POSITION OVERVIEW
The Senior Program Director of the Immigration Intervention Project (IIP) leads Sanctuary for Families’ highly regarded immigration legal services and immigration policy/legislative advocacy program, the largest within Sanctuary for Families’ renowned legal center, CBWLS (previously Center for Battered Women’s Legal Services). This high-level position involves the oversight and high-level supervision of a team of 26 attorneys and support staff, and partners with law firm pro bono programs, law students, and other volunteers who provide high-quality representation to several hundred immigrant survivors of gender violence each year.
The Senior Program Director of IIP leads Sanctuary’s efforts to protect and advance the rights of immigrant survivors through strategic representation and innovative, systems-change advocacy. Through public speaking, training, writing, and mentoring, the Senior Program Director educates law firms, social service and public interest legal providers, law enforcement, community partners, courts, and federal, state, and officials about the needs and rights of immigrant survivors of gender violence. This is an Attorney position.
RESPONSIBILITIES
- Lead the practice: Oversee all aspects of IIP’s immigration legal practice, including supervision of staff, interns, and volunteers.
- Set direction: Partner with Sanctuary for Families’ Chief Executive Officer and Chief Program Officer and the Legal Center Senior Director and Senior Deputy Director to shape and deliver IIP strategy, goals, and priorities.
- Strengthen staff expertise, collaboration, and morale: Foster professional development, mentorship, commitment, and strong team culture across IIP.
- Recruit and retain talent: Support recruitment, on-boarding, and retention of IIP staff; ensure clear roles, strong supervision, and consistent professional development opportunities.
- Manage a high-impact caseload: Direct IIP’s immigration caseload and ensure excellent, trauma-informed representation.
- Build quality systems: Maintain and improve structures for case review, data compliance, supervision, and quality assurance to promote consistent, timely, high-quality legal service provision.
- Supervise complex matters: Represent—and/or oversee the representation of—immigrant survivors of gender violence before federal administrative bodies and in state, federal district and appellate courts.
- Ensure ethics and confidentiality: Uphold professional responsibility standards and best practices for nonprofit legal services, including client confidentiality, ethical supervision, and escalation of complex risk issues.
- Strengthen pro bono impact: Lead recruitment, training, and mentoring of pro bono attorneys, law students, and volunteers; steward law firm relationships in partnership with the Legal Center’s Pro Bono Director.
- Launch and operationalize initiatives: Develop and implement specialized initiatives in response to client need that advance Sanctuary for Families’ mission on behalf of immigrant survivors.
- Strengthen intake, consultations, and referrals: Oversee and continuously improve intake, screening, and referral pathways so clients’ needs are identified, they are provided with useful and accurate advice, and they are routed to the right level of service and support.
- Advise leadership: Educate and inform organizational leadership informed about key developments in immigration law and policy affecting Sanctuary clients.
- Track trends and guide program response: Monitor developments in immigration law, policy, and enforcement trends; translate changes into practical guidance, risk mitigation, and programmatic strategy.
- Engage governance: Present on IIP’s work to the Board of Directors, Legal Advisory Committee, Pro Bono Committee, Board and Staff Advocacy Committees, and other relevant organizational entities.
- Represent Sanctuary externally: Participate in community events; Bar and American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) events; immigrant-rights coalitions; committees/task forces; and government hearings.
- Provide technical assistance: Offer immigration legal technical assistance through local and national listservs and to partner organizations.
- Improve systems’ response: Collaborate with national, state, and local organizations and legislative and judicial entities to strengthen systemic responses to immigrant survivors of gender violence and protect survivors’ rights.
- Train and educate stakeholders: Educate the public, law enforcement, social service providers, and elected officials on issues affecting immigrant survivors.
- Advance policy: Lobby city, state, and federal bodies on policies, practices, and legislation that advance the rights and interests of immigrant survivors of domestic violence.
- Support funding and grants: Partner with Sanctuary’s Development/Communications and Finance Departments with Legal Center leadership to develop funding strategies, conceptualize new projects, review grant proposals, and oversee grant implementation, deliverables, and reporting.
- Collaborate across the organization: Partner with Sanctuary’s communications, outreach/community engagement, operations, and social services divisions to align legal programming with community needs and organizational priorities.
- Ensure compliance with data entry: support IIP staff in complying with their data entry obligations so that IIP supervisors, team members, Sanctuary leaders, donors, institutional funders, and stakeholders have necessary information about IIP’s clients and service provision.
- Use data to improve impact: Oversee systems for data collection and program evaluation to support continuous improvement and demonstrate outcomes.
- Other duties as needed: Support special projects and additional responsibilities that further Legal Center and organizational priorities.
Requirements
- Admission to practice law in New York State
- Experience practicing before USCIS, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA).
- Minimum 10 years of experience practicing immigration law, including experience with humanitarian relief (such as asylum, U visas, T visas, VAWA, SIJS, and asylum), family-based immigration, and removal proceedings
- Excellent judgment; strong research, writing, and analytical skills
- Excellent communication and public speaking skills
- Demonstrated leadership and people-management skills; ability to motivate, support, and develop staff
- Ability to work independently and under pressure
- Commitment to Sanctuary’s holistic service model, feminist and anti-racist mission, and efforts to combat all forms of gender violence and inequality
- Ability to work effectively with people of diverse national, ethnic, cultural, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds
Preferred Qualifications
- Experience supervising and mentoring attorneys and multidisciplinary teams in a high-volume practice
- Federal litigation and appellate experience, including oversight of complex matters
- Demonstrated immigration policy/legislative advocacy experience (city, state, and/or federal)
- Experience building and managing pro bono or volunteer attorney programs
- Grant writing and/or grant management experience in a legal services or nonprofit setting
- Strong coalition-building and external-relations experience with community partners and government stakeholders
- Experience working with survivors of gender violence and/or in trauma-informed, client-centered legal services
- Multilingual skills relevant to the communities served (preferred but not required)
