Director - Beyond Borders Program

TEXAS CIVIL RIGHTS PROJECT seeks a 

Director of our Beyond Borders Program  

located in the Río Grande Valley, Austin, or Houston, Texas
 

OVERVIEW
 

The Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP) is a community lawyering organization that boldly serves the movement for equality and justice in Texas, working in and out of the courts. Ultimately, TCRP envisions a Texas in which all communities can thrive with dignity and justice, and without fear. 

For more than thirty years, TCRP has been a committed lawyer and partner to community organizers, Texas families and advocacy groups across the state. Whether through litigation or other means of advocacy, TCRP  works to dismantle carceral systems, fight discrimination in voting and civic participation, and end injustices occurring at the Texas border through three dedicated programs: Voting Rights, Beyond Borders, and Criminal Injustice. TCRP works in close collaboration with community-based organizations to identify injustices facing Texas communities and develop systemic solutions using litigation and creative legal advocacy tools. Today, we are a household name in Texas, and are viewed as one of the go-to civil rights organizations. We are, proudly, a unionized workplace. 

TCRP seeks a Director to lead our Beyond Borders Program. Reporting to TCRP’s President, the Beyond Borders Program Director will lead a team of seven to ten talented attorneys, advocates, and paralegals to drive our reform goals. The ideal candidate will, first and foremost, be an inclusive, passionate leader with demonstrated expertise in and commitment to immigrant rights. They will have a deep respect for community-centered lawyering and experience working in coalition with community-based organizations. The ideal candidate will be a proven manager with significant skills in strategy alignment, policy setting, and interpersonal communication; they will be ready to supervise experienced litigators as well as senior-level advocacy and organizing staff. 

Ideally, the candidate would be an attorney with meaningful litigation experience and a proven ability to develop and lead complex litigation. TCRP is also open to considering a lawyer without meaningful litigation experience and/or a candidate without a JD, so long as that candidate brings significant policy and advocacy experience, including a proven ability to lead multifaceted advocacy campaigns for policy change.

TCRP operates under a hybrid work policy, which allows for full remote work from anywhere in Texas, with required in person attendance for specified work activities. The in-person activities are typically based out of any of TCRP’s offices: Alamo (in the Rio Grande Valley), Austin, or Houston. Exceptions to required in person activities can be made based on a case-by-case basis.

For additional highlights about TCRP’s work and to learn more about TCRP, visit at www.txcivilrights.org. 

OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES FACING THE NEW PROGRAM DIRECTOR
The Beyond Borders (“BB”) program works to advance human dignity, defend the universal right to migrate, and advocate on behalf of Texas border communities, in particular migrants & immigrants, people of color, and other disempowered groups. In solidarity with state and border advocates, our program has a goal of eliminating policies that perpetuate the harmful effects of militarization, cultural erasure, imprisonment, and exclusion along the Texas-Mexico border and across the state.  The BB team has two practice areas: humanitarian legal advocacy and state/local border advocacy. Our humanitarian work involves advocating for migrants to move across our border with dignity, while our state & local advocacy work seeks to improve good governance of border communities across our state, envisioning a border without economic exploitation. These two areas reflect our thinking about borders: a river that creates an international boundary and often bleeds from the violence of its maintenance, creating a critical need for humanitarian legal assistance; and the expansion of the border across the state, creating an equal need for a state and localized approach to dismantle the border militarization complex.

The next Program Director will have the opportunity to further develop creative and effective strategies to tackle some of the most pressing border issues in Texas and across the US-Mexico border, leading a talented team and with a network of allies and other supporters to do so. This requires a multifaceted leader who can: 

Partner with senior leadership to refine and execute the vision and strategy for the Beyond Borders Program at TCRP. The new Director will be a thought leader, ready to apply their expertise in leading complex state and national legal advocacy efforts, and in particular ready to advance and expand the team’s goals. They will work closely with the TCRP’s Leadership Team and the Beyond Borders team to build on the program’s recent successes, and will deepen partnerships with grassroots organizers, peer organizations, policymakers and community members to ensure that the work of the program team is informed by impacted communities and has widespread impact. 

Manage a talented team of passionate advocates. The new Director will lead a talented group of attorneys, immigrant rights and border advocates and other legal professionals committed to reform. In this capacity, they will supervise the case development and investigations of concerns raised by community members and partner organizations. This includes identifying innovative strategies to build cases, drive advocacy campaigns, form and maintain strategic partnerships, oversee litigation, and provide guidance and support to attorneys, advocacy staff, and paralegals. The new Director will foster a culture of boldness, trust, transparency, mentorship, and equity within the team and across TCRP. 

