Litigation Supervisor, Family Defense Practice

The Organization

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, the Bronx, and Staten Island 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 8 parent advocates working in all four 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.

The Position

CFR is committed to providing robust supervision to program staff, and we have a need for a Litigation Supervisor in the Bronx . Under the supervision of borough Social Work and Litigation Directors, the Litigation Supervisor’s primary responsibility will be to supervise staff attorneys of varying degrees of experience who work in interdisciplinary teams with social work, family advocate, parent advocate and paralegal staff to represent parents in Article 10, Termination of Parental Rights, and related proceedings. Litigation Supervisors are responsible for helping attorneys develop mastery in all aspects of litigation as well as in reinforcing and building upon skills and values introduced in initial and ongoing trainings. Litigation Supervisors write professional development reviews, periodically coordinate case practice and attorney workgroup meetings, and from time to time, develop practice materials useful for staff at CFR. Litigation Supervisors also work with family court staff and staff from other agencies, including ACS, to address substantive and operational issues that affect a large court-based practice.

The Litigation Supervisor will work with other Supervisors and Senior Staff as well as with the Managing Director of Litigation, Director of Integrated Legal Defense, Training Supervisors, Development & HR staff, and Executive Director to inform decisions on strategic planning and overall program development and improvement for the entire agency. In those areas, activities may include administration, hiring and recruitment, training, policy work, development, progressive discipline, fellowships, and appeals. All Supervisors are expected to demonstrate an aptitude for productive problem-solving, a commitment to CFR’s current DEI work, and a desire to contribute to the stewardship of CFR; this includes the ability to positively and productively contribute to the work culture at CFR in communications and work with staff at all levels, including progressive discipline if necessary. Candidates for supervisor also need to be well organized in order to work efficiently and effectively beyond their own caseload and to effectively supervise multiple staff with possibly varying levels of experience.

Qualifications

● Candidates must have at least four to six years of experience in Article 10/TPR family court proceedings or at least seven years of experience representing indigent parties in other related proceedings (i.e. criminal, immigration, housing, benefits, or mental hygiene)

● Prior supervisory experience is preferred.

● Experience with organizational or program development, training, and ancillary proceedings (i.e. custody) are all desirable.

● Candidates must have strong interpersonal communication skills, demonstrated teamwork skills, and an aptitude for problem solving and management of staff.

Salary

$120,500 (L4) - $144,700 (L15)

Apply

Candidates should apply through CFR’s Career Portal .

Application Thought/Writing Exercise Prompt

In lieu of a cover letter, applicants should respond, to the following prompt:

After judges place children in foster care, it is a common and longstanding practice for family court jurists to enter visiting orders that give ACS and foster agencies the discretion to determine the manner, frequency and type of contact between parents and their children. This discretion has proven to both benefit and disadvantage our clients. What issues do you identify with the court’s practice of granting discretion to ACS and agencies to make these decisions?

1. As a Litigation Supervisor, how would you counsel attorney, social work and parent advocate teams surrounding how to navigate these orders? What instructions do you give, and how would you assist the team to execute it?
2. What legal issues do you identify with this practice?
3. What do you think CFR’s practice should be regarding the court’s delegation of decisions regarding parenting time to ACS and foster agencies? Should it change? If yes, how? If no, why not?