
Qualifications:
Advanced degree in Law or Public Policy or similar degree and 10+ years of relevant work experience in legal access or representation services, immigration policy, or a related field
Demonstrated and robust understanding of the U.S. immigration system and its history, laws, policies, and political dynamics, and an uncompromising commitment to immigrants’ rights
Demonstrated understanding of how person-centeredness impacts the reach and effectiveness of legal access and of the role of race in how people have – or do not have – meaningful access to legal information, orientation, or advice
Experience supervising interdisciplinary teams, supporting contract deliverables, and supporting staff of different experience levels
Exceptional stakeholder management and communication skills; the demonstrated ability to build credibility within the immigrants’ rights field; and the ability to engage and persuade broader audiences without resorting to technical language
Demonstrated capacity to engage in strategic planning and innovation, especially to remove barriers to, expand, and strengthen legal access for all immigrants
Demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively with others toward short- and longer-term goals
Deep commitment to race, equity, and inclusion, and to treating others, regardless of organizational hierarchy, with empathy, patience, and person-centeredness
In accordance with federal contracts, a National Crime Information Center (NCIC) check is required for this position
Zoom, Microsoft Office suite, Outlook, Slack, Samsung/iPhone cellular phone, Adobe, SharePoint, VPN, Smartsheet access, and other software applications as the need arises.
Experience negotiating obstacles to access to justice for people in carceral, detention, or institutional settings
Experience providing legal defense to people who are detained or incarcerated.
Program management experience, especially of legal service or representation programs that contain a training and technical assistance component
Additional degree or experience in a policy, management, or program innovation field, including, e.g., an M.S.W., M.B.A., or like degree or experience
Experience with community organizing and connecting grassroots ideas to innovative solutions
Willingness and capacity (with support) to engage in fundraising, particularly to scale grassroots innovations to expand and strengthen legal defense for immigrants
Knowledge of the immigrants’ rights field, including previous experience working with key field stakeholders
Experience building partnerships with legal services providers to meet the needs of people in jails, prisons, and/or immigration detention
Lived experience and/or demonstrated commitment to challenging inequities and racism in the immigration legal system
Demonstrated ability to promote team/coalition cohesion, to build staff morale, and to function as an equitable team member
How to Apply:
Email resume and cover letter to [email protected] with Subject: ATTN: Human Resources / [Job Title], Acacia Center for Justice.
No phone calls, please. Only applicants selected for interviews will be contacted.

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