Temporary Affirmative Housing Paralegal

Full time, Exempt

Hybrid (3 days/week in office minimum)

About Us

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” - Nelson Mandela

We believe that even the biggest problems can be broken down into small, achievable steps. Poverty and access to justice are part of the same problem. And we’re solving this problem together. At Open Door Legal (ODL), we’re pioneering the country’s first system of universal access to civil legal representation to dramatically reduce poverty and prove that the law really can belong to all of us. We’ve grown 150x in 10 years, and in the next 2 years, we hope to finish scaling across San Francisco. To achieve this goal, we’ve created an award-winning and best-in-class legal aid organization full of passionate, motivated, gritty, thoughtful, and team-oriented people. We believe that injustice is the heart of poverty, and we're looking for someone to join us in ensuring justice for all.

Overview of Position

Housing has the attention of everyone in the Bay Area. A safe and healthy home is a universal human right, yet it is consistently unrealized or threatened for those in poverty. Open Door Legal provides holistic, trauma-informed housing services, helping people access the legal services and advice that they need to feel safe and secure in their homes. We are hiring a Temporary Affirmative Housing Paralegal who will work collaboratively with the housing team and with your clients to help ensure the rights of San Francisco low-income residents to keep safe and healthy homes. To be successful, you must be enthusiastic to engage and build trust with the community. 

Housing law is one of many areas that Open Door Legal offers, and the housing practice team is the largest practice group at the organization. The housing team is split into two sections: the Unlawful Detainer (UD) section, which assists clients in defending their eviction cases, and the Affirmative Housing section. The Affirmative Housing team addresses issues such as, but not limited to, housing discrimination, illegal rent increases (under both the TPA and SFRO), landlord harassment, Rent Board petitions, constructive evictions, wrongful evictions, habitability, and UD restrictions. 

While the housing practice team as a whole boasts a total of 12 employees, the Affirmative side has three dedicated attorneys who are passionate about this work and the clients we serve. Thriving in this role requires grit, dynamism, teamwork, care, and passion (our organization’s five core values). You will report directly to the Senior Affirmative Housing Attorney.

Responsibilities

• Embody our mission of universal access to civil legal aid and lead your team to ensure that the housing needs of all clients in our service area are met by ourselves or others.
• Empower Affirmative Housing Law litigants to know their rights, navigate San Francisco Superior Court, protect themselves and their loved ones, and resolve their Affirmative Housing Law issues with or without court intervention.
• Support your team with administrative and advocacy responsibilities where a law license is not needed, including providing clients with individualized case support, in order to increase the efficiency and capacity of your team. Do so under the supervision of an attorney on your team and at the volume needed for your team.

• Gain competency at all the paralegal administrative tasks central to the Affirmative Housing Team’s needs. This broadly includes executing filings, service of process, and reviewing and organizing evidence as applicable.
• Gain competency in basic knowledge of Housing Law and direct services legal advocacy, including client management and time management.
• Draft court forms to file in court, such as fee waivers, proofs of service, sub-in and sub-outs, and other more complicated filings relevant to the Affirmative Housing Team.
• Draft petitions for rent board filings along with working with clients to obtain necessary evidentiary materials.
• Execute timely and error-free filings and mailings, ensuring they are high-quality and within deadline. Communicate with the clerks about scheduling or filing issues on all team cases. Physically go to SF Superior Court weekly to file, deliver courtesy copies and/or pick up orders, and E-file any filings as required. Ensure any filed documents are saved in the Dropbox case file.
• Oversee timely service of process (personal, substitute, and mail). Understand the civil procedure behind service. Use creative methods to locate and serve evasive defendants. Coordinate with the sheriffs or private process servers to ensure quality personal service is completed by deadline.
• Work with the attorney and client to assist with fact-gathering for the client’s case using information technologies, calling possible witnesses, or business or government agencies.
• With attorney supervision, draft pleadings, motions, complaints, petitions, and propound and respond to discovery.
• Support intakes in-person and virtually across multiple physical Open Door Legal locations. 
• Embrace and embody our values of teamwork, grit, caring, passion, and dynamism. 

Requirements

• At least an associate’s degree or equivalent (a paralegal certificate is fine).
• At least one year of experience as a paralegal, legal assistant, legal secretary, tenant organizer, or client advocate.
• Ability to commute to any of ODL’s offices three days a week to conduct in-person intakes and meetings and support the team’s in-office needs.
• Strong time management skills and the ability to organize time, manage diverse activities, and meet critical deadlines with minimal supervision. 
• Have a high level of comfort learning and using technology and cloud-based case management systems. We use Salesforce, Dropbox, and Google Suite. 
• Must genuinely enjoy and be motivated by working with low-income clients and be able to work competently with clients impacted by trauma (emotional, mental, and physical), including those at risk of homelessness and currently un-housed.
• Must actively demonstrate cultural humility and sensitivity to barriers low-income residents face when attempting to access the justice system.
• Must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. without sponsorship.

Bonus Points

• A paralegal certificate.
• Comfortable translating and interpreting from English to Spanish and vice versa legal information without assistance. Also comfortable performing client support and paralegal/legal assistant tasks in Spanish (this comes with a slight compensation increase).
• Basic knowledge of California and/or San Francisco housing law. 
• Experience with filing and interacting within the San Francisco Superior Court
• Experience working with low-income and vulnerable populations.
• Experience working in a high-volume direct services legal aid or similar environment.
• Having lived a significant period of your life in San Francisco proper, specifically, a connection to the Bayview/Hunters Point, Excelsior, Sunset, Western Addition, Tenderloin, or Mission neighborhoods. 

Starting compensation for a legal assistant is $70,500-$86,500; for a paralegal, it's $72,500-$88,500, based on experience.

Benefits

• Loan Repayment Assistance - for staff pursuing 10-year public interest debt forgiveness, we will pay the minimum payment on all qualifying loans so that you don’t need to worry about student loan debt (this is a conditional benefit).
• Medical/Dental/Vision Plan offerings at 100% coverage
• Generous paid time off (four weeks vacation and two weeks sick/care)
• Flexible work hours
• Generous paid parental leave
• 401K/Retirement Account
• We believe everyone is always learning. We financially invest in individual professional development for each staff member which can include mentorships, coaching, and learning opportunities (conferences, workshops, etc.).
• We are a fun and hard-working office with best-in-class technology solutions for anyone who’s passionate about making a meaningful and measurable difference.