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Housing Paralegal / Legal Assistant, Bilingual (Spanish-speaking)

Employer
Open Door Legal
Location
San Francisco, California
Salary
$62,500 to $81,000 annually, based on experience
Closing date
Jun 9, 2023

View more

Focus Areas
Civil Rights / Advocacy
Job Function
Legal
Position Type
Full Time
Degree Level
Associate

Job Details

 

Housing Paralegal/Legal Assistant (Bilingual Spanish-speaking)

Full-time, Exempt

 

About Us:

 

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” - Nelson Mandela

At Open Door Legal (ODL), we’re pioneering the country’s first system of universal access to civil legal representation to dramatically reduce poverty and prove that the law really can belong to all of us. To achieve this ambitious goal, we’ve created an award-winning and best-in-class legal aid organization full of passionate, motivated, gritty, thoughtful, and team-oriented people. We believe that injustice is the heart of poverty, and we're looking for someone to join us in having a systemic impact on how we, as a society, ensure justice for all. We are currently based in San Francisco.

Overview of Position:

We are hiring a Bilingual Spanish-speaking Housing Paralegal/Legal Assistant to provide critical support to our housing team. We help low-income families stay in their homes, obtain housing, prevent homelessness, and ensure landlords address uninhabitable conditions. Even with positive legal outcomes, our clients can face a lot of confusion, fear, and anxiety over the next steps regarding their housing and cases. The Housing Paralegal/Legal Assistant is going to be the main point of contact for helping our Spanish-speaking clients navigate their legal journey with us as well as being a crucial part of building successful cases. Overall, this position is intended to be a challenging yet extremely rewarding experience for someone looking to make a difference in clients’ lives with an innovative, results-oriented, and fast-growing organization. 

Day-to-day tasks include: providing basic rights advice (with attorney supervision), in-person and remote oral interpretation and written translation (both English to Spanish and Spanish to English), assisting with intakes and clinics, completing court forms for clients’ cases, triaging potential clients, coordinating timely service of process, physically filing documents at San Francisco Superior Court, communicating case progress to clients, and follow-up communications with clients including drafting letters and other correspondence. 

You will be the paralegal/legal assistant for the affirmative housing legal practice and provide Spanish interpretation and translation assistance for the team, working with multiple attorneys. The work is fast-paced and will require you to be organized, think critically and dynamically, and demonstrate empathy and awareness in understanding the needs of our community. 

This position will be in the office two to four days per week. We are flexible about your location preferences between our four offices in Bayview, Excelsior, Sunset, and Western Addition. You will report directly to our Senior Housing Attorney but will also work closely with our housing team. 

Responsibilities:

  • Embrace and embody our mission of universal access to civil legal aid and our values of passion, grit, dynamism, caring, and teamwork to ensure that everyone in our service area, particularly our Spanish-speaking community, with a viable housing problem gets appropriate help, including legal representation. 
  • In addition, interpret and/or take notes at all housing law intakes requiring Spanish interpretation, virtually and in person at our four offices. Eventually be able to lead and run Spanish and English intakes and give basic housing brief service information yourself. This includes giving basic housing know your rights information to guests and/or clients directly. Currently, we have approximately 15-20 housing law cases for Spanish-speaking clients. This Spanish interpretation, translation, case management and basic housing information delivery will likely be 50% of the job. 
  • Be responsible for the civil procedure tasks that support our housing attorneys in their civil litigation in San Francisco Superior Court, San Francisco Rent Board, and Housing Authority Hearings on behalf of tenants. ODL files civil litigation cases, sometimes with the help of pro bono attorneys, when we cannot place the case with a private attorney. This civil procedure work includes filing, serving, basic drafting, discovery work, and getting clients to sign documents, and will likely be 25% of the duties associated with this position. 
  • Advise clients and guests on proper small claims defense and affirmative small claims case initiations (with attorney supervision) and be the lead small claims coordinator with any small claims platform. 
  • Help clients fill out rental assistance and housing applications and navigate referrals to other tenant’s rights service organizations in San Francisco. 
  • Take part in direct communication with the Department of Building Inspection and Department of Public Health to facilitate, and make complaints on behalf of clients. Assist in initiating San Francisco Housing Authority file reviews and provide case assistance with all evidence gathering. 
  • As capacity allows, support housing team members, interns, and volunteers in meeting our organization’s mission in other ad hoc projects and tasks. 
  • Provide services and support to our low-income clients with sensitivity and awareness to cultural, socio-economic, and disability differences. Continue to ensure our clients have a positive experience with us as measured by our client feedback survey.

