Tenant Legal Services Affirmative Attorney

About the Community Economic Defense Project (CEDP) & CED Law 

Our Mission
We partner with low-income and working people to build economic and racial equity. We do this by confronting economic abuse and investing in community wealth. We use an ever-evolving set of legal, economic and advocacy tools to challenge and dismantle unjust systems, building quickly towards a world where all people have what they need to live and thrive.

Our Organization

The Community Economic Defense Project (CEDP) is a Colorado-based nonprofit. Launched in 2020 as the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, our organization was formed to keep our neighbors housed during the pandemic. Working with clients, we built a deeply integrative approach to eviction, foreclosure, and homelessness prevention that centers the legal and financial needs of housing-insecure families and uses a variety of tools to keep them housed. 

Our team now serves more than 1,000 people per month, bringing together housing lawyers, economists, data analysts, policy-experts, organizers, and technologists to serve our clients. We have served more than 50,000 low-income Coloradans across 45 counties, distributing over $200 million in emergency assistance. We have also contributed to the passage of major legislation to prevent eviction, stop economic abuse, and make credit and life-saving medication cheaper.  CEDP’s model has been cited as a best practice by White House, HUD, theUrban Institute, and in the media.

Building on our work to stop evictions, CEDP has further expanded its integrated services model to include disaster response, predatory towing, debt collection, benefit access & navigation, long-term rental assistance, and homelessness response. Similar to CEDP’s work on rental housing, these efforts offer a continuum of care that includes navigation and advisory services, targeted payments, legal support, and the ability to participate in advocacy.

More about the Tenant Legal Services Affirmative Attorney Role:

As our law firm evolves, we are seeking a Tenant Legal Services Affirmative Attorney to support a new Impact Litigation program focused on tackling the most pernicious issues facing low-income renters. The attorney will be a part of carrying out a strategic vision for the program developed in collaboration with a team supervisor and organizational and firm leadership. They will work on a team of 2-3 other attorneys including their supervisor and 1-2 paralegals/legal staff to support our strategic litigation efforts, including affirmative impact litigation and occasional appeals. The attorney will be responsible for carrying their own case load and working in collaboration with other staff members on the team to support long-term affirmative litigation and strategic efforts. The role reports directly to the Tenant Legal Services Affirmative Litigation Supervisor.

In this role you will:

• Manage an appropriate caseload of affirmative or strategic litigation cases to help accomplish firm and organizational goals. 
• Be responsible for completing case goals. 
• Work closely with and delegate work to your assigned paralegal to assist with cases tasks. 
• Coordinate across CEDP to ensure holistic service of legal clients when appropriate and consented to by client. 
• Maintain a regular schedule of hearings, court appearances, mediations, and conferences based on case requirements. 
• Meet biweekly with your supervisor to discuss cases and professional growth. 
• Provide in-person work to clients at our office, courthouse clinics, community clinics, courthouses, or other locations at least once a week, but on average 1-3x a week. The rest of your work can be done remotely at the discretion of your supervisor. 
• Be responsible for documenting all case work, client information and case outcomes, using CED Law’s client management and other systems. 
• Keep track of and document your working time related to specific grants, contracts, and specific cases. 
• Occasionally attend courthouse clinics and other community events to provide limited representation, information and advice to tenants in the community and identify issues ripe for affirmative litigation

Position Requirements:

• Colorado bar admission and JD. 
• 3+ years' experience in affirmative litigation, housing law, eviction defense, or other related fields, with a preference for some affirmative civil litigation experience such as civil rights or personal injury law.
• Ability to, once trained, manage an affirmative caseload by performing the above primarily on their own, with support as needed from supervisors 
• Demonstrated passion for social and racial justice. 
• A supportive, client-focused attitude. 
• Strong desire to center client and community needs. 
• Ability to work collaboratively with other attorneys, paralegals, and supervisors in a rapid-change environment centered on social justice and equity. 
• Excellent interpersonal communication skills. 
• A creative, self-driven attitude. 
• Ability to travel within the Denver Metro area and surrounding suburbs under a hybrid schedule where in-person work is required 1- 3 times per week at our downtown Denver office, courthouses around the Denver metro area, and/or community events. 
• Strong organizational abilities. 
• Knowledge of MS Office suite, CLIO, Google Suite, Adobe Acrobat desired. 
• Spanish language fluency is not required but is a strong plus and is eligible for an additional stipend.

Additional Details:

• Candidates must reside in Colorado, ideally within the greater Denver Metro area. The position includes competitive pay, flexible time off, benefits package (including medical, dental, vision), and 401k. 
• A competitive annual salary grade of $90,000 plus a $1,000 per year hybrid employee salary adjustment 
• Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis but must be received by August 29, 2025. A preference will be given to internal candidates. 
• The estimated time to complete the recruitment process will be by September 12, 2025. 
• Employees who utilize two languages or more at work are eligible for a $2,000 salary differential per year added to the salary grade listed above. Language assessment will be conducted by the organization as a requirement to receive the differential 
• All employees are eligible for a technology stipend of $720 per year. 
• As in-person work is sometimes required, all employees at CEDP & CED Law are expected to maintain current vaccination status in keeping with CDC recommendations. 
• CEDP is an equal opportunity employer, with a demonstrated commitment to challenging systems of inequity.