Bay Area Legal Aid

Bay Area Legal Aid (BayLegal) was founded in 1960. We’re a non-profit law firm that provides free civil legal help and advocacy to low-income individuals and families.

We work across seven Bay Area counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara. We reach clients through our regional offices, mobile advocacy clinics, and a Legal Advice Line. We help the working poor, families with children, foster youth, seniors, immigrants, veterans, and people with disabilities.

Our services include legal advice, referrals, self-help clinics, and full legal representation. We tackle issues like preventing domestic violence and sexual assault, improving economic stability, protecting consumers, expanding healthcare access, and preventing homelessness. Our practice areas include:

• Consumer Protection (unlawful debt collection, predatory lending, credit reporting)
• Domestic Violence (family law, restraining orders, child safety)
• Housing Law (eviction defense, tenant rights, federally subsidized housing)
• Economic Justice (Social Security disability, SSI, and CAPI claims)
• Veterans Practice (housing, financial stability, benefits)
• Healthcare Access

In 2024, we had favorable outcomes in 80% of our cases, helping over 2,000 individuals and securing more than $4 million in direct economic benefits. We have 51-200 employees.

Our mission is to fight poverty’s causes and effects through high-quality legal assistance and advocacy. We aim to ensure fairness in the civil justice system for our most vulnerable community members.

We’re committed to building a culturally diverse workplace and are an equal opportunity employer. Our work focuses on public interest, social justice, and comprehensive client services. We’re a community-based organization driven by our mission.

We’re a unionized workplace. We value diversity and encourage applications from women, people of color, LGBTQ individuals, veterans, people with disabilities, and other underrepresented groups.

Our work environment is community-based and mission-driven. We often collaborate with community partners and public-private groups. Some roles offer hybrid work, requiring a few days on-site each week. Employees must reside in California.

We cover 100% of medical, dental, and life insurance premiums for employees, and up to 60% for dependents. Other benefits include long-term disability insurance, an employee assistance program, a student debt reimbursement program, and we pay California Bar or social work license fees.

We offer a 401k retirement plan, with employer contributions kicking in after your first year. Our paid leave includes 15 holidays per year, plus vacation starting at 13 days (which increases with tenure), 3 floating holidays, sick leave, and parental leave. We also contribute to dependent childcare costs and offer pay differentials for multilingual employees who regularly use their non-English language skills and pass a fluency test.

Hybrid work is an option for some teams and roles. Our salaries are competitive for public interest positions.