Tenant Attorney Jobs (NOW HIRING)

About the Community Economic Defense Project (CEDP) & CED Law

Our Mission

We partner with low-income and working people to build economic and racial equity. We do this by confronting economic abuse and investing in community wealth. We use an ever-evolving set of legal, economic and advocacy tools to challenge and dismantle unjust systems, building quickly towards a world where all people have what they need to live and thrive.

Our Organization

The Community Economic Defense Project (CEDP) is a Colorado-based nonprofit. Launched in 2020 as the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project, our organization was formed to keep our neighbors housed during the pandemic. Working with clients, we built a deeply integrative approach to eviction, foreclosure, and homelessness prevention that centers the legal and financial needs of housing-insecure families and uses a variety of tools to keep them housed.

Our team now serves more than 1,000 people per month, bringing together housing lawyers, economists, data analysts, policy-experts, organizers, and technologists to serve our clients. We have served more than 68,000 low-income Coloradans across 54 counties, distributing more than $280 million in emergency assistance.We have also contributed to the passage of major legislation to prevent eviction, stop economic abuse, and make credit and life-saving medication cheaper. CEDP's model has been cited as a best practice by the White House and HUD in 2022-2023, think tanks like the Urban Institute, and in the media.

Building on our work to stop evictions, CEDP has further expanded its integrated services model to include disaster response, predatory towing, debt collection, benefit access & navigation, long-term rental assistance, and homelessness response. Similar to CEDP's work on rental housing, these efforts offer a continuum of care that includes navigation and advisory services, targeted payments, legal support, and the ability to participate in advocacy.

More about the Tenant Legal Services Attorney Role:

We are seeking a Staff or Senior Tenant Legal Services Attorney for our Eviction Defense team. This attorney will maintain a docket of eviction defense cases from prelitigation/negotiation through the post judgment phase with occasional appeals. This attorney will receive a level of supervision and guidance commensurate with their level of experience, from working closely with supervisors on tasks and receiving significant guidance to being expected to work primarily on their own with little substantive supervision. The role reports directly to the Tenant Legal Services Trial Supervisor.

In this role you will:

• Attend clinics in the courthouse and other community events 1-2 times a month.
• Manage an appropriate caseload of eviction defense cases, set by organizational and contract requirements and goals.
• Be responsible for completing case goals and case closing requirements.
• Work closely with and delegate work to your assigned paralegal to assist with case tasks.
• Coordinate across CEDP to ensure holistic service of legal clients when appropriate and consented to by client.
• Maintain a regular schedule of hearings, court appearances, mediations and conferences, based on case requirements.
• Occasionally have the opportunity to work on other types of legal cases such as affirmative cases or appeals, if eviction defense case goals are met.
• Meet weekly or biweekly with your supervisor to discuss cases and personal growth.
• Provide in person work to clients at our office, courthouse clinics, community clinics, courthouse hearings, or other locations at least once a week but on average 1 to 3 times a week. The rest of your work can be done remotely.
• Be responsible for documenting all case work, client information and case outcomes, using CED Law's client management and other systems.
• Keep track of and document your working time related to specific grants, contracts, and cases.
• Develop and maintain a specialized and working understanding of landlord tenant law, housing, and eviction law.
• Depending on level of experience, be responsible for assisting your colleagues with case strategy and legal analysis, including by sometimes second chairing hearings with less experienced attorneys or on complex cases, and otherwise foster a collaborative, firm-wide practice.
  

Position Requirements:

• JD from an accredited law school, and a Colorado bar license.
• At least 1 or more years' experience in litigation, housing law, eviction defense, or other related field.
• Ability to work collaboratively with people of diverse personal and professional backgrounds with a focus on social and racial justice and equity
• Excellent interpersonal communication skills
• Comfort with ambiguity in a fast-paced, all hands-on-deck environment
• Demonstrate an ongoing commitment to CEDP's Community Pledge and organizational values, and actively contribute to advancing the organization's strategic goals through daily practice, decision-making, and collaboration.
• A supportive and client focused attitude.
• Strong desire to center client and community needs.
• Ability to work collaboratively with other attorneys, paralegals and supervisors in a rapid changing environment centered on social justice and equity.
• Ability to travel within the Denver Metro area and surrounding suburbs under a hybrid schedule where in-person work is required 1-3 times per week at our downtown Denver office, courthouses around the Denver metro area, and/or community events.
• Creative and self driven attitude.
• Knowledge of MS Office suite, Clio, Google Suite, Adobe-Acrobat desired.
• Once trained, ability to manage a significant eviction defense caseload with the appropriate level of supervision depending on experience.

Additional Details:

• Candidates must reside in Colorado, ideally within the greater Denver Metro area. The position includes competitive pay, flexible time off, benefits package (including medical, dental, vision), and 401(k).
• A competitive salary of $75,000 - $85,000, plus a $1,000 per year hybrid employee salary adjustment
  
• All employees receive a technology stipend of $720 per year
• Employees who utilize two languages or more at work are eligible for a $2,000 salary differential per year added to the salary grade listed above. Language assessment will be conducted by the organization as a requirement to receive the differential
• Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis but must be received by May 1, 2026
• The estimated time to complete the recruitment process will be by May 8, 2026
  
• As in-person work is required, all employees at CEDP & CED Law are expected to maintain current vaccination status in keeping with CDC recommendations.
• CEDP is an equal opportunity employer, committed to creating an inclusive environment for all employees. Employment decisions are made without regard to race, color, religion, national origin, age, sex, marital status, ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, or any other legally protected status.