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About NYLAG:

Founded in 1990, NYLAG is a leading civil legal services organization combatting economic, racial, and social injustice by advocating for people experiencing poverty or in crisis. Our services include comprehensive, free civil legal services, financial empowerment, impact litigation, policy advocacy, and community partnerships. NYLAG exists because wealth should not determine who has access to justice. We aim to disrupt systemic racism by serving individuals and families whose legal and financial crises are often rooted in racial inequality. NYLAG goes to where the need is, providing services in more than 150 community sites (e.g. courts, hospitals, libraries) and on our Mobile Legal Help Center. During COVID-19, most of our services are virtual to keep our community safe. NYLAG’s staff of 400 impacted the lives of 129,000 people last year.

Job Description:

NYLAG has an immediate opening for a Paralegal in the Consumer Protection Unit (CPU). CPU represents clients in a full range of consumers’ rights matters by helping individuals with low-income fight fraud, predatory lending, and illegal debt collection practices. In addition, NYLAG advocates for clients who face possibly devastating income loss due to civil court judgments; defaulted student loans from predatory for-profit schools; sub-prime loan conditions; and lending scams targeting historically poor, limited English proficient, and/or immigrant communities. Advocates work not only to resolve the immediate problem, but also to ensure long-term security for victims and their families.

The paralegal will focus on providing litigation and administrative support for attorneys representing clients, maintaining a significant client caseload of his/her/their own depending on capacity, and performing legal intakes with clients and potential clients referred from a wide range of sources including general intake callers, funder referrals, on site clinics, and other sources. One of the primary roles of the paralegal is data entry and maintaining the client database as well as generating grant reports for funders, potential funders and providing both internal and external program information where it is requested. The remainder of the paralegal’s time will be spent on a wide range of tasks for CPP, including retrieving files from Court, doing legal research, training volunteers and new staff, investigating new areas of law, maintain the central organizing files of CPU, keeping track of consumer trends, reports, media, and resources, maintaining and alerting staff to important dates and unit requirements, and assisting foreclosure prevention staff as necessary, as well as many other tasks which may arise within and outside the unit.

This position is an ideal opportunity for someone interested in a career in law, public policy, or social work. The successful candidate will work closely with NYLAG’s experienced attorneys and case handlers and will receive both on-the-job and more formal training.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Conduct thorough client legal intakes;
• Investigate facts through interviews and document collection;
• Advocate with various plaintiffs, organizations and government agencies on behalf of clients
• Prepare legal documents for own cases as well as to assist attorneys;
• Provide oral and written translations for attorneys who represent non-English-speaking clients, including between court appearances;
• Perform legal research
• Draft and distribute various outreach materials
• Data entry in client database and other outlets
• Train new staff and volunteers regarding intakes, administrative matters, data compliance and other issues
• Manage and assign tasks to volunteers as needed
• Manage and execute necessary data entry and assist with grant compliance and reporting
• Conduct relevant workshops with community organizations, clients, and others
• Assess unit and project needs and analyze existing systems to determine best practices for Unit processes, practices and client/project management
• Other duties as needed

Qualifications:

• Highly motivated paralegal with a demonstrated commitment to public interest.
• College degree required
• Fluency in Spanish preferred
• Excellent communication, research, and writing skills.
• Work well collaborating with others, be a team player
• Strong work ethic and commitment to and passion for serving vulnerable New Yorkers
• Organized, with strong attention to detail
• Curious and committed to ongoing learning and professional development. Comfortable taking specific directions and constructive criticism and takes initiative.
• Ability to handle a diverse caseload
• A desire to learn the relevant advocacy strategies and law
• Demonstrated ability to advocate zealously on behalf of clients
• Experience attending or advocating in court preferred
• Excellent oral, written, and analytic abilities.

_Priority will also be given to those who have worked for New York City legal or social services organizations or have experience with consumer law.

_ NYLAG’s Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion

NYLAG is proud to be an equal opportunity employer. People of color, women, people with disabilities, immigrants, veterans, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people, and those with lived experiences in the communities we serve are strongly encouraged to apply.

Employment type:

☒ _Full-time

_ Professional Level:

☒ _Professional

_ Salary Range: NYLAG is a unionized workplace, and salaries are set pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement. The current salary range for this position is between $52,571 and 56,835.

Benefits: Medical, dental, vision, 401k, life insurance, long term disability, commuter benefits, flexible spending accounts (FSA) for Medical and Dependent care.

Application Instructions: Please save resume and cover letter on one pdf. _Applicants without a cover letter will not be considered.

_ Covid Vaccination Policy: Please note, to safeguard the health and well-being of our employees and clients, NYLAG requires all employees to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19, unless a medical or religious exemption is approved.

NYLAG is committed to a hybrid work policy for staff whose work does not require their full-time presence in the office. NYLAG’s current policy is that most staff are required to work in NYLAG’s offices or do other in-person work at least two days each week. This policy is subject to change.

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