Empire Justice Center seeking to hire managing attorney for new tax clinic

Empire Justice Center is seeking to hire a managing attorney for a new Low Income Tax Clinic (LITC) to provide free legal representation on tax issues.

Empire Justice Center‘s Creating Assets, Savings & Hope (CASH) program has been providing free help preparing income tax returns to low-income clients for more than 20 years at the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) site on the fourth floor of the Rochester Public Library, 115 South Ave.

Empire Justice Center is a statewide legal services organization with offices in Rochester, Albany, Westchester County, and Long Island.

The VITA program has about 75 volunteer tax preparers who annually field about 10,000 telephone inquiries and complete about 4,000 returns.

“We have a complete comprehensive training set up. It takes about 20 to 30 hours for a new preparer to be ready to take the IRS certification,” said Yversha Roman, director of CASH and strategic partnerships for Empire Justice Center.

The program is open all year. They also offer a summer clinic where they provide consultations and file back taxes for free.

The new position is funded with a federal grant. The salary range is $65,580, for someone with five years of experience, and $85,080, for someone with 14 years of experience.

Roman acknowledged the salary is lower than attorneys are typically paid at private law firms.

“It takes a different kind of attorney to work at a public law firm. So that makes the pool smaller. Really, it’s about the type of work we’re able to do,” she said.

“Once we are able to hire a managing attorney, I could see us up and running in two to three months, just so that the attorney can become acclimated to Empire Justice Center and the work that we do,” Roman said.

“But I can tell you that there are clients who come here every day seeking legal representation or legal consultation because of tax issues,” she said.

Ultimately, Roman plans to hire a second attorney and hopes to create a panel of local lawyers willing to provide pro bono services.

More information about the managing attorney job at the new tax clinic is available on the Empire Justice Center website.

[email protected] / (585) 232-2035