Legal Director

Job Type: Full-time, senior leadership

Reports To: Executive Director

Direct Reports: Legal Assistant (50% time, shared employee with Policy Team)

Location: Hybrid (1-2 days a week in office) in DC preferred. Remote optional for the right candidate

Compensation: $85-120k DOE, plus excellent benefits, flexible hours, and generous PTO (more below)

To Apply: Fill out the application form here

Who You Are:

You’re a ferocious litigator who’s furious about the rise of the Christian Nationalist right and itching for a good fight. You’ve never met an underdog you didn’t like and the words “malicious compliance” make you smile. The idea of being the Legal Director for a group of secular humanists determined to outsmart and outlast religious fundamentalists at every turn puts fire in your belly.

You’re at a point in your career where you’re excited to work both on the level of big, strategic ideas - crafting an ambitious impact litigation strategy sounds exciting to you - but not above spending the majority of your time in the weeds of nuts-and-bolts litigation. You’re hungry to build something new and are generally the kind of person who would trade having more support for having more autonomy.

Does that sound like you? Good. We’ve been waiting.

Who We Are:

Hi! Nice to meet you. We’re the American Humanist Association.

Humanists believe in people. We believe that people have inherent worth and dignity, without needing to be saved or redeemed. We believe that people can do anything as long as we live in a society where people are free to think freely and pursue rational truth. And we believe the highest good is to help other people live lives of freedom and flourishing.

Humanists have always moved America. Kristen Bell, Gloria Steinem, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, Steve Wozniak, Joyce Carol Oates, A. Philip Randolph, John Dewey, Margaret Atwood, Abraham Maszlow, Jamie Raskin - these are some of the American visionaries whose humanism led them to envision new frontiers for advancing human worth and dignity.

For over 80 years, the AHA has been the epicenter of the humanist movement. We promote humanism as a community and worldview that “nothing in particular,” “spiritual but not religious,” atheist, and agnostic folks can belong to, believe in, and fight for. We fight the radical religious right in the courts, Congress, and the streets, organizing our thousands of members and 230+ chapters nationwide to fight for the separation of church and state, make the moral case for progressive public policy, and take direct action to improve their communities. We train hundreds of secular chaplains and celebrants who perform marriages and work in hospitals, college campuses, and prisons.

And we’ve got hella work to do.

The Role:

The hard parts of the job and the amazing parts of the job are one and the same.

You’ll have the opportunity to rebuild the Appignani Humanist Legal Center from the ground up. You’ll inherit a semi-dormant network of potential collaborating attorneys, a large group of (230+!) chapters around the country eager to hear about and support your work, and a long history of litigating for church-state separation all the way to the Supreme Court. But there are relatively few current cases to manage, so you’ll have broad autonomy to rebuild the Legal Center in line with our emerging legal strategy.

You’ll be litigating to support the rights of America’s largest religious minority - secular people, whether they identify as humanist, atheist, agnostic, or “nothing in particular” - to live freely and openly, without threat of discrimination, and with the expectation of equal treatment by their government. This ideal is under attack from the religious right, and the rules of play are changing rapidly as the conservative-packed federal judiciary hands down new decisions. Success in this role will require clever, nimble, and creative thinking, and the ability to shift strategy on the fly.

If these challenges excite you, rather than demoralize you, you’re in the right place.

In your role, you’ll:

• Build, in partnership with the Executive Director, a comprehensive multi-year strategy for the Appignani Humanist Legal Center
• Conduct complex federal and state court anti-discrimination and civil liberties litigation, including all aspects of discovery, motion practice, briefs, trials, appellate work, and amicus briefs
• In partnership with others on the Senior Leadership Team, create multi-pronged strategies using litigation, public education, and legislative and policy advocacy to further the AHA’s policy issues
• Supervise employees in the legal department; to begin with, a part-time legal assistant (to be hired).
• Build a pipeline of clients, with the help of our Communications + Organizing teams and relationships with partners organizations
• Coordinate legal intake with staff and ensure that intake is properly evaluated and processed, presenting selected cases to the Executive Director for evaluation
• Secure the services and expand the pool of cooperating attorneys; monitor litigation handled by cooperating attorneys and supply back-up help as needed
• Research potential instances of discrimination against humanists, violations of church-state separation, etc, and prepare legal memoranda and demand letters
• Support the policy team with legal analysis of legislation impacting church-state separation issues
• Design materials and trainings to help humanists know and exercise their legal rights.
• If desired, write and speak about AHA’s legal work to the general public, including media interviews, op-eds, etc. It’s also OK if you prefer to stay behind the scenes - then your job will be helping other staff do the same!
• Support fundraising for the Appignani Humanist Legal Center by meeting with major donors and writing reports on the Center’s activities.
• Serve as in-house general counsel for the AHA and advise the senior team occasionally on legal matters unrelated to the work of the AHLC (e.g., proper separation of c3 and c4/PAC entities)

