Legal Cafe Director Summary
The Sustainable Economies Law Center is looking to add a new member to our team! We are looking for someone who is interested in a full-time position (which we define as 30 hours per week). This person should be someone who is located in the Bay Area because this position requires hosting events several times per month in Oakland, Berkeley, and surrounding communities. The position we are hiring for also requires this person to be willing to work at least four evenings per month.
We are excited to welcome someone to our team who is energized by interacting with people, building relationships, and organizing community events. This person should be a good communicator and excited to help us expand and improve our flagship direct services program, the Resilient Communities Legal Cafe , which now includes Transformative Policymakers Policy Cafes . Additionally, we want this new team member to have relevant skills and interest to
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support either our organization’s public communications OR grassroots fundraising teams (depending on background, experience, and/or interest in one of these areas) .
The roles in this position will break down approximately as follows:
● 60% coordinating the Legal Cafe Program (which includes Policy Cafes)
● 20% supporting either work in the Abundance (grassroots fundraising) Circle OR
Communications Circle
● 20% contributing to the overall governance and functioning of the organization.
See below for more detail about the specific roles we hope this person will fill at the Law Center. Information about Sustainable Economies Law Center
Our mission is to cultivate a new legal landscape that supports community resilience and grassroots economic empowerment. We provide essential legal tools – education, research, advice, and advocacy – so communities everywhere can develop their own sustainable sources of food, housing, energy, jobs, and other vital aspects of a thriving community.
We are a worker self-directed nonprofit . This means that we use democratic governance and decision-making systems that provide all staff with a voice in the direction of the organization. We expect that all core staff participate in decision-making that affects the entire organization.
We share roles and responsibilities. Most staff take on a diversity of roles within the organization, based on the organization’s needs and on staff members’ interests and skills. So there are likely some things you will do as a core staff member that are not listed on this job description, including, for example: regular staff meetings, participating in creating organizational budgets, quarterly staff trainings.
There’s more! The Law Center has some unique policies intended to create a healthy, inclusive and effective work environment. Read more about our systems of accountability, autonomy, and democracy within our organizational structure .
Before answering our questions on the next page, feel free to watch our informational videos below. They explain a little bit about our dynamic organizational structure, our office culture, and what you should expect of our hiring process. Sometimes, folks don’t actually like the way we work. And that’s ok!
Take a tour of our (old) office! (“No fancy pants” rules still apply.) Bringing on new members to our dynamic, constantly evolving Law Center!
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Who we are looking for
We are looking for someone who has a strong commitment to social and economic justice and is excited about joining a democratically governed organization. More specifically, we’re looking for someone who believes that our Legal Cafes and Policy Cafes are two essential means for using the law to create more just, equitable, and resilient communities. We are looking for someone who possesses and highly values curiosity, kindness, diligence, patience, and integrity.
Legal work experience is not required, but your interest in the law is!
Required Skills & Experience
● Volunteer coordination
● Event coordination
● Ability to cultivate and steward relationships
● Project management
● Strong communication skills
● Good organization skills
● Time and task management
● Experience and competency working with communities of color, low-income
communities, immigrant communities, and other marginalized groups
● Comfort with regularly working independently and/or remotely
Desired Skills & Experience
● Fluency in one or more languages other than English (Spanish preferred)
● Community organizing experience
● Legal work experience (including apprenticeship, paralegal, or lawyer)
● Experience with democratic decision-making
● Experience developing and coordinating educational workshops
● Familiarity with specific software/platforms, including: Nationbuilder, WordPress, Asana,
Slack, Google Suite
● A valid driver’s license, access to a car, and safe driving skills will help to transport supplies
and staff from our office to the various event spaces where our Legal Cafes and Policy Cafes are held.
Employment & Benefit Details
● Compensation: All full-time staff are paid the same salary, currently $60,137.
● Hours: We consider a full-time work week to be 30 hours.
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● Location: Our office is located in downtown Oakland. Staff are required to work in the office, on average, 2 days per week. Remaining days can be in the office or remote.
● Time Off: We have a “free time off policy,” which means that there is no universal limit to paid time off during a calendar year. Each core staff member has the opportunity and responsibility to take as much paid time off as they see fit, so long as they can fulfill their roles and responsibilities to the organization.
● Health Insurance: We offer health insurance for staff and children dependents (with partial coverage for spouses) and flexible spending accounts.
● Child Care: We contribute $5,000 to a flexible spending account for dependent care per staff member with children under the age of 10.
● Family Leave: We provide 12 weeks of paid parental and/or caregiving leave.
● Sabbatical: We have a sabbatical policy that permits a 4-month sabbatical after working
at the organization for 5 years.
