Legal Intake Assistant (Internal Candidates Only)

Who We Are

Columbia Legal Services is a nonprofit civil legal aid organization that advances social, economic, and racial equity for people living in poverty. We support communities and movements by bringing deep legal expertise that is grounded in - and strongly guided by - an understanding of race equity.

We seek systemic solutions by bringing class action lawsuits, using cutting edge legal theories, engaging in policy advocacy, and supporting communities in building their own power. We have a special responsibility to serve people whose access to free legal services is restricted, due to institutionalized or immigration status.

At CLS we seek a team that reflects our organizational values of community, race equity, and justice. This includes hiring staff with connections to the communities we serve whenever possible, and a commitment to strive for justice and equity in our hiring practices and in our staff culture.

Position Summary

Columbia Legal Services seeks a full-time Legal Intake Assistant to join our statewide advocacy team working to dismantle the structures that perpetuate poverty, racism, and other injustices in Washington. This position can be based in any of our five offices and may occasionally require work during evenings and/or on weekends.

The Legal Intake Assistant supports our work in Ending Mass Incarceration primarily through coordinating communications with people in prison or jails and connecting this important work with CLS' overall community engagement efforts. This position will work in close collaboration with Advocacy and Community Engagement Specialists (ACES), who lead and facilitate CLS' community engagement work, and with other Advocacy staff including attorneys, legal support staff, and supervisory staff.

CLS brings its core values of community, race equity, and justice into all aspects of its work, and we seek an individual for this role who aligns with these values.

All CLS staff have the option to complete some work remotely and have some flexibility in determining their own work schedule; however, this position will require some physical presence at the office, as well as an ability to attend required meetings at the office and in the community.

CLS requires that all employees adhere to our COVID-19 vaccine mandate through proof of vaccination or by requesting a medical or religious accommodation. Staff are also required to follow CLS COVID-19 protocols while engaging in in-person work in our offices and in the community.

Responsibilities

• Process intake requests and coordinate intake communications
  • Process incoming legal mail from prisons and jails (depending on location this may include opening, scanning, forwarding, organizing, and/or filing mail).
  • Collaborate with other CLS staff to coordinate responses to written correspondence.
  • Track intake requests, including those that come from other sources, to ensure equitable responses and identify common requests or issues raised.
  • File documents and correspondence.
  • Recommend follow-up or additional engagement where appropriate, including identifying potential attorneys or other staff to engage. \
  • Directly follow-up on correspondence or other communications when appropriate.
• Manage collect call phone lines from prisons and jails, including the following:
  • Monitor and answer collect call lines for people in prisons and jails, including monitoring JPAY/Securus.
  • Coordinate with other CLS support staff to schedule legal calls with attorneys and other advocates for people in prison or jails by coordinating staff schedules, client availability, and facility restrictions.
  • Conduct follow-up calls when appropriate.
  • Provide referrals for callers when appropriate.
• Connect intake requests to Community Engagement
  • Connect regularly with Advocacy and Community Engagement Specialists (ACES) to discuss intake requests (including recurring or common requests and issues raised) and discuss how intake requests fit within CLS' broader community engagement efforts.
  • Build and maintain a resource list for common concerns and issues raised during intake in order to direct people in jails and prisons to relevant support or other opportunities where possible.
  • Share relevant information at internal CLS team meetings.
  • Support ACES in building relationships with communities, including people in jails and prisons, when capacity allows.
  • Attend community meetings geared toward helping or promoting the rights of people currently incarcerated, when capacity allows.
• Support the litigation process, including providing early and follow-up communications for clients or potential clients identified through the intake process and, when capacity allows, helping with initial investigations.

This job description is not designed to contain a comprehensive listing of activities, duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee, and others may be assigned.

Qualifications

The ideal candidate will have all or most of the experience below, or have a combination of comparable experience where they have demonstrated similar skills or responsibilities. We encourage all interested candidates to apply.

• Lived or other demonstrated meaningful and sustained experience with people living in poverty; people of color, immigrant, or indigenous communities; and/or people impacted by the criminal legal system.
• Commitment to confronting, exposing, and dismantling all forms of structural bias and oppression, and an ability to identify issues within communities.

• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills (oral and written).
• Working knowledge of and/or lived experience with jails and prisons.
• Some experience providing direct client service or working with communities.
• Ability to work independently and an ability to work across offices using Microsoft Office 365 online, Adobe Acrobat, and email.
• Ability to coordinate multiple projects at the same time.

Preferred

• 1-year of direct client service experience with people incarcerated in jails and prisons.
• Bilingual skills in Spanish/English are a plus.

Compensation and Benefits

CLS is proud to be a unionized employer. This full-time, exempt position is a bargaining unit position, represented by Washington Legal Workers, our in-house labor union.

Columbia Legal Services is committed to providing an equitable work environment, including a commitment to pay equity. As part of this commitment, all employees' pay is based on years of experience doing substantially similar work and set on a standard pay scale for their position, rather than on negotiations, which have been shown to contribute to pay disparities. The 2023 salary range for a Legal Intake Assistant with 0-5 years of directly relevant experience is $48,733 - $55,949.

CLS has a 35-hour workweek. We also offer a comprehensive compensation package including the following:

• 14 paid holidays annually
• Winter Break office closure between Christmas and New Year's
• 12 sick days annually
• 15-21 paid vacation days annually (based on years of experience)
• 3-5 personal days annually (based on years of experience)
• Early office closure the first Friday of the month
• Paid parental and family medical leave benefits
• Paid sabbatical every 7 years
• Student Loan Repayment Assistance Program (for employees with less than 10 years' experience)

Additionally, we pay 100% of employee premiums for excellent health, vision, and dental benefits plus 50% of the maximum out-of-pocket deductible and offer heavily subsidized family premiums.

We also offer a 403(b) retirement benefit with employer contribution and a match, disability and life insurance, a subsidized transit pass, and an employee wellness program.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have also provided home office setup support for working remotely and time off for vaccinations or illness related to COVID-19. We are continuing those benefits in 2023.

To Apply

Internal candidates should submit their application before April 24, 2023.

Submit a resume in PDF format through our online application portal. If you need a reasonable accommodation for the application process, please contact careers@columbialegal.org.

We are committed to an environment of mutual respect, collaboration, and equal opportunity for all employees, and strongly encourage applications from people of color, immigrants, people who have been affected by mass incarceration, and other underrepresented and historically marginalized groups. We believe in building and sustaining an organization that is reflective of the communities we serve, and is diverse in work background, experience, education, race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion, marital status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, ancestry, national origin, or sensory,mentaland physical abilities. We believe that the resulting diversity is both a source of program strength and a matter of fundamental human fairness.