Requirements:

  • At least an associate’s degree or equivalent (a paralegal certificate is fine).
  • Comfortable translating and interpreting from English to Spanish and vice versa legal information without assistance. Also comfortable performing client support and paralegal/legal assistant tasks in Spanish. 
  • Ability to commute to any of ODL’s offices two to four days a week to conduct in-person intakes and meetings and support the team’s in-office needs.
  • Strong time management skills and the ability to organize time, manage diverse activities, and meet critical deadlines with minimal supervision.
  • Have a high level of comfort learning and using technology and cloud-based case management systems. We use Salesforce, Dropbox, and Google Suite.
  • Must genuinely enjoy and be motivated by working with low-income clients and be able to work competently with clients impacted by trauma (emotional, mental, and physical), including those at risk of homelessness and currently un-housed.
  • Must actively demonstrate cultural humility and sensitivity to barriers low-income residents face when attempting to access the justice system.
  • Must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. without sponsorship.
  • Embrace and embody our values of teamwork, grit, caring, passion, and dynamism. 

Bonus Points:

  • Previous experience as a paralegal, legal assistant, legal secretary, tenant organizer or client advocate.
  • A paralegal certificate.
  • Basic knowledge of California and/or San Francisco housing law.
  • Experience with filing and interacting within the San Francisco Superior Court.
  • Experience working with low-income and vulnerable populations.
  • Experience working in a high-volume direct services legal aid or similar environment.
  • Having lived a significant period of your life in San Francisco proper.

     

The annual salary range for this role is from $62,500 to $81,000 based on experience.

 

Benefits:

  • Loan Repayment Assistance - for staff pursuing 10-year public interest debt forgiveness, we will pay the minimum payment on all qualifying loans so that you do not need to worry about student loan debt (this is a conditional benefit).
  • Medical/Dental/Vision Plan offerings at 100% coverage
  • Commuter Benefits
  • FSA and HSA
  • Flexible work hours
  • Four weeks of paid time off per year
  • Generous paid parental leave
  • We care deeply about the mental and emotional fitness of our staff and financially invest in staff who pursue ways to address this through a stipend.
  • 401K/Retirement Account
  • Strong organizational culture with an eNPS of 100
  • We believe everyone is always learning. We financially invest in professional development for each staff member and provide many internal and external mentorships, coaching, and learning opportunities (conferences, workshops, etc.).
  • We are a fun and hard-working office with best-in-class technology solutions for anyone who’s passionate about making a meaningful and measurable difference.

     

Applications submitted prior to May 19, 2023 will receive priority consideration.

 

Ideal Start Date: June 2023

 

APPLY HERE: https://open-door-legal.breezy.hr/p/3d2efbc7dee5 

 

Open Door Legal is proud to be an Equal Opportunity employer. We do not discriminate based upon race, religion, color, national origin, sex (including pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, sexual stereotypes, age, status as a protected veteran, status as an individual with a disability, or any other applicable legally protected characteristics. We also consider qualified applicants with criminal histories, consistent with applicable federal, state, and local law including the San Francisco Fair chance Ordinance.

 

We are committed to providing reasonable accommodations for candidates with disabilities in our recruiting process. If you need any assistance or accommodations due to a disability, please let us know at whitney [at] opendoorlegal [dot] org. 

 

Black Lives Matter

 

Company

Open Door Legal is pioneering the country’s first system of universal access to civil representation and working to show that when everyone has access to the law, poverty can be dramatically reduced.

We won the 2015 Google Impact Challenge and we’ve been recognized by the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation for our innovative, results-oriented program. Long-term, we plan to replicate our services across San Francisco, make this city the first in the country with universal access to civil representation, and become a model for national replication.

We’re only going to achieve this if we continue our tradition of hiring the best possible people. We hire people who are extremely passionate, quixotic, energetic, love tackling tough problems, and believe in continuous personal growth.

We believe injustice is the heart of poverty and we invite you to join us in having a systemic impact on how we, as a society, ensure justice for the poor.

 

Company info
Website
Telephone
4157354124
Location
4622 3rd St.
San Francisco
San Francisco
CA
94124
US

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