Staff Attorney, Immigration Practice

The Center for Family Representation Inc. (CFR) is an award-winning, innovative law and policy organization that serves primarily Black and Brown families and youth in Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island with an interdisciplinary legal defense model that serves more than 2400 clients every year. CFR was originally founded in 2002 to dramatically change the trajectory of indigent parents being prosecuted by the City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). Our goal is to defend and protect our clients’ rights, reduce the harm of family separation and prevent or minimize the time any child spends in the foster system.

CFR provides interdisciplinary family defense with a model that was unique at our founding and that is now being replicated nationally: we assign every client an attorney and a social work staff member, and teams have the support of parent advocates, who are parents with direct personal experience of being investigated and prosecuted by ACS. CFR was the first agency in the country to integrate parents with lived experience into legal teams and now has 7 parent advocates working in all three of our family defense locations. CFR’s Community Advocacy Project represents parents during a child protective investigation (to avoid court involvement where possible) and assists parents in clearing their names from state maltreatment records.

As an agency committed to securing justice for families, we built the Youth Defense practice (YDP) to defend youth at risk of family separation through incarceration. YDP uses the same interdisciplinary model to represent youth being prosecuted in Queens and Manhattan in Supreme Court Youth Parts, during Probation Adjustment and in Delinquency proceedings in Family Court. CFR’s Home for Good program provides legal and social work services to CFR clients in immigration, civil legal services and criminal defense matters, to afford clients an efficient and well-coordinated one-stop solution to a range of issues that threaten family stability. 

Recognized as experts in our fields, we annually train over 500 practitioners in the city, state and around the country on strategies to promote family preservation and interdisciplinary representation, and we provide community based “Know Your Rights” presentations to parents, youth and service providers. We advocate at the city, state and national level for policies that reduce the harm of family separation, and promote parent engagement and justice for youth and families.

Current opening: 

Non-citizens who are embroiled in the family or criminal court system face daunting obstacles. CFR’s immigration practice fights to ensure that these clients and their families can remain together and access immigration relief and benefits. 

Under the supervision and guidance of CFR’s senior immigration attorney, the immigration staff attorney will screen non-citizen clients referred from CFR’s other practice areas for potential immigration relief, represent non-citizen clients in defensive and affirmative immigration proceedings, and provide immigration consults and support to attorneys and staff in CFR’s other practice areas. The staff attorney should expect to work with clients residing in Queens, Manhattan, Bronx and Staten Island.  

The Immigration Staff Attorney will work collaboratively with CFR legal teams, composed of attorneys, social work staff, paralegals, and parent advocates from the family defense, criminal defense, civil defense and youth defense units. Familiarity with our most commonly occurring immigration case types is preferable, e.g. domestic- violence-based relief, family-based applications, naturalization, Temporary Protected  Status, and asylum. The immigration staff attorney  may also represent CFR in local, state, and national  coalitions, trainings, and conferences. Over the years, CFR Immigration has had to respond to rapidly changing local and state policies and emerging needs of the New York City’s non-citizen community. The ideal candidate will be open to helping  with special advocacy projects as needed.  

The candidate should expect to:  

•  Represent clients in affirmative, defensive, and appellate immigration matters;  

• Support CFR’s immigration practice’s intake/referral teams as needed;  

• Support CFR’s immigration practice’s efforts regarding immigration policy, systemic advocacy and communications;  

• Advise CFR’s criminal and family defense practices about the immigration consequences of  each proceeding;  

• Engage in professional development opportunities to stay abreast of rapidly changing immigration rules, caselaw, pending legislation, and policies;  

• Represent CFR clients with SIJS applications in Queens, Manhattan, Bronx and Staten Island Family Courts;  

• Conduct community education, training and outreach, and promote the work of CFR and CFR’s immigration practice;  

• Assist with training and mentoring of law students, volunteers, and pro bono attorneys/ scholars;  

• Promptly maintain data in our case management system and client legal notes; and  

• Assist with the continued growth and improvement of CFR’s immigration practice.  

Salary information:

The salary for a Staff Attorney with two years of relevant work experience is: $86,200/year

The salary for a Staff Attorney with seven years of relevant work experience is: $96,700/year

The salary for a Staff Attorney with twelve years of relevant work experience is: $109,400/year

• Candidates for this position should have 1-2 years of experience in immigration law (including law school clinic experience).

• Proficiency in Spanish, Haitian Creole or French is required.

• Familiarity with the intersection of immigration with other legal systems is especially helpful, i.e., criminal, family, and public benefits.

• This is the ideal position for a young lawyer who enjoys taking initiative and developing best practices in an evolving program and who enjoys the exhilaration and challenges of a growing endeavor.  

• Applicants should be able to demonstrate strong interpersonal and communication skills, an ability  to work as part of a team and a commitment to social justice.

CFR strives to create an inclusive and antiracist environment for all of its staff. Candidates from all backgrounds are encouraged to apply. CFR is an Equal Opportunity Employer.