Staff Attorney: Mid- To Senior- Level (U.S. Legal Program)
The Center for Reproductive Rights. New York, NY, USA.
Closing date: March 1, 2013.
Center Background:
Founded in 1992 and headquartered in New York City, the Center for Reproductive Rights is a non-profit organization that promotes women's equality worldwide by securing reproductive rights in constitutional and international human rights law. Its mission is straightforward and ambitious: to advance reproductive health and rights as fundamental rights that all governments are legally obligated to protect, respect and fulfill. The Center is unmatched as a reproductive rights organization in its expertise on U.S. constitutional law, comparative law, and international human rights law.
In the U.S. Legal Program, the Center’s preeminent litigation team has helped millions of women and their families by securing government funding for abortions, striking down absolute abortion bans and other access restrictions, and protecting teens’ access to emergency contraception and confidential reproductive healthcare services and information. During the past 20 years, Center attorneys have been counsel in virtually every major U.S. Supreme Court case about reproductive rights. In the last two years, the Center litigated over 20 cases on a range of reproductive rights issues. The Center’s state program is actively engaged in strategic state- and local-level advocacy across the country.
At the same time that the Center is defending women’s reproductive rights in courts and legislatures, it works toward the long-term goal of promoting reproductive rights and health as a fundamental human rights issue. By incorporating a human rights framework in its U.S. work in communications, legal arguments (e.g., in amicus briefs), and tactics (e.g., fact-finding reports, U.S. obligations to U.N. human rights treaties), it seeks to bring developments in international and comparative constitutional law and litigation to bear on U.S. law and policy. The Center’s Law School Initiative – launched in 2008 – promotes legal scholarship and teaching on reproductive health and human rights to shape the thinking of the next generation of lawyers, judges, and policymakers.
The new staff attorney will be joining the Center at an exciting time for the institution and at a critical time for the nation. As opponents of women’s rights are mounting a scorched-earth campaign to turn back decades of hard-won progress, the Center is fighting back with short-, medium-, and long-term strategies, embodied in a new strategic plan launched in early 2012, which includes a particular focus on reversing the erosion of reproductive rights protections across the U.S. and establishing the right to affordable reproductive healthcare in the U.S.
Responsibilities:
The Center seeks an attorney to litigate reproductive rights cases and to develop and work on other advocacy projects on reproductive rights and health issues. The attorney will be involved in all aspects of litigation, including developing new cases, discovery and motion practice, trials, and appeals. Other projects may include legislative advocacy, human rights advocacy, developing policy papers and drafting legal or fact analysis for Center publications or articles. The attorney will participate in program planning and will supervise junior staff and interns. S/he will represent the Center at public events, conferences and coalition meetings and will be responsible for developing and maintaining client and other important institutional relationships.
Qualifications:
- Applicants must have litigation experience; excellent legal research, analytical, writing, editing and oral advocacy skills; and the ability to work effectively under pressure.
- A minimum of three years’ legal experience is required, with more years strongly preferred.
- Experience conducting written and deposition discovery; examining witnesses; drafting and producing briefs, written legal analyses and other legal documents; conducting oral argument; and/or running a trial are pluses.
- Experience with reproductive rights issues or with other issues relating to human rights, civil rights or racial and social justice is also a plus, as is experience working in coalitions and with diverse communities.
- Applicants must be self-motivated with strong inter-personal skills.
- Law degree and NY Bar membership, or the willingness to become a member within 18 months of hire, are required. Travel is required.
To Apply:
Please send cover letter, resume, writing sample and contact information for three references (email preferred) to: resumes@reprorights.org.
Note: Applicants must indicate “Staff Attorney – U.S. Legal Program, their last name and code 164*” as the subject of emailed applications. Cover letter, resume and writing sample should be sent as attachments.
Please note that applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis and we will not hold the position open for any specific time period. Applicants are strongly encouraged to apply by March 1, 2013.
Mailing address:
Staff Attorney – U.S. Legal Program 164
Center for Reproductive Rights
120 Wall Street, 14th Floor
New York, NY 10005
Fax: 917-637-3666
Article License: Copyright - Article License Holder: The Center for Reproductive Rights
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