Legal Director, Immigrant Justice Idaho

Legal Director

Immigrant Justice Idaho, an innovative, progressive, indigent defense office in beautiful Boise, Idaho seeks a Legal Director with a demonstrated commitment to social justice and the experience in immigration law to join IJI's effort to achieve universal representation before Idaho's immigration courts. Launched in the Fall of 2018, IJI is a successor entity of Andrade Legal Immigration Law and is Idaho's first and only free and low-cost service provider and referral service recognized by the Dept. of Justice. IJI provides free and low-cost immigration services, focusing upon removal defense, and immigration law education to vulnerable communities, majority community allies, and immigration lawyers.

Responsibilities:

• Carry out and direct case work before the EOIR, BIA, USCIS, and AAO.
• Provide technical assistance, consulting and training to attorney and professional clients.
• Provide legal advice to criminal defense attorneys about the immigration consequences of convictions and work with defense attorneys to develop case dispositions that minimize adverse immigration consequences.
• Recruit, manage and supervise law student clerks and other student volunteers and/or delegate management of them as needed.
• Determine the training needs for the legal department, associated costs, and work with the ED to craft the legal services and legal education annual budget.
• Supervise the IJI legal department team members.
• Formalize and manage the IJI pro bono program for attorneys to represent IJI referred cases.
• Ensure case priorities balance our focus on removal defense at low-pro bono fees with staff caseloads and revenue streams, while still challenging the staff.
• Ensure quality and accuracy of all public facing educational materials.
• Develop and implement the IJI referral system with the Equal Justice Works attorney.
• Develop and maintain professional relationships with agency, court and other stakeholders.
• Work with Executive Director to develop and implement IJI's accreditation program.

Qualifications:

• Experience handling immigration cases for not less than 3 years. Exceptional, in depth clinical work may be considered.
• Substantial experience handling removal/deportation defense cases before the EOIR and BIA and ICE.
• Extensive experience in asylum, withholding and CAT cases.
• Extensive experience and knowledge of applying the categorical approach to determine divisibility and other analysis required to determine the immigration consequences of criminal conduct as applicable to discrete burdens of proof and production.
• Extensive experience in motion practice before the EOIR and the BIA.
• Exposure to and prior work on family and humanitarian, Special Immigrant Juvenile, and other protection-based immigration cases.