Now Hiring:
Family Law Staff Attorney

About The Commons Law Center

The Commons Law Center is on a mission to revolutionize access to basic legal services for underserved Oregonians, and we are looking for talented and passionate professionals to join us. We are a 501(c)(3) social enterprise that provides legal services on a sliding scale basis and practical training for new legal professionals.

Stabilizing civil legal services are available to Oregonians who live below 400% of the federal poverty level. Year after year, more than 60% of The Commons live at or below 125%, or on less than $34,688 per year for a family of 4. Practice areas include family law, tenant law, estate planning, and probate.

Modern business practices and technology help drive the costs out of legal services delivery. Philanthropic donations act like seed capital to stand-up new programs or strategically grow existing ones, with the goal that fee-generating activities become self-sustaining, or come close. Earned revenue supports 70-90% of the annual operating budget.

About the Family Law Staff Attorney Role

The Commons Law Center seeks an attorney eligible for admission to Oregon to join our Family Law Program as a Staff Attorney. The family law program’s goal is to enable an average, working-class Oregonian to afford family law help. Reducing the cost of services is essential. Experimenting with delivery approaches and new services are required.

The Commons is piloting a new family law coaching model to help break the mold of expensive, time-intensive, and traumatic family law trials. Using a coaching model, an attorney meets with a client to educate them about their case, right size their expectations, and advise them how to best represent themselves. Clients don’t “have a lawyer” in the traditional sense, but they have access to a lawyer, much like a person with health insurance has access to a doctor but not a personal doctor on-call.

All coaching is remote. Little, if any, litigation is required. This attorney could meet with clients from anywhere in Oregon and based on a flexible work schedule that accommodates their lives as well.

Qualifications:

• An Oregon law license in good standing (or ability to obtain admission through Comity or a Temporary Practice Permit)
• 2+ years family law experience, 3+ years law practice experience, or 1+ year family law practice experience combined with exceptional, demonstrable practical skills or experience
• Understand and can educate clients about: (1) the laws that apply to divorce and custody cases in Oregon, (2) family law processes and procedures, (3) how Oregon courts operate, (4) how to accomplish legal actions in family law cases, and (5) what is and is not possible in family court
• Can explain complex legal terms in plain language
• Can manage people toward objectives (i.e., can get clients to do things for themselves)
• Aware of social and racial justice concepts broadly and willing to investigate systemic bias, racism, and other forms of oppression that impact clients, culture, and the law
• Familiarity with trauma-informed lawyering
• Comfortable with technology and willing to use it consistently

Request:

• Spanish fluency (understanding, speaking, and writing)

Roles & Responsibilities:

• Provide legal coaching to clients going through family law cases
• Draft family law forms, pleadings, examinations, and other documents for coaching clients

• Work collaboratively and without silos, including with lawyers, paralegals, client relations staff, and student law clerks to deliver and improve services

• Help develop program infrastructure to scale service delivery, including document automation, workflow management systems, templates, forms, and internal knowledge base;
• Apply creativity, enthusiasm, and good judgment to solve problems

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