CENTER FOR PUBLIC REPRESENTATION
ATTORNEY
The Center
The Center for
Public Representation is a public interest law firm that has been assisting
people with disabilities, both in the community and in institutional settings,
for over thirty-eight years. Its staff of seven attorneys and one paralegal work in its
The Center is a
national support center, providing training, and technical assistance to
protection and advocacy (P&A) programs in each of the fifty states and
territories under a contract with National Disability Rights Network. It serves as the national technical
assistance and support center on all institutional and community issues involving
persons confined in psychiatric hospitals, mental retardation centers, nursing
homes, jails, prisons, forensic institutions, juvenile justice facilities, and
all types of community programs.
With funding
from the Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation, the Center is a statewide
backup center and provides technical assistance and support to public and
private attorneys who represent people with disabilities in the
Commonwealth. It co-counsels system
reform cases with legal services and other public interest organizations to
enforce the rights of persons with disabilities in
The Center has a system reform agenda that includes numerous litigation and policy initiatives in several States that are designed to promote community integration, equal access, improved services, and new standards of care for persons with disabilities. The agenda, like the Center's mission, focuses on helping institutionalized persons with disabilities come home, or avoid leaving their homes and home communities. This agenda, which is periodically revised and updated, guides the Center's law reform activities. A summary of the Center's systemic agenda and major activities can be found at www.centerforpublicrep.org.
The Center undertakes new systemic initiatives in collaboration with other public interest law firms, P&A systems, legal services programs, and consumer advocacy organizations. In addition, has created special partnerships with several large private firms that frequently co-counsel major class action cases.
The Center has a core of highly experienced senior attorneys who work, almost exclusively, on implementing this systemic agenda, creating new system reform initiatives, litigating complex disability rights cases, and designing new systems of care for persons with disabilities in the community. The Center is interested in developing a new generation of senior attorneys who can lead this agenda for at least the next decade. It seeks to recruit, train, mentor, and support several attorneys of various levels of experience to become the new leaders of the Center.
The Center seeks an attorney to provide limited individual representation to persons with disabilities and to participate in complex civil rights cases, including both injunctive and damage actions. The attorney will work as part of a team on a number of system reform cases and policy initiatives designed to expand community living opportunities, improve service systems and supports, promote equal access, and redefine standards of care for persons with disabilities.
The attorney must have at least four years experience representing persons with disabilities and an understanding of disability rights (ADA, § 504, and Medicaid) as well as disability services and systems. The attorney will be part of litigation team and will receive training and ongoing mentoring by the Center's senior attorneys.
Excellent salary, DOE. The Center offers a flexible work schedule,
unique benefit package, and salaries commensurate with small private firms. Minority applicants and persons with
disabilities are strongly encouraged to apply.
The Center is an equal opportunity employer and highly values diversity
in its staff. Please send resume to
Steven J. Schwartz, Center for Public Representation,