Senior Staff Attorney, Education Advocacy

The Center for Family Representation Inc. (CFR) is an award-winning, innovative law and policy organization that serves primarily Black and Brown families and youth in Queens, Manhattan, the Bronx, and Staten Island with an interdisciplinary legal defense model that serves more than 2400 clients every year. CFR was originally founded in 2002 to dramatically change the trajectory of indigent parents being prosecuted by the City’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS). Our goal is to defend and protect our clients’ rights, reduce the harm of family separation and prevent or minimize the time any child spends in the foster system.

About CFR: CFR provides interdisciplinary family defense with a model that was unique at our founding and that is now being replicated nationally: we assign every client an attorney and a social work staff member, and teams have the support of parent advocates, who are parents with direct personal experience of being investigated and prosecuted by ACS. Early Defense represents parents during a child protective investigation (to avoid court involvement where possible). 

As an agency committed to securing justice for families, we built the Youth Defense practice (YDP) to defend youth at risk of family separation through incarceration. YDP uses the same interdisciplinary model to represent youth being prosecuted in Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx in Supreme Court Youth Parts, during Probation Adjustment and in Delinquency proceedings in Family Court. CFR’s Home for Good program provides legal and social work services to clients in immigration, civil legal services and criminal defense matters, to afford clients an efficient and well-coordinated one-stop solution to a range of issues that threaten family stability.

Recognized as experts in our fields, we annually train over 500 practitioners in the city, state and around the country on strategies to promote family preservation and interdisciplinary representation, and we provide community based “Know Your Rights” presentations to parents, youth and service providers. We advocate at the city, state and national level for policies that reduce the harm of family separation, and promote parent engagement and justice for youth and families. 

The Senior Staff Attorney, Education Advocacy will represent CFR clients and their families in educational matters, advocating for their preferred educational outcomes and providing advice. The Senior Staff Attorney, Education Advocacy will work with CFR’s Early Defense practice to support families experiencing family policing investigations and prosecutions. This position will have an Early Defense focus but may assist and collaborate with the Family Defense and other practice areas. The Senior Staff Attorney, Education Advocacy will support CFR staff by consulting on educational matters and providing trainings. This position is full time and will be supervised by the Supervising Attorney of Policy and Early Defense.

Specific Responsibilities may include but are not limited to:

Direct Client Representation 

• Maintain a docket of education cases in the boroughs in which CFR practices determined on a case-by-case basis
• Support CFR clients in initiating and obtaining appropriate early intervention or special education evaluations for their children
• Review evaluations, Individualized Education Program (IEP)s
• Attend IEP meetings and advocate for families to receive appropriate special education services
• File Impartial Hearing Req