Family Defense Practice Lead

The ideal candidate will have most if not all of the following professional and personal qualities, skills, and characteristics:

Required
-J.D. from an American Bar Association accredited law school.
-Family defense / parent defense experience.
-Prior experience managing and developing individual team members.
-Enthusiastic alignment and commitment to SSR’s mission, vision and values.
-Ability and desire to manage multiple projects at once.
-Demonstrated commitment to racial, gender and social equity and against institutional racism.
-Desire AND experience working with or on behalf of members or marginalized communities.
-Superb communication skills.
-Sound decision-making skills and ability to set clear priorities.

Preferred
-Indigent Defense experience.
-5+ years of progressive work experience.
-Exceptional team building and management skills.
-Experience working on collaborative, interdisciplinary legal teams.

In addition, strong candidates will offer:
-Multi-cultural competence and demonstrated ability to work with people from a variety of ethnic, racial, socio-economic, educational, linguistic, and religious backgrounds, as well as people of various physical abilities, sexual orientations, gender identities, and generations.
-History of building and maintaining a strong staff and partnering with senior leaders to develop the culture of the organization; able to act decisively, communicate decisions transparently, and delegate to and work cooperatively with senior leaders and direct reports.
-Demonstrated ability to build capacity for the long run including building upon current internal systems, structures, and policies and/or supporting the development of staff in a way that leads to the sustainability of the organization.
-Strong learning orientation i.e. can learn from mistakes, have a desire to continuously improve and grow, and have the capacity to foster this with direct reports.
-Proven track record successfully leading end-to-end projects; able to execute effectively under pressure with attention to detail, comfortable with multi-tasking and shifting priorities strategically and with flexibility when needed, and ability to solve problems creatively.
-Empathetic and compassionate leadership style with the ability to develop and maintain good working relationships with clients, staff, partner organizations, donors, government officials, judges and court personnel, and members of local holistic human services and advocacy coalitions.
-Track record of motivating and inspiring others to achieve impact through creativity and teamwork, with the ability to foster an environment for staff that celebrates the wins along the way while keeping an eye on the long-term goals of the work.