Co-Deputy Director, Advocacy

About the Legal Aid Justice Center:

The Legal Aid Justice Center is a nationally recognized, non-profit organization that partners with low-income clients and communities of color in Virginia to fight for racial, social, and economic justice. We understand that the harms our clients endure are inextricably linked to overarching systems of injustice. Together we are dismantling those systems through a combination of community organizing, litigation, policy advocacy, public relations, and individual legal services.  

Founded in 1967, LAJC has offices in Charlottesville, Richmond, Petersburg, and Falls Church and provides services under six key program areas: Civil Rights & Racial Justice (focuses on the criminal legal system), Housing & Consumer Justice, Youth Justice, Health Justice & Public Benefits, Immigrant Justice, and Worker Justice. As examples of LAJC’s recent work, our lawsuit and organizing against the state forced reform of Virginia’s unemployment insurance system, including advocacy that resulted in the distribution of over $1 billion in illegally withheld payments to over 160,000 Virginians. During the pandemic, we demanded and secured a statewide eviction moratorium and emergency pandemic protections that helped hundreds of families avoid eviction. We reduced incarceration across the state, including reducing the population of a local immigration detention center down to historically low levels through a coordinated effort of organizing paired with impact and individual litigation.  Our staff are on the front lines of some of the most important anti-poverty fights happening today.  

With a staff of over 90, the past few years have been a time of exciting growth and opportunity for the organization. In addition to the growth of programmatic efforts including increased organizing capacity, LAJC has expanded its operations and administrative capacity, created new opportunities for professional growth and leadership among staff, engaged in ongoing race equity work, and explored changes to organizational structure to deepen its efforts to create long-term, sustainable, community-driven change. 
    
LAJC’s latest strategic plan is available at https://www.justice4all.org/lajc-strategic-plan-2022-2026/#area d.
   

For more information about LAJC’s work and programs, visit www.justice4all.org.

About the Position:

This position is responsible for building out and overseeing the implementation of an integrated advocacy strategy framework that uses multiple coordinated strategies to dismantle the systems that create and perpetuate poverty and racial injustice. In partnership with the other Co-Deputy Director of Advocacy, who is responsible for the client-centered systems that support our advocacy, you will set a strategic vision for our advocacy work and supervise some of our program directors, supporting them in leading their teams to execute client-centered strategic impact and case work to seek outcomes aligned with LAJC’s ambitious goals to achieve racial, economic, and social justice. As a member of LAJC’s executive team, you will help determine and execute LAJC's strategic vision and advise the Executive Director regarding organizational priorities for all programmatic work and the effective use of organizational resources.

Job Duties:

This position is responsible for building out and overseeing the implementation of an integrated advocacy strategy framework that uses multiple coordinated strategies to dismantle the systems that create and perpetuate poverty and racial injustice. In partnership with the other Co-Deputy Director of Advocacy, who is responsible for the client-centered systems that support our advocacy, you will set a strategic vision for our advocacy work and supervise some of our program directors, supporting them in leading their teams to execute client-centered strategic impact and case work to seek outcomes aligned with LAJC’s ambitious goals to achieve racial, economic, and social justice. As a member of LAJC’s executive team, you will help determine and execute LAJC's strategic vision and advise the Executive Director regarding organizational priorities for all programmatic work and the effective use of organizational resources.

• Advocacy Leadership: Provide strategic vision and leadership to advocacy at LAJC to effectively shape and guide programmatic work internally, and to produce ambitious results externally for our client communities, by doing the following:

• •  Where appropriate, promote coordination of resources and expertise across programs when such coordination more effectively and efficiently advances LAJC’s mission.
  • Support the development of multi-strategy campaigns to dismantle systems that create and perpetuate poverty in Virginia. These tools include, but are not limited to, individual representation, organizing, policy advocacy, impact litigation, storytelling, community engagement and education, and technical assistance.
  • Build and/or strengthen relationships with directly impacted community members, members of the bench and bar, state and local agency heads, and elected officials.
  • Work in coalition with other legal, nonprofit, and community-based advocacy organizations.
  • Assist advocacy directors in supervising impact campaigns, ensuring coordination across advocacy strategies and encouraging cross-program collaboration.
  • Serve as Chair of LAJC’s Advocacy Standards Committee, which develops standards and policies for community-driven advocacy and approves impact campaign requests from LAJC’s six programs.

• Management, Supervision, and Mentorship:

• • Provide direct supervision and mentorship across lines of identity and difference, and in accordance with LAJC’s policies and procedures, to advocacy leadership (directors of litigation, organizing, and policy, and at least three of the program directors).
  • Collaborate regularly with advocacy leadership to evaluate programmatic advocacy goals and consider how each individual program informs the programmatic efforts of other programs to become a more powerful force for accomplishing justice.
  • Facilitate the implementation of tools LAJC uses to dismantle systemic poverty utilizing a cross- programmatic lens when necessary.
  • Ensure that senior staff prioritize the use of management protocols and tools, such as MOCHA, SMARTIE Goals, managing up, one-on-one check-ins, timely feedback, etc., and that senior staff aggressively promote professional development of their staff.
  • In collaboration with fellow leadership team members, help design, implement and reinforce operations systems within the organization.

• Organizational Leadership:

• • Serve on the Executive Team and advise the executive director in effectively leading and supporting the organization through significant growth and change.
  • Be a strategic collaborator and thought partner to the Executive Director, Co-Deputy Director of Advocacy, and Leadership Team overall.
  • Approach leadership with a mindset of “power with” rather than “power over” and regularly include others in decision-making.

• • Work closely with the roles and work of LAJC committees, such as the Internal Change Team (ICT) and the Organizing and Law Committee (O L) and provide guidance and mentorship to these committees as needed.
  • Serve as a thought leader and an agent for process improvement within the organization and a key member of LAJC’s management and leadership teams.
  • Serve on LAJC committees or ad hoc work groups as needed.

• • Contribute to design, maintenance and implementation of internal communications and change managements procedures.

• Communications: Work with the Director of Communications as needed to assist with internal and external communications.

• Fundraising: Work with Executive Director and Development Team as needed to brainstorm and develop relevant grant proposals and build strong relationships with LAJC donors.

• Racial Equity: Promote racial equity across all dimensions, including within LAJC, by doing the following:

• • Incorporate anti-oppression, equitable frameworks across all spheres of the organization’s work.
  • Helping to recruit, retain, and support both staff and leadership that reflect the racial composition of our community;
  • Cultivating respect for the work of and expanding resources for non-attorney staff that are disproportionately people of color;
  • Creating spaces for staff to discuss issues of racial, gender, and all other issues of marginalization; and
  • Pushing for institutional and cultural changes by management, the board, and staff to further promote racial equity.