Director | Southern Migrant Legal Services

Director | Southern Migrant Legal Services
NASHVILLE, TN

Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, Inc. (TRLA), a non-profit law firm, seeks a Project Director for its Southern Migrant Legal Services (SMLS) project in Nashville, Tennessee. The SMLS Project Director has the overall responsibility for the direction and smooth functioning of the SMLS project.

Our SMLS office provides high quality legal services to agricultural workers throughout the middle south. Created in 2001 by combining the Legal Services Corporation (LSC) migrant grants of six states (Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee), SMLS is well-known for highly skilled and impactful representation across the region. This 7-person (4-lawyer) office enjoys strong financial and organizational support from its parent organization, TRLA, including from TRLA’s Texas-based farmworker advocacy project.

Continuing in TRLA’s tradition, which has been at the forefront of migrant legal services since its inception in the 1970s, our SMLS office is committed to strategic and principled litigation on behalf of marginalized agricultural workers. SMLS has developed a significant presence across the region, and a particular expertise in representing H-2A temporary foreign workers and victims of human trafficking. SMLS’s focus is on enforcement of migrant and seasonal agricultural workers’ core employment rights, including (but not limited to) workers’ rights under the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the H-2A Regulations of Immigration and Nationality Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, and contract law. The project also enforces various state and federal workplace anti-discrimination acts, and addresses occupational safety, workers’ compensation and workplace retaliation. SMLS’s caseload involves “impact” litigation, such as complex wage and hour cases, multi-party employment discrimination and human trafficking cases, or cases that address novel areas of the law. To redress workplace victimization, SMLS also files immigration petitions on behalf of workers who were victims of trafficking or other workplace crimes. The project also collaborates with a wide variety of federal and state agencies, community partners, and private counsel from across the SMLS service area.

The Project Director’s primary duties and responsibilities include:

Oversee and coordinate outreach and the provision of legal services to agricultural workers in the states covered by SMLS;

Oversee the administrative processes of SMLS to guarantee both quality services and efficient operations;

Practice law and delegate tasks and duties to staff members;

Recruit, supervise, and discipline staff assigned to SMLS and make hiring and/or firing recommendations to the Labor & Employment Group Coordinator and Executive management regarding all SMLS staff;

Conduct evaluations of SMLS support staff and staff attorneys;

Review (and approve, when appropriate) administrative requests and forms, including time sheets, supply requests, petty cash expenditure requests and applications for leave and travel;

Provide input and gather data for funding proposals and grant reports regarding SMLS;

Help SMLS maintain positive relationships with relevant community and client organizations, the private bar, and other groups that implicate SMLS’s clients and practice areas;

Review and enforce compliance with funding regulations and program policies;

Respond to SMLS staff administrative complaints; and

Implement TRLA policies and procedures as adopted by the Board of Directors or promulgated by the Executive Director.

Compensation and Benefits:   

Salary is commensurate with experience and includes an excellent fringe benefits package, including law school loan repayment, generous paid leave, healthcare insurance, a retirement plan, and training & travel stipends.  

TRLA IS AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER  

At TRLA, we are committed to offering fair and equal employment opportunities to all job applicants and employees. We strictly prohibit any form of discrimination and harassment of any type based on race, color, religion, age, sex, national origin, disability, genetics, protected veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local laws.