GLAD provides excellent benefits including three weeks of paid vacation, fully paid individual health and dental insurance, and disability insurance.
Required Education:
Juris Doctor
Additional Information:
2 openings available.
Telecommuting is allowed.
The Opportunity
Since 1978, GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) has achieved scores of precedent-setting legal victories to end discrimination based on gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, and HIV status. Time after time, GLAD has broken through resistance and prejudice to make real progress for transgender rights, family protections and marriage equality, LGBTQ+ youth rights, protections for people living with HIV and much more. GLAD is focused on working at the cutting edge of LGBTQ+ rights, advancing strategies to address discrimination occurring at the intersections of race and LGBTQ+ status, and keeping a close watch on a counter-movement that is fighting hard to roll back critical progress.
We are at a critical moment in our efforts for LGBTQ+ justice, racial justice, and lived equality. The rights of LGBTQ+ people, and transgender individuals in particular, are under attack, as evidenced by the over 500 anti-LGBTQ bills filed in 45 state legislatures this year and efforts by opponents to expand religious exemptions to LGBTQ+ nondiscrimination protections through a conservative-leaning federal judiciary.
To deepen and expand our legal and advocacy work into our next chapter, GLAD seeks a staff attorney to engage in GLAD’s cutting-edge impact litigation, public policy advocacy, and education. The Staff Attorney will work independently and collaboratively within a team made up of some of the most experienced LGBTQ+ advocates in the movement, and will have the opportunity to be mentored and grow into the next generation of legal advocates and leaders for the LGBTQ+ community.
About the Role
GLAD seeks an attorney with a minimum of 3-7 years of litigation, legal research and writing, and/or policy experience, who has a passion for LGBTQ+ and/or HIV work as well as all related social justice issues that impact the LGBTQ+ community, including racial justice. Reporting to one of the senior directors in the department and working in collaboration with the legal team,the Staff Attorney will handle an active workload of litigation, legislation, and policy issues to advance GLAD’s organizational priorities.
This position presents an opportunity for an emerging legal leader to learn from GLAD’s experienced and intergenerational legal team, helping create and implement strategies using legislation, litigation, policy, and public education to advance justice on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and HIV status, and exemplify commitment to racial justice.
The Staff Attorney works collaboratively with the Legal Department and other GLAD staff to:
Contribute to the legal department's decision-making strategy, help identify and assess matters for impact litigation, and file cases in state and federal court and other disputes.
Serve on litigation teams, including being involved in case and client development, legal research, pleadings and briefs drafting, discovery and motion practice, hearings, trials, and appeals.
Support amicus curiae efforts through brief writing and coordination.
Provide technical expertise and support to private litigators and organizations facing complex LGBTQ issues in state and federal courts and government agencies.
Monitor and selectively engage in legal policy and legislative affairs and developments, both in federal law and with respect to the laws and governments of the New England states and nationally, through consultation and collaboration, legal research and drafting, identifying stakeholders and experts, lobbying, and public education.
Provide support for GLAD Answers, GLAD’s legal information and referral service, including by working up legal intakes and providing individual support or legal referrals, where appropriate, to people who seek legal help.
Engage in select legal, community, and stakeholder presentations, events, forums, including information sharing and developing and representing GLAD positions to the media and the public.
Center organizational values, including anti-racism, equity, inclusion, and mutual respect in all work.
Compensation
This is a full-time, exempt position with a competitive salary range of $90,000-$120,000 for attorneys 3-5 years out of law school and $100,000-$135,000 for attorneys 6-10 years out of law school. GLAD provides excellent benefits including three weeks of paid vacation, fully paid individual health and dental insurance, and disability insurance.
Location
This is a national remote-eligible position with the expectation of regular travel every other month to GLAD’s office in Boston.
Qualifications
J.D. degree and admission to practice law in at least one state in the United States. If not licensed in a New England state, the candidate may also be required to seek admission to a New England state within one year of hire.
Minimum of 3-7 years of litigation, legal research and writing, and/or policy experience who has a passion for LGBTQ+ and/or HIV work as well as all related social justice issues that impact the LGBTQ+ community, including racial justice.
Strong legal research, analysis, writing, and oral communication skills.
Previous litigation experience including motion practice, trial practice and/or appeals.
Strong interpersonal and communication skills in context of client and client development, all aspects of litigation, lobbying or advocacy with government officials, and public persuasion.
Understanding of and commitment to the ways that all forms of discrimination, including racial discrimination, impacts the LGBTQ community and informs our strategies and priorities.
Ability to build mutually respectful and collaborative partnerships with other marginalized communities including communities of color.
Potential for growth and development in skills and expertise as an attorney over time.
Demonstrated ability to work across departments and teams, both internally and externally with diverse stakeholders.
Independence, as well as the ability to work as part of an integrated team.
Other helpful qualifications include:
Knowledge of LGBTQ+ law and/or policy, anti-discrimination, health care, education, family, and/or constitutional law.
45 Years of Groundbreaking Work
GLAD has been changing history since our founding in 1978. GLAD argued the Supreme Court case that established people living with HIV are protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act. GLAD lawyers broke ground on some of the movement’s earliest transgender rights victories, including winning the first appeals court decision to affirm that discrimination based upon transgender identity is prohibited under sex discrimination laws as well as landmark rulings in areas including gender affirming medical care and transgender students’ educational access. GLAD’s decades-long leadership in the marriage equality movement culminated in arguing for and winning the freedom to marry nationally at the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015.
Now in its fifth decade, GLAD is well positioned to leverage its substantial experience and track record of strategic victories to address systemic discrimination, push back against efforts to reverse progress, and expand access to equity and justice for the entire community.
GLAD’s Mission, Structure and Values
Through strategic litigation, legislation, public policy advocacy, and education, GLAD works in New England and n...ationally to create a just society free of discrimination based on gender identity and expression, HIV status, and sexual orientation.
Headquartered in Boston, MA and governed by a Board of Directors, GLAD operates with a $4+ million annual budget and 30+ staff and interns.
GLAD operates with a commitment to the following organizational values: Justice and Lived Equality; Inclusion, Equity, and Mutual Respect; Anti-Racism; and Collaboration.
Visit www.GLAD.org to learn more about our work, history, staff, board and values.
Justice for All
GLAD’s newly adopted strategic plan endeavors to deepen our national leadership and impact, expand our legal capacity, protect a multiracial, pluralistic democracy, and sustain an antiracist and intergenerational movement for the long term.
Our Commitment to Racial Justice
GLAD is focused on ensuring that our legal strategies to advance LGBTQ+ equity and equality acknowledge intersecting oppressions and advance interlocking social movements, particularly movements for racial justice.
GLAD’s work focuses on both harm reduction within systems that disproportionately target and harm LGBTQ+ people of color as well as the imperative to reform, dismantle and create alternatives to the systems themselves. LGBTQ+ youth of color are over-disciplined in school, disproportionately targeted by police, and disproportionately represented in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems. LGBTQ+ adults of color are disproportionately represented and face exceptionally brutal treatment in our systems of incarceration. The HIV epidemic continues to disproportionately harm communities of color, especially gay men of color, who lack the same access to life-saving prophylactic medications such as PrEP.
GLAD challenges discriminatory systems, policies and practices; engages in intentional, sustained partnerships with LGBTQ communities of color; and works to build and maintain coalitions with allied social justice movements. We pay equal attention to our organizational culture, practices, and staff and board composition to ensure that they reflect these values.
