Temporary Paralegal: Wildfire Relief Homeowner Protection

Description

For 50 years, Bet Tzedek Legal Services has provided high-quality, free legal services to Los Angeles’ most vulnerable residents. The Homeowner Protection team continues Bet Tzedek’s history of real estate and economic justice work. The team focuses on protecting homeowners at risk of losing ownership or equity to their homes to promote housing stability and preserve intergenerational wealth and stability in Los Angeles’s highest need communities. Since the outbreak of the Eaton and Palisades wildfires, the team has also worked with wildfire impacted homeowners to provide services on a variety of issues such as homeowner insurance, and anticipating the need to help with matters such as contractor fraud and foreclosure prevention.

Bet Tzedek seeks a paralegal to join the team on a temporary basis to provide legal administrative support, including maintaining client records, scheduling client appointments, conducting intake interviews, preparing pleadings and discovery, and processing, filing, and serving legal documents for administrative and civil litigation for matters involving wildfire impacted homeowners. This key team member will also help build outreach materials, coordinate and assist with community education opportunities and compile project statistics and support other administrative processes.

This position is eligible for Bet Tzedek Legal Services’ hybrid/remote workplace designation. At the discretion of the immediate supervisor, the employee may be required to work in the office or other locations to meet workload/business obligations. This requirement may be on a temporary or ongoing basis.

Requirements

ESSENTIAL DUTIES:

• Conduct client intake, including screening potential clients for program eligibility, gathering substantive facts, collect and organize client evidence for analysis of merits of case, and participating in case review under the supervision of an attorney.
• Provide advice and counsel and/or limited services under the supervision of an attorney.
• Clearly and professionally communicate with clients, and, if necessary, opposing counsel, courts, government agencies, and financial institutions for purposes of helping to resolve client matters, under the supervision of an attorney.
• Support attorneys with case administration, including calendaring deadlines, client coordination, drafting and serving correspondence, basic discovery requests, discovery responses, and court pleadings and forms.
• Coordinate filing and service of appropriate documents.
• Prepare administrative agency and court forms and coordinate filing and service under the supervision of an attorney.
• Assist with outreach and education efforts, including delivering “Know Your Rights” presentations and supporting legal clinics alongside attorneys.
• Maintain well-organized legal files and enter timely and accurate case and client information in case management database.
• Assist with the administrative aspects of opening and closing files.
• Coordinating volunteers’ and pro bono attorneys’ participation in legal clinics and on cases.
• Other duties might be assigned.
• A paralegal certificate/degree in paralegal studies from an ABA-approved institution OR bachelor's degree and at least 1 year of law-related experience under the supervision of an attorney who has been an active member of the California bar for the preceding 3 years (required);
• California Notary Certificate (preferred);
• Experience in state court systems, including state court e-filing systems (preferred);
• At least 2 years of experience of working in a law firm, nonprofit, or in-house law office supporting multiple attorneys (preferred);
• Thorough knowledge of legal terminology, court rules, and procedures (required);
• Bilingual and biliterate in both English and Spanish (strongly preferred);
• Clearly demonstrated competency with the Internet and Web-based applications and MS Office (required);
• Clearly demonstrated competency with case management systems (required)
• Clearly demonstrated competency with legal database (Lexis/Nexis and/or Westlaw) (preferred);
• Exceptionally organized, self-motivated, and goal-oriented (required);
• Demonstrated commitment to Bet Tzedek’s mission to provide free legal services to those who need them most (required); and
• Demonstrated commitment to applying principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion in performance of job duties (required).

HOW TO APPLY:

• Email letter of interest, resume, and writing sample to bettzedek.74.B4C@applynow.io, subject line “Paralegal I - Homeowner Protection.”

Note: All positions are s