Paralegal, Voting Rights Project

About the role

The ACLU seeks applicants for the full-time position of Paralegal in the Voting Rights Project (VRP) of the ACLU's National office in New York, NY. This is a hybrid role that has in-office requirements of two (2) days per week or eight (8) days per month. Established in 1965, VRP has worked to protect the gains in political participation won by voters of color since passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA). Since its inception, the Voting Rights Project has litigated hundreds of voting rights cases and has aggressively and successfully challenged efforts to suppress voting or to dilute minority voting strength. The ACLU Voting Rights Project was established in 1965 - the same year that the historic VRA was enacted - and has litigated more than 350 cases since that time. Its mission is to build and defend an accessible, inclusive, and equitable democracy free from racial discrimination. We have three principles: (1) all Americans should be eligible to vote; (2) voting should be free and easy; and (3) all people should count equally. The Project employs an integrated advocacy approach, combining legislative advocacy, public education, and litigation, and has active cases in over a dozen states. The Voting Rights Project's recent docket has included more than 30 lawsuits to protect voters during the 2020 election; a pair of recent cases in the Supreme Court challenging the last administration's discriminatory census policies: Department of Commerce v. New York (successfully challenging an attempt to add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census), and Trump v. New York (challenging the exclusion of undocumented immigrants from the population count used to apportion the House of Representatives); challenges to discriminatory congressional and state legislative maps, including two recent cases in the Supreme Court: Alexander v. South Carolina NAACP (2023), challenging South Carolina's congressional map as an unconstitutional and starkly racially gerrymandered map; and Allen v. Milligan (2023), successfully challenging Alabama's congressional map as unlawfully diluting the Black voting power under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act; challenges to voter purges and documentary proof of citizenship laws; and challenges to other new legislation restricting voting rights in states like Georgia and Texas. The ACLU Voting Rights Project is currently litigating voter suppression and minority vote dilution cases in over twenty states, from coast to coast, in every region of the country.

Responsibilities

• YOUR DAY TO DAY
• Handle general administrative duties for the Project, including processing invoices, tracking expenses, case costs, generating expense reports, and ordering supplies, etc.
• Handle travel arrangements.
• Provide logistical administrative, and document management support for hearings and trials.
• Assist in case management, including maintenance of electronic files, physical files, court records, and litigation calendars; anticipate and identify potential litigation tasks and prepare accordingly.
• Coordinate logistics for depositions, client meetings or phone calls, service of process, courtesy copy delivery, and other litigation support.
• Work jointly with interns and communicate routine and/or procedural guidance on projects assigned by managers.
• Conduct internet and other factual research.
• Handle special projects and other duties as assigned.
• FUTURE ACLU'ERS WILL
• Be committed to advancing the mission of the ACLU
• Center and embed the principles of equity, inclusion and belonging in their work by demonstrating commitment to diversity with an approach that respects and values multiple perspectives
• Be committed to work collaboratively and respectfully toward resolving obstacles and conflicts

Requirements

• Demonstrated interest in civil rights and civil liberties
• Bachelor's degree
• One year of paralegal or related administrative experience
• Basic knowledge of the bluebook
• Strong computer skills with advanced knowledge in Microsoft Office Suite, e.g. , Outlook, Word, Excel, etc.
• Experience creating tables of contents, tables of authorities, mail merges, a

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