Staff Attorney

Overview

Job Title: Staff Attorney

Department: Criminal Defense Practice

Location: Harlem, NY

Reports To: Managing Attorney, CRIM

Position Type: Full-Time

Union Status: Union eligible

FLSA Status: Exempt

 

About NDS:

Neighborhood Defender Service (NDS) is a national nonprofit public defense organization that pioneered the holistic defense model more than 30 years ago. Founded in Harlem, NDS was built to challenge the traditional public defense model by centering clients, communities, and interdisciplinary advocacy. Today, NDS operates community-based offices in Harlem; the Bronx; Detroit; and Hays County, Texas, supported by a unified national infrastructure that allows local teams to deliver high-quality, responsive representation rooted in the communities they serve.

 

Across all locations, NDS provides client-centered legal representation through interdisciplinary teams composed of attorneys, investigators, social workers, client advocates, and team administrators. Our approach emphasizes early and ongoing engagement with clients—before arrest where possible, throughout the life of a case, and beyond case resolution—while addressing the legal, social, and systemic challenges that impact long-term stability. NDS is committed to treating every client with dignity and respect and to advancing justice for individuals and communities that have been historically marginalized and over-policed.

 

Core Purpose of the Role:

The Homicide Defense Team at NDS represents residents of Northern Manhattan who are charged with homicide and who cannot afford to hire a lawyer. Clients are represented by a team comprised of a staff attorney, an investigator, a mitigation specialist, and a paralegal. NDS also provides pre-arrest representation to clients under threat of arrest.  NDS adheres to a client-centered approach to representation that emphasizes a heightened responsiveness to clients’ needs prior to arrest, while a case is pending, and after the case concludes. NDS is committed to addressing the comprehensive legal and social service needs of clients. 

Responsibilities

• Provide vigorous representation with energy and enthusiasm to residents of Northern Manhattan in Manhattan’s criminal courts.
• Engage in frequent court appearances and litigation, including arraignments, grand jury presentations, legal arguments, hearings and trials.
• Ability to be “on call”, when scheduled to be on intake, from 9am – 11pm to arraign new homicide defense clients. Intake shifts are scheduled between homicide qualified attorneys.
• Interview clients and their families in the office or local jails, conduct legal research and write pre-pleading letters, motions and pre-sentencing memoranda on behalf of clients.
• Direct and coordinate work performed by team members (investigator, mitigation specialist and paralegal) along with at least one other staff attorney as a second seat.
• Work with cross-practice colleagues (family defense, immigration defense, housing defense and other civil defense) to obtain comprehensive legal outcomes for clients.
• Review, digest and organize discovery and be responsible for complying with reciprocal discovery rules.
• File motions, briefs and other related documents on a frequent, timely basis.
• Provide effective oral advocacy in negotiations and arguments in homicide cases. Flexibility as it relates to work location—attorneys will be expected to split their time between Manhattan’s downtown courts and the main office in Central Harlem.
• Ability to collaborate with and provide mentorship to less experienced staff and train within NDS on emerging issues in homicide defense.
• Responsiveness and ability to communicate clearly with clients who are often under great stress.

Qualifications

Required

• Must possess a demonstrated commitment to criminal justice, indigent defense, social justice issues, and/or the Harlem communities.
• Must meet the First Department Qualifications for the 18b Homicide Panel, specifically actual court experience in at least sixty criminal cases involving at least:
  • Thirty negotiated pleas, dismissals, or other non-trial dispositions, at least ten of which occurred post-indictment;
  • Ten preliminary hearings in which oral testimony was taken and a decision rendered, or fifteen litigated motions in which oral testimony was taken and a decision rendered, at least eight of which occurred post-indictment;
  • Five post-indictment jury trials which proceeded to verdict as sole attorney or lead counsel and eight as co-counsel;
  • Cross-examination, during