Requirements

Non-negotiable:

• JD, admission to the bar, and at least 3+ years (the successful candidate will likely have more) of litigation experience
• Ability to engage in litigation with minimal supervision or support staff
• Some experience working on discrimination cases, especially in the fields of employment, housing, or education
• Ambitious and driven: You dream big for yourself and the places you work for, aiming high, working hard, and always asking “What can we do better?”
• Intrepid and fearless: You’re comfortable with failure, unafraid of rejection, and always up to (thoughtfully, strategically) court a little controversy.
• Creative and visionary: You see possibilities others don’t, aren’t afraid of divergent thinking, and are described as “bursting with ideas”
• A strategic thinker and strong implementer, able to move seamlessly from big ideas to bold action. You have a high output and finish what you start.

Super Helpful, A Big Plus (The successful applicant will absolutely have some, but likely not all, of these):

• Experience developing impact litigation strategy
• Experience building out a network of collaborating attorneys to co-counsel, and successfully monitoring and supporting co-counsel relationships
• Experience working on issues of religious freedom, church-state separation, or similar issues
• Experience with oral argument
• Experience supervising staff and interns

Nice To Have, But Not Necessary:

• Experience with/understanding of nonprofit fundraising
• Experience with public speaking/writing for a mass audience and working with the media, or a desire to learn (we understand this isn’t every great lawyer’s cup of tea)
• Experience designing learning/training programs and materials for adults, such as know-your-rights trainings
• Ties to the secular/humanist movement (willingness to learn and engage in the community is a must)

We Don’t Care About:

• How prestigious your law school was (but you do need a law degree)
• How many years of experience you have, beyond a minimum threshold (demonstrated success matters more to us than tenure, though we recognize some legal abilities are developed primarily through experience)

Compensation:

Salary:

We’re a smallish ($2m budget) nonprofit that likes to punch above our weight. We are committed to compensating our team competitively relative to market salaries for nonprofit organizations of our size to attract top talent.

Our Director salary band is $85,000-$120,000, depending on experience, with new hires for this role most likely to start in the $95,000-$110,000 range.

Benefits:

We offer generous benefits, including:

• Fully paid medical, dental, and vision insurance, and the option to enroll dependents with the AHA covering 50% of the premium
• 403b plan - and we’ll match your contributions up to 3% of your salary
• Fully employer-paid short-term and long-term disability insurance, and life insurance
• Partial cell phone reimbursement ($45/month) and, for fully remote employees, partial home internet reimbursement ($20/month)
• Flexible Spending Account and pre-tax commuter benefits available
• Professional development budget available

PTO:

We want you to work hard on the clock and have plenty of flexibility to live a full life off of it. In general, we tend to be flexible around working arrangements and hours to meet staff needs, but here are our formal policies.

• Earned PTO: 18 days PTO in your first year, increasing by one day a year until you reach 25 days.
• Holidays: 12 paid holidays, plus the days between December 25th and January 1st.
• Flex time: 3 hours of additional “flex time” off each week to schedule as you please, to account for doctor’s appointments, errands, or just starting your weekend a bit early.
• Flexible Scheduling: Employees have the freedom to set their own schedule, as long as they’re available/online 40h a week (not counting flex time) and between the hours of 11a-3p EST.
• Parental leave: Two months of leave at full pay and an additional month of leave at 75% pay for new parents.
• Comp time: Time off is earned on a 1:1 basis for evening and weekend events worked and work travel outside of regular hours. (We anticipate this position will travel 3-6 times a year if based in DC and 5-8 times a year if fully remote.)

Hiring Process:

You can start by applying here: https://forms.gle/qDeyc5j2zBoEvkxU6

We like to share our full hiring process for transparency. However, please note that all parts of this process, including timelines, may change.

