Director of Advocacy

Job Description

Job Description

Description:

About Legal Aid of Western Missouri

Legal Aid of Western Missouri provides free civil legal services to people with limited income and resources across 40 counties in western Missouri. Through seven offices and a staff of 130, we help our clients meet their most basic needs, including secure housing, health care, income, and safety. 

The Opportunity

We are creating the role of Director of Advocacy to help Legal Aid do more for our clients than we can do one case at a time. Every day, our attorneys and legal staff see the same problems arise at intake in different forms: a policy that denies people benefits they qualify for, an agency practice that shuts people out, a pattern of conduct that harms whole communities. The Advocacy Director will build the infrastructure that lets us recognize those patterns and respond to them systemically. This role works in close partnership with our Litigation Director, who leads our litigation strategy, and will sit on our leadership team and report to our Executive Director. 

This is both a builder's role and a hands-on advocate's role. The Director of Advocacy will lead our most complex and highest-impact work directly, whether that's litigation in coordination with our Litigation Director, a set of administrative comments, developing strategy before an agency, or reviewing legislation when we're asked to weigh in. At the same time, they will work through our practice teams, helping our legal staff surface systemic issues, developing the theories and partnerships to act on them, and creating the internal systems that make impact advocacy a sustained part of how we work rather than something that happens when someone finds the time. Success in this role is measured on two fronts: the impact of the work the Director carries, and the growing ability of our teams to take on systemic work of their own.

Key Responsibilities

Build the infrastructure for impact advocacy

• Create and maintain a pipeline for identifying systemic issues from the daily work of our offices and practice teams, turning individual cases into recognized patterns worth acting on.

• Develop the internal systems, protocols, and habits that help our legal staff flag potential impact matters without stepping away from their own case work. 

• Establish and steward relationships with co-counsel, coalition partners, and other advocacy organizations that extend what Legal Aid can accomplish.

Lead advocacy through the practice teams

• Work alongside our practice teams and offices to design and support litigation, from theory development through strategy, in coordination with the Litigation Director.

• Develop administrative advocacy: comments on proposed rules, engagement with agency practice, and other work that changes how systems treat our clients.

• Support legislative advocacy within the limits described below, including responding to requests from legislators or legislative bodies to provide analysis, testimony, or comment.

Strengthen the team's capacity

• Serve as a resource and mentor to attorneys and paralegals taking on their first systemic matters, building the program's collective advocacy skill over time.

• Contribute to leadership discussions about where Legal Aid should focus its advocacy, informed by what teams are seeing across our service area.

• Help identify when the impact work has grown enough to warrant additional advocacy staff, and help shape and hire for that capacity.

Who We Are Looking For

We are looking for an experienced advocate who is energized by building an advocacy program, both through their own impact and by growing that capacity across the organization. The strongest candidates will bring depth in litigation and administrative advocacy, along with an understanding of legislative advocacy and the rules that govern it for a federally funded program. 

Required

• J.D. and admission to the Missouri bar, or eligibility to waive in or sit for the bar promptly.

• At least eight years of legal practice. 

• Experience with impact or syst emic litigation, including developing legal theories and strategy on matters with implications beyond a single client.

• Experience with administrative advocacy, such as rulemaking comments, agency engagement, or challenges to agency practice.

• Familiarity with the substantive areas central to our work, including housing, public benefits, consumer, immigration, and family safety.

• A demonstrated ability to build capacity through others: to convene, coordinate, and elevate colleagues' work.

• A deep commitment to Legal Aids clients and mission.

Preferred

• Direct experience in a legal aid, civil rights, or public interest setting that integrated case work with systemic advocacy.

• A working understanding of the restrictions that apply to legislative and lobbying activity by Legal Services Corporation grantees.

• Established relationships with advocacy partners, co-counsel networks, or coalitions in Missouri or nationally.

• Experience mentoring or training legal staff.

A Note on Advocacy and LSC Rules

Because Legal Aid receives Legal Services Corporation (LSC) funding, there are firm limits on the advocacy we can pursue. We do not lobby, and we do not bring class actions. We can and do litigate on behalf of individual clients and groups of clients, including multi-plaintiff cases. We can also respond when a legislator or legislative body asks us in writing to testify on, comment on, draft, or analyze legislation, and we engage in permitted administrative and rulemaking advocacy. The Advocacy Director is expected to know these boundaries thoroughly, operate confidently within them, and help keep the organization compliant, including guiding colleagues who are pursuing advocacy. Candidates who have done advocacy in unrestricted settings are welcome to apply and should be prepared to work within these limits.

Compensation & Benefits 

The starting salary for this position is $106,000 on Legal Aid’s formal salary scale. Placement above the starting point is based on years of relevant experience and internal equity. 

Legal Aid offers a comprehensive benefits package including:

• Medical Plans with PPO or HSA options
• Dental Plan
• Vision Plan
• Life Insurance
• Short-Term Disability
• Long-Term Disability
• Accident Insurance
• Critical Illness Insurance
• Flexible Spending Accounts for medical or dependent care
• Health Savings Accounts
• Paid CLE and Bar Dues
• Paid Time Off: Vacation, Sick, Personal and Holidays
• Qualifying employer for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program
• Travel and parking reimbursement
• 401k and up to 3.5% employer match

Location

This role is an in-person role based in Legal Aid's Central office in Kansas City, Missouri. Regular in-office presence is an expectation for this role, and Legal Aid offers flexible work arrangements to support employees in maintaining schedules that enable them to perform at their best

How to Apply

Please submit a resume and cover letter describing your interest in the role and your experience building or advancing systemic advocacy to -openings. 

Legal Aid of Western Missouri is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Those applicants requiring accommodation to the interview/application process should contact the Human Resources Department at View email address on ziprecruiter.com.