Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS) is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity/Accessible Employer and strives to ensure that our staff members reflect the diversity of the communities we serve.
Greater Boston Legal Services is a social and economic justice-driven organization dedicated to ensuring that all residents of the Greater Boston area are able to meet their basic needs for safety, shelter, and stability. GBLS uses the law to positively change the lives of thousands of low-income clients and their families annually, and to achieve groundbreaking outcomes that challenge the systems that keep people in poverty.
Position: GBLS seeks a part-time Fellow to join our team. This position will focus on the intersection of community advocacy, racial and queer justice.
Location: This position is hybrid. The primary base is in our Boston office – 197 Friend Street, Boston, MA 02114 - and it is in person 1-2 days a week.
Hours: This position is for 10 hours a week. The daily schedule will be based on the Fellow’s weekly availability, their project progress, and may change over time but will be regular. Normal office operations time is Monday through Friday, from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm.
Duties:
• Fellow will "shadow" each of GBLS’ legal units
• Fellow will attend court, legal clinics, community meetings
• Fellow will take what they learn from legal units to create an outreach plan to visit LGBTQ+ community partners in Greater Boston
• Fellow will co-create an outreach and collaboration strategy with Queer serving community partners
• For their final project Fellow will design and execute a community event to discuss the state of legal aid resources with queer serving organizations, LGBTQ+ community members, and legal aid advocates
Duties in office:
• Listen to presentations from legal units
• Draft documents for the culminating project
• Connect with racial and queer justice advocates
This is a stipend-based fellowship. The monthly stipend allotment is $875 (Total $3,500 for the 4-month duration of this fellowship). This rate is based on the City of Boston’s living wage pay scale. The stipend will be paid on a monthly basis. For the community events GBLS will cover transportation to and from the event site.
Fellowship Questions-
An essay OR 5-minute video answering each of the following questions:
1. The LGBTQ+ community is not a monolith. Tell us about your experience as a young person in the larger queer community and how you carve out space for yourself in such a large, diverse community.
2. The criminal justice and civil justice spaces are not always welcoming to Queer people and people of color. What types of changes would you make for our court system to a more equitable, just space for queer, people of color
GBLS encourages applicants from a broad range of backgrounds and experiences.
Qualifications
• 18-25 years old
• Fluency in English
• Excellent oral and written communication skills and good judgement.
• Experience working with community agencies, grassroots organizing, community lawyering, or a reasonable equivalent.
• Experience working with/in LGBTQ2S communities.
• Experience working with/in communities of color.
• Ability to use computer database to enter information and search for information.
• Ability to use basic functions of Microsoft Word and Excel.
• Responsive to feedback about job performance.
• Willingness and ability to learn from community members.
Candidates should submit a resume and answers to the questions below to the Human Resources Team, via e-mail at [email protected]. Please refer to Job Code: EQUALITY FELLOW when applying for this position. Deadline for applications is August 25, 2023 or until the position is filled.