Associate Clinical Professor and Director of Loyola’s Immigrant Justice Clinic (LIJC)

LMU’S LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL invites applications for a full-time Associate Clinical Professor and Director of Loyola’s Immigrant Justice Clinic (LIJC).

As part of Loyola’s Social Justice Law Clinic (LSJLC), LIJC is a community-based collaboration of Loyola Law School, Loyola Marymount University, Homeboy Industries Inc., and Dolores Mission Church. LIJC’s community service mission is to advance the rights of the immigrant population in East Los Angeles through direct legal services, education, and community empowerment while teaching law students effective immigrants’ rights lawyering skills in a real-world setting. LIJC focuses on providing representation to individuals who are unable to obtain immigration legal services elsewhere with an emphasis on immigrants with certain immigration and criminal complications who reside in the East Los Angeles area. LIJC also has recently launched a Binational Migrant Advocacy Project bringing students in the United States and students in Mexico to work collaboratively in an international setting.

LIJC’s director is expected to teach and supervise law students in LIJC’s clinical courses.  This includes all responsibilities of a faculty member in a live-client clinic setting, including developing the curriculum, regular student supervision meetings, supervised appearances in court as required by the needs of the cases and clients, and supervision of LIJC staff. In addition to teaching and supervising students enrolled in LIJC, the director will also continue the representation of LIJC clients during times of the year when students are not actively participating in the clinic.  The director will also oversee all aspects of the LIJC’s Binational Migrant Advocacy Project in alignment with donor and partner expectations.

Currently, LIJC is staffed with a Community Legal Services Director who handles a range of responsibilities, including supervising cases and community clinics, grant reporting and administrative matters.  LIJC also has a supervising attorney, a community advocate, a post-graduate fellow and a legal assistant, who assist in all aspects of LIJC’s work. 

The successful candidate will help establish priorities for LIJC’s community and binational work, strategize and direct LIJC’s casework, and work with University Advancement staff, the LSJLC Executive Director, LIJC’s Advisory Board, staff, and other stakeholders to create and oversee the implementation of fundraising strategies and grant fundraising.  This position requires some travel, including within the United States and internationally.

The selected candidate will join our diverse community of clinicians and students in LSJLC and will be responsible for working with LIJC staff to integrate LIJC’s activities into LSJLC and the broader law school community and mission. The Law School houses over twenty live-client clinics engaged in social justice legal advocacy on behalf of many different underrepresented communities in Los Angeles, so clinicians collaborate with each other to provide integrated representation that meets clients’ needs in many different legal forums. For more information, please visit www.lls.edu/lijc.   

Minimum qualifications include:

• J.D. degree from an accredited law school
• Admission to the California Bar
• 8 years of immigration legal experience representing clients in seeking humanitarian relief, 10 years preferred.
• Experience teaching or supervising students in a clinical legal setting preferred.  Experience supervising and/or teaching individuals in a clinical setting or public interest law office is required.
• Ability and willingness to work on campus to provide live teaching, supervision and mentoring of clinic students.
• Strong writing and speaking skills.
• Strong service ethic.
• Ability to work collaboratively and handle multiple demands in a busy work environment.
• A successful track record of working effectively with diverse and vulnerable client populations, and a demonstrated commitment to social justice.
• Experience with fundraising and stewardship of individual and institutional funders is strongly preferred
• Experience with program development and staff supervision and development preferred
• Fluency in Spanish is strongly preferred.

The hiring salary range is $125,000-148,000.  Salary and rank are commensurate with experience. 

Applicants should submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, three references, a writing sample, and any teaching evaluations from the last two years. In the application materials, applicants are encouraged to highlight how diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice affect their practice, teaching, and service. 

Only those applicants selected for interviews