Racial Justice Fellowship - Asian Outreach Project

GBLS is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity/Accessible Employer and strives to ensure that our staff members reflect the diversity of the communities we serve.

Greater Boston Legal Services is hiring a full-time Racial Justice Fellow for a period of 2 years to work in the Asian Outreach Program to represent Southeast Asian people facing deportation.

Using a community lawyering model, the Asian Outreach Program provides bilingual and bicultural legal services and support for movement building in the Asian American community. Asian Outreach works in conjunction with community organizers to dismantle racially unjust systems, recognizing that the community and our clients are their own fiercest advocates. Our model enables us to respond to the day-to-day needs of the Asian American community and inspires our broader work against systemic inequality and oppression. One of our major projects focuses on stopping increased deportations in the Southeast Asian community.

The Racial Justice Fellow will help anchor our legal work to stop deportations in Massachusetts’ Southeast Asian community. The Vietnamese population in Dorchester is significant and Lowell has the second largest Cambodian population in the United States. More than 17,000 Southeast Asian refugees have final orders of removal, often based on old criminal records, but may not be aware of post-conviction or immigration relief options. In close collaboration with our regional and national community partners, the Fellow will engage in direct legal representation, policy work, and intersectional coalition building to respond to the crisis of deportations in the Southeast Asian community. The Fellow will work with our team to represent Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian people. The Fellow will organize legal clinics, engage in outreach and education, and foster new relationships with impacted individuals.

Candidate must be admitted to the Mass. Bar or comity. The attorney preferably speaks Vietnamese, Khmer, or another Asian language.  An understanding of Asian American history and culture and experience working with Asian American community groups is preferred. Experience and a commitment to engage in community lawyering is expected. GBLS prefers an attorney with more than five years of experience, but will consider candidates with fewer years of experience.

At this time, due to COVID-19, most work will be handled remotely with limited work done in the office. This requires the ability to be able to effectively work remotely.

Salary is based on a union scale with a starting salary of $59,000. GBLS offers a generous benefits package, retirement contribution, a student loan repayment assistance plan for eligible attorneys, and generous PTO leave.