People of color, trans and gender nonconforming people, people from poor and working class backgrounds, people with disabilities, and women are encouraged to apply.
More detailed information on the roles and responsibilities on the next page.
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Detailed Job Description
Legal Cafe & Policy Cafe Coordination
About 18 hours/week (60%)
The Resilient Communities Legal Cafe Program is our flagship direct services program, and we have also recently added Policy Cafes to our programming to help cultivate community policy advocates. We want you to help us run and continually improve our Legal Cafe and Policy Cafe programs. Running the programs will include:
● Coordinating and hosting Resilient Communities Legal Cafes (3 times per month) and Policy Cafes (at least once per quarter)
● Recruiting, co-developing trainings for, and retaining Legal Cafe volunteers
● Coordinating logistics for Legal Cafes and Policy Cafes, including:
○ coordinating with venues for each Cafe;
○ scheduling Cafes one quarter in advance;
○ ensuring an adequate number of attorney and non-attorney volunteers for each
Cafe;
○ creating and managing online event pages and RSVPs for each Cafe;
○ responding to email inquiries from clients;
○ purchasing snacks for each Cafe; and
○ managing flow of clients through intake and placement with attorneys
● Expanding the scope and effectiveness of our Legal Cafes, including:
○ cultivating new organizational partners to co-host Cafes in underserved
communities;
○ coordinating expansion and effective use of educational materials at Cafes; and
○ supporting the replication of Cafes in other locations.
General Circle Member
About 6 hours/week (20%)
As a worker self-directed nonprofit , we expect all core staff to fully engage with and adhere to our organization’s democratic governance and decision-making processes. This part of the job description is intentionally unstructured to allow individuals to learn about our organization, identify what other roles they feel drawn to, and begin to fill or build new roles within the organization. This unstructured time is also intended to encapsulate core staff responsibilities not accounted for elsewhere in this job description. Core staff responsibilities include:
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● daily communications
● staff-wide meetings
● circle (team) meetings
● events
● adhering to our organizational policies that promote transparency and distributed decision-making.
In a dynamic organization, everyone wears multiple “hats.” While this position will be focused on coordinating the Legal Cafe program and hosting Policy Cafes, we have identified other areas within the organization that we would like this new person to provide support, based on the person’s experience and interests. So, if you don’t think you qualify for everything below, that’s okay! Don’t let that stop you from applying. We will collaboratively tailor the remaining 20% (~6 hours/week) of the job description with our new teammate.
(1)Abundance (Grassroots Fundraising) Circle Member
About 6 hours/week (20%)
The Abundance Circle’s purpose is to cultivate a diverse range of strategies, relationships, and practices for the Law Center’s long-term financial resilience and sustainability. This team focuses on building out a larger donor base of people who individually contribute modest donations. Everyday, we’re working to create a people-powered economy, and the Abundance Circle is helping us become a people-powered organization! We would like the new staff person to help build capacity in the following areas:
● Managing and growing our community membership program (monthly donors);
● Tracking donations in our online member database;
● Cultivating relationships with local businesses to support our work; and
● Supporting our Spring fundraising campaign.
Required Skills & Experience for Abundance Circle
● Able to motivate and facilitate others toward a fundraising goal;
● Interest in researching, developing, and planning grassroots fundraising strategies; and
● Comfortable collecting and analyzing donation data.
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(2)Communications Circle Member
About 6 hours/week (20%)
The Communications Circle strategizes and implements the Law Center’s external communications to further our mission and maintain consistent messaging across our various program areas. We would like the new staff person to help build capacity in the following areas::
● Managing our organizational websites;
● Coordinating monthly email newsletters, with support of staff in developing content;
● Expanding the Law Center’s access to media outlets and building relationships to increase
visibility of our work in the press;
● Developing a consistent social media narrative and executing a social media strategy to
increase exposure of the Law Center’s work; and
● Developing “print” resources, including drafting, editing content, and graphic design.
Required Skills & Experience for Communications Circle
● Experience with developing and implementing a communications strategy;
● Writing compelling content tailored for different audiences;
● Basic graphic design experience; and
● Familiarity with CRM platforms and basic HTML.
Our Timeline
We are accepting applications through March 7, 2018. We expect to conduct interviews from March 19th through April 2nd, and make an offer during the week of April 9th. The start date will depend on the needs and schedules of the organization and new hire, although we have a preference for on-boarding by May.
How to Apply
Please fill out our brief Legal Cafe Director Candidate Questionnaire and upload your resume by 11:59pm PST on March 7, 2018. Click below to respond to our short questionnaire and to upload your resume.