Legal Counsel, Director of Blackstone Professional Development

Alliance Defending Freedom•Lansdowne, VA

53d•$142,600 - $156,900•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Professional Development owns the quality of the counsel that shapes decisions for the Blackstone Legal Fellowship. This role equips gifted Christian law students to discern, prepare for, and compete for opportunities of real consequence. It builds the curriculum, advisor network, and institutional relationships that deliver counsel to a full class each summer and to a growing body of alumni in practice. The Blackstone Legal Fellowship is a rigorous formation for gifted Christian law students whose judgment and moral imagination are rooted in the rule of law, and who go on to shape law and culture—courtrooms, boardrooms, legislatures, and law schools are the visible examples, but the reach is wider: agencies and regulatory bodies, state and federal government, media and publishing, medicine and bioethics, technology, education, ministry, and the institutions that have not yet been built.

Requirements

J.D., active license in at least one US state bar, and capable of meeting admission requirements in relevant jurisdiction within one year
5+ years of experience in public policy advocacy, governmental relations/affairs, or legislative work at the federal or state level.

Nice To Haves

Written and oral communication with law students, hiring partners, and sitting judges.
Professional network development — relationships with judges, practitioners, and academics durable enough to draw on for a Fellow's benefit.
Complex program management on a fixed calendar set by the clerkship cycle and academic year rather than internal preference.
Staff leadership and development, including setting standards and delivering corrective feedback early enough to matter.
Sustain extended travel and full summer residency, including full participation in the Blackstone summer program and regional travel the rest of the year.
Operate without direction, setting the agenda rather than receiving it, with judgment evaluated over years rather than weeks.

Responsibilities

Form and defend judgments about individual Blackstone summer interns and Fellows’ capacity, trajectory, and professional fit, and calibrate those judgments over time against actual career outcomes.
Develop and maintain the assessment framework used across the professional development function, including the signals that predict success.
Deliver candid, specific assessments to Blackstone summer interns and Fellows regarding the capabilities standing between them and the positions they are pursuing.
Set the intellectual direction of the professional development curriculum and own its design, sequencing, and annual revision across all phases of the Fellowship.
Determine what is taught, by whom, and what is removed, informed by doctrinal developments, hiring market conditions, and Fellow outcomes.
Establish and enforce quality standards for all workshops, seminars, guest lectures, and outside speakers.
Teach the portions of the curriculum where the Director's own judgment and experience are the substance.
Oversee the summer internship program, including placement, employer expectations, performance standards, and evaluation.
Own clerkship outcomes end-to-end, including application strategy, materials review, recommender cultivation, and interview preparation.
Build and maintain relationships with federal chambers and clerkship alumni sufficient to ensure Fellow applications receive serious consideration.
Advise Fellows on decisions with long-term consequences, including first position selection, transitions, and the choice among private practice, government service, academia, and public interest litigation.
Counsel Fellows on sustaining conviction and effectiveness under institutional pressure during the early years of practice.
Cultivate the employer relationships that establish the standing of the Blackstone credential in advance of any individual application.
Serve employers actively recruiting Fellows, and protect the credential by advancing only candidates who meet the standard.
Place Fellows deliberately, prioritizing strategic position over volume of placements.
With the Alumni Team track Fellow career trajectories and treat departures from the field as a diagnostic input to program design.
Recruit senior practitioners and accomplished Fellows into a structured external advisory network.
Train advisors on the standard of counsel expected, and hold the network to consistent candor and quality so that Fellow outcomes do not depend on advisor assignment.
Sustain institutional relationships with law schools, student organizations, faculties, government agencies, and the public interest bar.
Represent the Fellowship at regional events and conferences.
Lead as a servant leader by training, coaching, and developing professional development staff.
Coach in specifics and deliver corrective feedback early rather than at scheduled review.
Meet regularly with direct reports to discuss progress and conduct Career Path Discussions.
Foster a team culture of trust, candor, and innovation in which staff can identify what is not working without hesitation.
Approve PTO requests, time cards, and expense reports.
Work with ADF recruitment to ensure Fellowship intake reflects the standards the professional development function requires.
Coordinate across ADF teams so that the function meets the needs of Fellows, internal partners, and employers.
Participate in Fellowship leadership planning and contribute to organizational strategy on legal talent development.