Managing Attorney

About the role

Public Counsel is a nonprofit public interest law firm dedicated to advancing civil rights and racial and economic justice, as well as to amplifying the power of our clients through comprehensive legal advocacy. Public Counsel organizes its work through seven legal teams: Child, Youth & Family Advocacy, Community Development, Consumer Rights & Economic Justice, Homelessness Prevention, Immigrants’ Rights, Education Equity, and our impact litigation team, Opportunity Under Law (OUL).

Responsibilities

• Reports to the Director of Litigation, the Managing Attorney provides leadership and management for Public Counsel’s impact litigation team.
• Helps oversee OUL’s litigation docket and ensures the effective staffing and execution of high-impact cases arising from Public Counsel’s direct services work and community-identified needs.
• Serves as lead counsel in select matters and works closely with Directing Attorneys and the Senior Special Counsel for Strategic Litigation to support coordinated cross-team litigation.
• Administers OUL case staffing to ensure sufficient and equitably distributed case coverage, placing responsibility on staff members for ownership over their cases while supporting manageable workloads for staff retention.
• Works with the pro bono team to recruit and support pro bono attorneys engaged in OUL’s impact litigation and amicus efforts and to ensure proper pro bono reporting.
• Develops strategic communications and engages with press, including by representing Public Counsel at conferences, trainings, and other public-facing events.
• Builds and sustains strong relationships with community partners, co-counsel, coalitions, peer organizations, and external stakeholders to support coordinated and community-centered litigation.

Requirements

• At least 10 years of legal experience.
• Juris Doctor degree and a member in good standing of any state bar (if not a member of the State Bar of California, must be prepared to join).
• Significant management and mentorship experience, including assembling effective teams, providing sustained and meaningful supervision, overseeing case assignments, maintaining team morale, and teaching and cultivating the talents of more junior staff.
• Significant experience creating, implementing, and sustaining systems and procedures designed to ensure the smooth functioning of legal teams and cases.
• Experience in complex, high-stakes, or multi-party litigation, including in overall case management, investigations, pleadings, discovery, dispositive motions, trial work, appeals, settlements, and settlement implementation.
• Exceptional brief writing and editing skills, with a record of producing or overseeing top-quality trial and/or appellate filings.
• Demonstrated ability to conceptualize and refine novel or complex legal theories.
• Experience with oral advocacy, including arguing motions or appeals in state and federal courts.
• Demonstrated ability to conceptualize and refine novel or complex legal theories.
• Experience developing strategic communications and engaging with press preferred.
• Leadership experience and vision for—as well as demonstrated commitment to—advancing justice, with experience working in coalition with pro bono co-counsel, policy advocates, and community stakeholders preferred.
• Demonstrated commitment to racial and economic justice, and advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace and in the communities Public Counsel serves.
• Experience and comfort working with clients living in poverty, including clients experiencing addiction or mental health issues.
• Demonstrated experience with and commitment to trauma-informed legal advocacy.
• Ability to work cooperatively across teams, levels, and functions within the organization and to navigate difficult conversations and address conflict effectively.
• Excellent judgment and discretion as well as excellent interpersonal, management, and organizational skills that gain and sustain respect internally and with external partners.
• Inspiring, decisive, collaborative, transparent, and flexible leadership style.
• High levels of emotional intelligence and cultural competency, including being curious, self-aware, cognizant of bias, compassionate, patient, and willing to listen, and having a growth and open mindset.