Job Description
Equal Justice Works Crime Victims Justice Corps Legal Fellow
The University of Georgia (UGA), a land-grant and sea-grant university with statewide commitments and responsibilities is the state’s oldest, most comprehensive, and most diversified institution of higher education (**MEMBERS ONLY**SIGN UP NOW***currently ranked among the top 20 public universities in U.S. News & World Report. The University’s main campus is located in Athens, approximately 65 miles northeast of Atlanta, with extended campuses in Atlanta, Griffin, Gwinnett, and Tifton. UGA was founded in 1785 by the Georgia General Assembly as the first state-chartered University in the country. UGA employs approximately 1,800 full-time instructional faculty and more than 7,600 full-time staff. The University’s enrollment exceeds 36,000 students including over 27,500 undergraduates and over 8,500 graduate and professional students. Academic programs reside in 17 schools and colleges, as well as a medical partnership with Augusta University housed on the UGA Health Sciences Campus in Athens.
The University of Georgia, School of Law’s Family Justice Clinic (FJC) and Community Health Law Partnership Clinic (Community HeLP), will jointly host a fellow over two years as part of the Equal Justice Works Crime Victims Justice Corps. The fellowship should begin on or about June 1, 2018 and end May/June 2020.
The Equal Justice Works Crime Victims Justice Corps is a legal fellowship program designed to increase capacity and access to civil legal help for crime victims. A cohort of approximately sixty fellows are placed at nonprofit organizations across the country to provide direct representation, outreach, and education, to victims of crimes, including human trafficking, fraud/identity theft, campus sexual assault, and hate crime, and immigrant victims of crime with meritorious claims for immigration relief. All fellows will incorporate crime victims’ rights enforcement into their practice and will receive training from the National Crime Victim Law Institute and other training and technical assistance providers.
This program is supported by an award from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Office for Victims of Crime, Award Number 2017-MU-MU-K131, and private funding.
The fellow will be supervised by the faculty directors of two co-located law school clinics based at the University of Georgia, School of Law, in Athens, Georgia. Community HeLP is a medical-legal partnership clinic that focuses on immigration law and public benefits. FJC specializes in family violence and stalking protective orders and domestic relations law. Under the supervision of the two clinic directors, both of whom are former fellows and members of the Georgia Bar with deep experience in the relevant practice areas, the fellow would work with law students on a shared docket of cases involving immigrant crime survivors and conduct community outreach.
• Licensed to practice law. • Ability to begin the fellowship by on or about June 1, 2018 and serve for 2 years. • At least a high-level of proficiency in Spanish. • A demonstrated commitment to public interest work and desire to assist crime victims. • Strong writing, communication, interpersonal, and organizational skills. • An ability to provide victim-centered, trauma-informed, and culturally competent legal assistance to crime victims/survivors. • An ability to work collaboratively in a variety of contexts and with multiple organizations to facilitate comprehensive services to crime victims/survivors. • A desire to work with law students in an academic setting. • Relevant practice experience, including during law school, is a plus. Those with prior legal experience in immigration law, family law, crime victims’ rights enforcement, or domestic violence advocacy are strongly encouraged to apply.
• Provide holistic legal services to immigrant survivors of crime within the clinics’ primary practice areas, including immigration law, protective orders, domestic relations law, access to benefits, and related civil legal issues • Provide crime victims’ rights enforcement • Conduct outreach and education activities, provide referrals, and strengthen community partnerships • Help supervise law students and help develop joint curriculum materials • Contribute to programmatic reporting required under the federal award. • Collaborate with other Equal Justice Works Crime Victims Justice Corps Fellows where possible • Actively participate in mandatory in-person training programs including two-day Crime Victims Justice Corps Victim Law Boot Camp training on June 28-29, 2018 in Washington, DC; learning event at the end of the Fellowship; annual three-day Equal Justice Works Leadership Development Training in October/November 2018 and 2019 in Washington, DC; and training calls with the National Crime Victim Law Institute.
