Foreclosure Prevention Paralegal

Legal Services NYC (LSNYC) fights poverty and seeks racial, social and economic justice for low-income New Yorkers. For over 50 years, we have challenged systemic injustices that trap people in poverty and provided legal services that help our clients meet basic needs for housing, income and economic security, family and immigration stability, education, and health care. LSNYC is the largest civil legal services provider in the country; our staff of more than 600 people in neighborhood-based offices and outreach sites across all five boroughs helps hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers annually. We partner with scores of community-based and client-run organizations, elected officials, public agencies, pro bono lawyers, and the courts to maximize our effectiveness. Our work fights discrimination and helps to achieve equity for all low-income New Yorkers.

LSNYC employees have numerous opportunities for growth and professional development, including access to our internal Justice Learning Center, which provides opportunities to earn free CLEs and gain experience as a trainer. Further, LSNYC prides itself on its Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) efforts and aims to create a work environment where everyone can bring their full selves to the work.

Staten Island Legal Services (across the street from the ferry), seeks a paralegal for its Homeowner Defense Project.

Program Description

Staten Island Legal Services, part of Legal Services NYC (LSNYC), fights poverty and seeks racial, social, and economic justice for low-income New Yorkers.  SILS seeks equal access to justice for all low-income residents of Staten Island through a range of legal advocacy, education and community partnerships.  SILS advises and represents Staten Island residents through its immigration, LGBTQ/HIV advocacy, family/domestic violence, housing, foreclosure, and education units.  In addition to being the largest provider of civil legal services in the country, LSNYC provides numerous opportunities for growth and professional development. Our Learning Center provides opportunities to earn free CLEs and gain experience as a trainer. LSNYC also prides itself on its Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) efforts; on Staten Island, our DEIB committee works to foster collegial relationships among staff and to promote growth in our own office’s approach to DEIB and racial justice issues. Our numerous affinity groups allow staff to explore and advocate for racial justice growth within our organization and through our legal work. All employees are expected to learn about, seek to understand and work to realize our DEIB goals.

Homeowner Defense Project

The Homeowner Defense Project (HDP) was created in 2006 to address the growing problem of predatory lending and elder-targeted fraud that was systematically stripping the equity of Staten Island homeowners.  Since then, HDP has continued to represent homeowners, our practice broadening beyond mortgage foreclosure representation and non-litigation mortgage relief advocacy to include affirmative litigation to combat deed theft and violations of fair-housing, fair-lending, and consumer rights; fighting to prevent tax and homeowner’s association liens from leading to foreclosure auctions; seeking plans and discharges through bankruptcy; and representation in administrative hearings on Department of Buildings summonses.  We are the only Staten Island-based legal services provider that offers these services.

Role and Responsibilities

The paralegal’s responsibilities include working with low-income people facing foreclosure and other risks to homeownership, speaking with them and gathering information about their individual situations, collecting client documents to support their cases, and working with lawyers to modify mortgage loans, obtain grants and tax exemptions, and save homes. The paralegal will have substantial client contact, will conduct community outreach, and will handle the cases of their own clients. The paralegal will be supervised by the Director of SILS’ Homeowner Defense Project. 

Experience and Qualifications:

• Excellent interviewing, writing, and communication skills;
• Experience working with low-income people preferred;
• College degree or commensurate experience;
• Excellent organizational skills; and
• Bilingual in English and Spanish preferred.

Salary determined by Collective Bargaining Agreement.  Hybrid remote work policy and excellent benefits package. To safeguard the health and well-being of our employees and clients, LSNYC requires all employees to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19, unless a medical or religious exemption is approved.

Staten Island Legal Services is an equal opportunity employer.  People of color; women; people with disabilities; gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people; and people over the age of 40 are welcome and encouraged to apply. SILS is committed to race, gender, and economic justice in our work and within our workplace. 

All employees are strongly encouraged to continue to receive and maintain up-to-date COVID vaccinations unless they are unable to for medical or religious reasons.

Legal Services NYC is an equal opportunity employer. People of color, women, people with disabilities, people over 40, and gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people are strongly encouraged to apply.