Recruiting & Hiring

We could provide so much more opportunity for connecting to our communities and provide opportunities for people who haven’t been able to get through traditional educational environments.

Carrie Burke

Massachusetts

BACK

Public defense is not for most people. And defense social work is not for most social workers. Given this, it is critical to be intentional about recruiting and hiring for a holistic defense practice. While attorneys in public defense typically have a local, state-wide, or national community to look to for support, defense social workers are often isolated from their social work colleagues in the profession.

Creating the Role

Determine Qualifications

Consult sample job descriptions and consider the needs in your community.

Consider expanding beyond positions requiring a masters degree in social work or a related field.

There has been a growing recognition of the importance of hiring people with personal experience navigating the legal systems. Consider creating a role specifically focused on providing peer support, and advocate to reduce barriers to entry into your office for individuals with experience in the system across roles in your organization.

Consider the values of your organization and the culture you’re looking to create. Brainstorm a list of the qualities you’re looking for in an ideal candidate to bring into your team.

Sample Job Postings/Descriptions

Recruiting

Holistic Defense Clinics
Fostering relationships with educational institutions in your community can create the next generation of defense social workers and attorneys interested in practicing in a holistic model.

Social Work Schools
Masters in social work programs have become increasingly focused on clinical training for clinical roles. Still, social work schools are an important resource for recruiting social workers to join your team. Consider reaching out to professors and offering to guest lecture to introduce defense social work to the students at your local social work school.

Community Organizations
There are defense social workers and advocates everywhere! You just have to seek them out . Think about the individuals who have supported and advocated for your clients in the community. This is a great place to start recruiting.

Be mindful about solely recruiting from social work schools; consider creating relationships with community organizations in order to recruit advocates from the community.

Public Defender Organizations
NLADA, NAPD, and NACDL postjob opportunities for defense socialwork listservs and share job descriptions with community partners.

Alternative Positions

Social Work Interns

As part of their education and training, social work students are required to participate in a year-long practicum to learn the skills of social work practice. With proper supervision and support, social work interns can expand the social work capacity of an office. Offices without social workers on site can ask the school to provide an “external supervisor” and provide “task supervision” to the intern on the day-to-day of the work.

JD/MSWs Offices like Muskegon MI, a Center for Holistic Defense site, started their holistic defense approach by having an attorney who also has an MSW supervise a group of social work interns. Their interns began to work at arraignments, assessing client needs and connecting them to resources. They collected data from this small pilot project and over time, they were able to use the success of the intern program to advocate for full-time social work staff.

Part-Time

Offices without the funding to hire full time social workers might be able to bring a social worker on part-time. By utilizing that role strategically, offices can collect data to show the impact of social work advocacy on client representation and may be able to use this data to advocate for full-time social work staffing.

Hiring Committees

Ensure a diverse group of individuals in various roles are involved in the resume review and interview processes. Even if you have no social workerson staff, invite other colleagues in non-attorney roles such as an administrative professional, an investigator, or a paralegal to be part of your selection and interview processes.