staff openings

VAAP’s Community Lawyering Initiative work centers people and communities—not just cases—by combining high-quality immigration representation with deep collaboration alongside grassroots organizations, advocates, and trusted community leaders. Community lawyering staff provide direct legal services while also supporting clinics, trainings, and rapid-response efforts that make legal information and assistance more accessible, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed. The focus is on meeting people where they are, especially those most impacted by detention, enforcement, and systemic barriers to legal help.

This approach is especially important in Vermont, where immigrant communities are geographically dispersed and often rely on informal networks to navigate complex legal systems. Community lawyering is innovative because it treats legal work as a shared responsibility: lawyers, advocates, and communities coordinate roles, communicate clearly, and move together toward both individual relief and broader systems change. The result is more trust, better outcomes for clients, and a stronger, more connected immigration justice ecosystem across the state.

VAAP’s Practice Development Fellowship is a part-time, limited-term staff attorney role that pairs hands-on immigration representation with structured mentorship in how to run a sustainable solo or small practice. Fellows support VAAP’s core work—especially detained and other defensive-posture matters—while also helping strengthen statewide infrastructure through shared templates, workflows, trainings, and program support. Outside scheduled work hours, VAAP provides training and technical assistance in practice management (intake, billing, case systems, and ethical compliance) so Fellows leave the program ready to launch or grow an independent, community-serving immigration practice in Vermont.

Vermont needs this fellowship because there are too few local immigration attorneys, and people at many income levels struggle to find timely, affordable legal help—particularly for high-stakes detained and removal-defense cases. This model is innovative because it doesn’t just add short-term capacity inside VAAP; it deliberately builds long-term, local capacity by graduating practice-ready immigration lawyers who stay connected as referral partners. The Fellowship is hybrid/remote, based out of VAAP’s Burlington office, typically 20 hours/week for 6–18 months, paid $30–$40/hour depending on experience (no benefits).

VAAP is always looking to expand our impact for Vermont communities and would love to hear from you about your interest in teaming up to apply for project- and person-based fellowships, such as with Equal Justice Works, Justice Catalyst, Skadden, Soros, Immigrant Justice Corps, and more, and community fellowships such as VT Folklife Center.

At VAAP, we believe in mobilizing the next generation of justice leaders through hands-on, community-rooted service learning. We welcome undergraduate, graduate, and law school student interns and externs seeking academic credit, funded fellowships, or collaborative funding to join our team during the academic year (semester-long, part- or full-time) or the summer (8–10 weeks full-time).

Student service-learners join a collaborative, consensus-based legal team working at the intersection of immigration law, community defense, and human rights advocacy. Participants may support legal research and writing, client interviewing and case preparation under supervision, policy and advocacy projects (including detention and access-to-counsel work), community legal education and language-accessible outreach, and partnership-based work with community advocates. We prioritize trauma-informed practice, mentorship, cultural humility, and equity-centered collaboration.

Unfortunately, we lack the resources and capacity to host interns or externs who lack an external, complementary supervision and support structure at this time.