Pro Bono Scholars, Spring 2026 Scholarship Program
Pro Bono Scholars, Spring 2026 Scholarship Program
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Job Description
Job Details
Description
About CFR
The Center for Family Representation Inc. (CFR) is an award-winning innovative law and policy organization that serves primarily Black and Brown families and youth in Queens Manhattan the Bronx and Staten Island with an interdisciplinary legal defense model that serves more than 2400 clients every year. CFR was originally founded in 2002 to dramatically change the trajectory of indigent parents being prosecuted by the Citys Administration for Childrens Services (ACS). Our goal is to defend and protect our clients rights reduce the harm of family separation and prevent or minimize the time any child spends in the foster system.
CFR provides interdisciplinary family defense with a model that was unique at our founding and that is now being replicated nationally: we assign every client an attorney and a social work staff member and teams have the support of parent advocates who are parents with direct personal experience of being investigated and prosecuted by ACS. CFR was the first agency in the country to integrate parents with lived experience into legal teams and now has 8 parent advocates working in all four of our family defense locations.
Practice Areas
CFRs Community Advocacy Project represents parents during a child protective investigation (to avoid court involvement where possible) and assists parents in clearing their names from state maltreatment records.
As an agency committed to securing justice for families we built the Youth Defense practice (YDP) to defend youth at risk of family separation through incarceration. YDP uses the same interdisciplinary model to represent youth being prosecuted in Queens Bronx and Manhattan in Supreme Court Youth Parts during Probation Adjustment and in Delinquency proceedings in Family Court.
CFRs Home for Good program provides legal and social work services to CFR clients in immigration civil legal services and criminal defense matters to afford clients an efficient and well-coordinated one-stop solution to a range of issues that threaten family stability.
Recognized as experts in our fields we annually train over 500 practitioners in the city state and around the country on strategies to promote family preservation and interdisciplinary representation and we provide community based Know Your Rights presentations to parents youth and service providers. We advocate at the city state and national level for policies that reduce the harm of family separation and promote parent engagement and justice for youth and families.
About the Program
Selected candidates will work collaboratively with CFR attorneys and social work staff working in Family Defense Criminal and Youth Defense Immigration Policy Civil Appeals and State Central Register appeals.
Those selected will participate in comprehensive training and receive individualized supervision and mentoring. Individuals will get direct hands-on experience with advocacy client counseling crisis intervention negotiation and case management. Opportunities also include the ability to pursue individual research and writing assignments have the opportunity to work on projects related to the specific practice area to which they are assigned appear on the record in court pursuant to student practice orders if appropriate and more.
Qualifications
Qualifications
Registered for the Pro Bono Scholars Program
A Third-year (3L) law student at an ABA accredited law school.
CFR will consider law students with a demonstrated interest in our and/or related work.
Application Instructions:
To apply please send a cover letter/statement of interest resume writing sample list of three references to Attorney-In-Charge of Legal Support Kenneth Sokol (). Kindly put Spring 2026 Pro Bono Scholars in the subject line. Please list your area(s) of interest as well as borough preference. Please note that we are accepting applications in the following practice areas: Family Defense Criminal and Youth Defense Immigration Policy Civil Appeals and State Central Register appeals. You may apply to more than one practice area with a single application if you wish.
Applications will be accepted through September 5 2025
Employment Type
Intern
