Fellowship Opportunities

The Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles is now accepting applications on an ongoing basis for  the 2011 Skadden or Equal Justice Works Fellowships. The deadline is August 15, 2010. Please e-mail inquires to fellowship@lafla.org.

LAFLA is an Equal Opportunity Employer. Candidates are chosen solely on merit without discrimination because of age, race, sex, religion, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, mental or physical disability.

LAFLA Background
Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA) is the frontline law firm for poor and low-income individuals in Los Angeles County, and one of the largest public interest law firms in the nation. LAFLA employs more than 60 lawyers and has a total of 154 employees who work in six community-based offices and seven courthouse clinics. LAFLA is funded by the Legal Services Corporation, foundations, corporations, law firms and individuals. 

Priorities

• Supporting families
• Preserving the home
• Maintaining economic stability
• Promoting safety, stability and health
• Serving populations with special vulnerabilities  
• Serving populations with special vulnerabilities

Each year, LAFLA provides direct legal assistance to more than 14,000 low-income clients and aided over 55,000 more through referrals and community education. Legal areas of practice include family, Immigration, government benefits, employment, consumer, housing/eviction defense, and community economic development. LAFLA will begin hosting a Skadden Fellow in fall 2010 and counts many Skadden and Equal Justice Works alumni among our staff.

Fellow Projects

Medical/Legal Partnership
Duties include the coordination of on-site legal assistance to at-risk families and to provide education and training to and with medical providers. Will also work with the hospital’s advocacy team to promote systemic issues that affect the health of low-income families in Los Angeles County.  This project includes basic training of physicians/residents to identify barriers to South Los Angeles residents’ who may have a legal remedy, as well as the implementation of a referral system whereby doctors and social workers can refer cases to legal aid attorneys.

Business Law
Provide legal assistance to start up or expanding worker co-operatives and small businesses. Small businesses comprise a large percentage of jobs in Los Angeles, and the challenges of complying with laws and regulations in the operation of a small business can be a major factor in determining its success. Worker co-operatives are an increasingly important route for workers to create their own well-paying jobs in occupations where they are often exploited such as gardening, housekeeping, etc.  This project will therefore help create and sustain jobs by providing needed community education, legal assistance with entity choice. It will also involve formation, contracting, employment and other business issues and policy advocacy in partnership with established business assistance organizations.

Employment Discrimination Law
In partnership with a number of other organizations including the UCLA Labor Center, LAFLA is in the process of establishing a project to address race-based employment discrimination faced by low-income workers in Los Angeles. Studies show that although racial discrimination in employment is rampant in the Los Angeles area and elsewhere, there are few resources available to low-income workers who have been affected. This project will include "know your rights" presentations, a monthly clinic, assistance with the administrative claims process, and litigation. The focus will be to launch this practice, organize and staff the clinic, and work with advisory board attorneys, community partners, and pro bono counsel to strategically litigate appropriate cases. 

Environmental Law
Low-income communities across Los Angeles frequently find themselves needing legal assistance in responding to public and private proposed projects that threaten quality of life and/or could bring needed jobs and community improvements. LAFLA has conducted community education, provided counsel and advice, and legal representation to these communities. As a result, the Foundation has been able to win changes that protect public health, improve environmental quality, create jobs and affordable housing, and address other community priorities. A Fellow would focus on building LAFLA’s practice in these areas by improving our community education materials, working with local community organizations, and negotiating and/or litigating to win agreements that address community concerns.

Housing
Because of severe funding shortages the Southern California housing authorities are implementing polices that make it easier to terminate Section 8 voucher benefits.  Thus the number of termination hearings have increased.  The Fellow  would address this problem by analyzing the systemic issues and providing representation to low-income tenants who are being unjustly terminated at administrative hearings and writ proceedings.    

Language Access
LAFLA seeks potential fellows who will address language discrimination and access issues in the Asian & Pacific Islander and other historically underserved communities.  The project will integrate the innovative use of technology, mapping and data analysis to provide access to justice for underserved communities through community education, advocacy, and litigation.

Family Law/Domestic Violence
The Economic Justice Fellowship allows Fellows working with attorneys from LAFLA’s Family Law Unit and Consumer Law Unit to develop a project whose goal would be to achieve economic justice for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault through direct representation, community outreach and education, and the development of collaborative partnerships between attorneys who handle domestic violence cases and also consumer law attorneys.

Immigration Law
The Immigration Unit assists clients through its Naturalization Clinics, Battered Immigrant Women’s Project, Human Trafficking Project and Torture Survivors Project.  The Immigration Unit is housed at our East, West and Long Beach offices. We welcome Fellows who are interested in any of the above-mentioned areas. 

Examples of legal areas that may be ripe for future development include work with our Torture Survivors Project to advocate and develop strategies to ameliorate some of the harsh effects of the USCIS’s current understanding and implementation of the terrorism related inadmissibility grounds.  Under USCIS’s current interpretation, numerous individuals who were victims of the most brutal forms of torture in their countries, those already admitted, others who have resided in the U.S. for years as refugees or asylees are now finding themselves barred from ever obtaining lawful permanent residence. Creative strategies are needed to address this issue and to help torture survivors find closure.

Another area of the law concerns the U -(available to victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and sexual abuse) and T-visas (available to victims of human trafficking).  A Fellowship to develop a comprehensive array of services to sexual abuse victims in either the U or T visa context could be developed to incorporate outreach, direct services, training and a pro bono referral component. The goal would be to coordinate with local and federal law enforcement agencies and other providers of case management and social services in the greater Los Angeles area to ensure the provision of multi-pronged services that meet the holistic needs of the client.  Also, by developing a pro bono component, the Fellowship would assist in the development of a project that has future sustainability.

Employment Law/Low-Wage Worker Safety and Health

Low-wage workers have higher occupational fatality and injury rates than the average worker.  A recent study found that of low-wage workers who had experienced a serious injury on the job, only 8 percent had filed a workers’ compensation claim, while 50 percent of the workers who had reported an injury experienced an illegal employer reaction such as retaliation.

LAFLA is seeking a fellowship applicant to develop and implement a project on safety and health for low-wage workers.  The goal of the project is to improve worker safety and health through a multifaceted, holistic approach that includes: direct legal services for injured workers; community education to inform workers about their rights such as the right to refuse unsafe work; policy advocacy to call for improved policies and government agency enforcement; litigation; and partnerships with medical providers that will serve injured workers.

Other  project ideas are welcome.  Prospective Fellows are encouraged to explore and develop their proposals with our experienced staff in the various substantive legal Units.

Fellowship Proposals

LAFLA welcomes proposals from law students who will have graduated law school by June 2011  to begin fellowships in the fall of 2011. We will consider any proposal from well-qualified applicants in any of our practice areas. We look favorably on proposals with a strong pro bono component.

Application Procedure
Please send or e-mail a letter describing potential projects and the fellowships for which you plan to apply, along with a resume, unofficial transcript, and writing sample to:  fellowship@lafla.org or fax: (310) 899-6208.

Or you can mail:
Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles
Karla Barrow, Managing Attorney
Santa Monica Office
1640 5th Street, Suite 124
Santa Monica, CA 90401

Bilingual Spanish, Korean, Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Khmer speakers are strongly encouraged to apply.

LAFLA is an Equal Opportunity employer. Candidates are chosen solely on merit without discrimination because of age, race, sex, religion, national origin, marital status, sexual orientation, mental or physical disability.