• Washington Defender Association

  Immigration Project Resource Attorney Position Opening

   

  Looking for an exciting new advocacy opportunity? Washington Defender Association is looking for an experienced public defender or immigrant rights attorney to join our team. WDA is the voice of the public defense community throughout Washington. WDA provides defenders with direct support to ensure high quality legal representation, educates defenders and other institutional stakeholders and collaborates with communities to advocate for systemic change in the criminal legal system.

   

  In 1999, WDA established our Immigration Project to defend and advance the rights of noncitizens accused of crimes. Since inception, we have consulted in over 25,000 cases to assist defenders to comply with their constitutional Padilla duties, participated in more than 300 trainings and collaborated with community and institutional partners to advance key systemic change on local regional and national levels. We’re looking for an experienced (4-7 years) public defender or immigrant rights attorney to join our team. We will provide you with training and support to build the immigration and/or criminal legal expertise necessary to be part of our team. You will work with our team to:

   

• ·        Provide case assistance and training to public defenders representing non-citizen clients;
• ·        Create criminal-immigration tools and resources to assist defenders in their cases; and
• ·        Engage with public defender offices across the state to develop strategies and policies that support and empower effective assistance of their clients and advance systemic change
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The position is based in WDA’s Seattle office and requires some travel, primarily throughout Washington. WDA is a signatory to the acknowledgements and commitments of the Washington Race Equity and Justice Initiative and is actively engaged in ongoing alignment with them. NOTE: WDA staff are working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic and no in-person training or travel will be required until COVID restrictions are lifted.  Post-COVID residency in Washington State will be required; relocation to Seattle (where WDA’s office is located) is negotiable. The full job description and application details may be found HERE or at www.defensenet.org.