Stage 1: Application + Resume (Applications open through Jan 12th)

• All applicants will fill out the hiring application, responding to several short-answer questions and submitting a resume. (No cover letters. Who likes cover letters?)
• Responses to short-answer questions will be anonymized and rated by a panel of reviewers. The top 8 candidates, based on scores, will be invited to an interview. We will then review resumes alongside answers and choose 2-4 additional candidates to invite. The goal of this process is to reduce bias while allowing for holistic evaluation of applicants.
• All candidates will receive a response regardless of whether or not they are invited to an interview.

Stage 2: First-Round Interviews - 10-12 candidates (Weeks of Jan 13th + 20th)

• Candidates invited to a first-round interview will meet with the hiring manager for a 45-minute video call. This is a mutual interview - we’ll start with any questions you have for us, and then ask questions about your skills, experiences, and interest in the role, so we can both determine if this is a potential fit.
• We will let all candidates know about their status after second-round interview offers have been made and accepted.

Stage 3: Second-Round Interviews - 5-6 candidates (Week of Jan 27th)

• Candidates invited to a second-round interview will meet with a small panel of 3-5 AHA staff, including the hiring manager, any staff member who would report into this position, and at least one staff member from a different department who would collaborate with this position. Interviews will last an hour and focus on scenario-based questions (“Tell us about a time you…” “Tell us how you would go about…” “What would you do if…”). Interviews will last an hour. You may also be asked to meet separately with the hiring manager for a brief follow-up.
• We will invite 2-3 candidates for final interviews and a paid work test. We will let all candidates know about their status after finalist interview offers have been made and accepted.

Stage 4: Paid Work Sample - likely 2-3 candidates (Weeks of Feb 3-14)

• Candidates selected for the final round of the hiring process will be asked to complete a paid work sample - a defined piece of work product relevant to the responsibilities and goals of the position - and then revise it based on feedback.
• We will pay applicants an hourly rate for their time spent on this work sample (up to an agreed-upon number of hours), based on the advertised salary range for the role.
• You’ll have the chance to meet with the hiring manager and ask questions prior to starting the work sample and at any time during the process - this is meant to simulate what it would be like for us to work together! These meetings will also be a time for us to ask each other any final questions, and it’s possible we’ll pull in other team members.
• We will make an offer to our top candidate, and let other candidates know their status once it has been accepted.

Our goal is to make offers around President’s Day and have the new candidate start in Early March.

Compensation:

Salary:

We’re a smallish ($2m budget) nonprofit that likes to punch above our weight. We are committed to compensating our team competitively relative to market salaries for nonprofit organizations of our size to attract top talent.

Our Director salary band is $85,000-$120,000, depending on experience, with new hires for this role most likely to start in the $95,000-$110,000 range.

Benefits:

We offer generous benefits, including:

• Fully paid medical, dental, and vision insurance, and the option to enroll dependents with the AHA covering 50% of the premium
• 403b plan - and we’ll match your contributions up to 3% of your salary
• Fully employer-paid short-term and long-term disability insurance, and life insurance
• Partial cell phone reimbursement ($45/month) and, for fully remote employees, partial home internet reimbursement ($20/month)
• Flexible Spending Account and pre-tax commuter benefits available
• Professional development budget available

PTO:

We want you to work hard on the clock and have plenty of flexibility to live a full life off of it. In general, we tend to be flexible around working arrangements and hours to meet staff needs, but here are our formal policies.

• Earned PTO: 18 days PTO in your first year, increasing by one day a year until you reach 25 days.
• Holidays: 12 paid holidays, plus the days between December 25th and January 1st.
• Flex time: 3 hours of additional “flex time” off each week to schedule as you please, to account for doctor’s appointments, errands, or just starting your weekend a bit early.
• Flexible Scheduling: Employees have the freedom to set their own schedule, as long as they’re available/online 40h a week (not counting flex time) and between the hours of 11a-3p EST.
• Parental leave: Two months of leave at full pay and an additional month of leave at 75% pay for new parents.
• Comp time: Time off is earned on a 1:1 basis for evening and weekend events worked and work travel outside of regular hours. (We anticipate this position will travel 3-6 times a year if based in DC and 5-8 times a year if fully remote.)