Collaborate with other Leadership Team members to promote intersectional approaches to advancing TCRP’s mission. TCRP’s success relies on collaborative relationships among our entire team. The new Director will explore opportunities to build cases and campaigns that intersect with TCRP’s other program areas, enabling integration and alignment across the team and increasing learning from each other and from grassroots partners. 

Work in thought partnership with the Community Engagement Department to build and disseminate winning narratives. The new Director will collaborate deeply with colleagues in our Community Engagement Department consisting of communications and resource development professionals to build multifaceted, integrated campaigns that advance powerful narratives. The Director will also be expected to serve as a spokesperson to shape public opinion, mobilize community support and resources, and influence decision-makers.  

Partner across the organization to drive equity, diversity, and inclusion. Grounded in TCRP’s  commitment to justice and equality and its organizational values, the new Director will bring an equity lens to all aspects of strategy, priority setting, team development, and community engagement. The new Director will support TCRP’s work to reflect the communities we serve and build a culture of inclusion, continuous growth, and openness. The new Director will help create a respectful and equitable work environment for staff at all levels of the organization and will ensure the same experience for clients, partners, and stakeholders, embodying TCRP’s internal manifesto “How We Want to Be.”  

QUALIFICATIONS AND COMPENSATION 

The ideal candidate will be an entrepreneurial and effective leader, strategist and manager with an unrelenting commitment to justice on behalf of all. While no one candidate will have all the qualifications enumerated below, the ideal candidate will be an experienced attorney and have many of the following skills, qualifications, and abilities: 

• Deep knowledge of issues impacting the border region including immigration/migration, civil rights issues affecting longtime border residents and/or migrants seeking protection at the border; experience with the Texas immigrant rights and the intersection with criminal injustice landscape is a plus; Experience analyzing public policy issues in this arena, including an ability to synthesize and summarize large amounts of information and to focus quickly on the essence of an issue; 

• Three or more years of demonstrated success inspiring and leading highly talented and diverse teams, including but not limited to legal and advocacy staff; proven success hiring, training, conducting performance evaluations and mentoring teams; experience as a manager of managers; 

• Initiative, vision, creativity, and a demonstrated willingness to take calculated risks in crafting and executing strategies; 

• At least seven years of legal, policy or advocacy experience

  • Legal: Legal candidates should have at least seven years of federal or state court civil litigation experience, including complex case development; comfort with the language and flow of complex litigation;

  • Policy or Advocacy: Policy or advocacy candidates should have at least seven years of national, state or local experience driving immigration or another relevant area of state or federal reforms.      

• A deep personal commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion; proven success in engaging with and working in partnership with diverse communities; lived experience that informs an authentic understanding of the challenges faced by vulnerable communities and a sophisticated understanding of the historical nature of structural power differences with a lens into how that impacts social justice efforts today; 

• Excellent communication skills, including research and writing, interpersonal and public  communication skills, and an ability to convey vision and strategy through external messaging; 

• Excellent interpersonal skills, including maturity, keen judgment, the ability to facilitate challenging conversations and quickly read interpersonal dynamics, and the ability to work with people from a wide array of backgrounds and perspectives and across projects; 

• Ability to create a positive atmosphere in a high-energy, fast-paced work environment;  excellent and consistent attention to detail and the ability to prioritize and meet deadlines;

• A personal drive for self-reflection, improvement, and learning;  

• Patience, a sense of humor, gravitas and a high tolerance for ambiguity; the ability to adapt  quickly to change; and a natural orientation towards collaboration;  

• The ability and willingness to travel regionally;  

• Professional working proficiency in Spanish is required; Native/Fluency in Spanish is a plus.   

• For attorney candidates, admission to the Texas Bar or ability to immediately waive into Texas Bar.

COMPENSATION
 

The expected salary range is $120,000 - $140,000 per year, commensurate with experience. TCRP  also offers excellent benefits, professional development opportunities and a deep commitment to a meaningful work-life balance. Benefits include: employer-paid health, dental, and vision insurance, four weeks paid vacation, eight weeks paid family leave (with opportunities to extend leave up to 14 paid weeks in total), a robust professional development budget annually, and extensive holidays, including a two-week winter break at the end of December. 

TO APPLY 

Due to the pace of this search, candidates are strongly encouraged to apply as soon as possible, and no later than June 9, 2023.  

Note: TCRP allows primarily remote work and operates offices in Alamo (in the Rio Grande Valley), Austin, and Houston.

TCRP values a diverse workforce and an inclusive culture — people of color, women, individuals  with disabilities, veterans, and people from other underrepresented communities are strongly  encouraged to apply for this position.  

TCRP does not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, age, creed, religion,  physical ability, gender, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, sexual orientation, previous  incarceration, veteran status, union membership or activism, or any other characteristic  protected by local, state or federal law.