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Q&A
Average length of employment for CCHR attorneys
0:45:35
ยท
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Council Member Williams inquires about the average length of employment for attorneys at the Commission on Human Rights (CCHR). Deputy Commissioner Katherine Carroll explains that the duration varies widely, from those who leave after a year to others who have been with the agency for over 20 years.
- Some attorneys find the work too intense due to exposure to vicarious trauma
- Mid-level attorneys tend to stay for 4-5 years
- CCHR will calculate and provide the exact average employment length later
Nantasha Williams
0:45:35
Okay.
0:45:37
I have a whole bunch of community engagement questions too but I'm not gonna ask you them because when I met with your commissioners last year, they had a lot of things to say about your bureau.
0:45:51
So I definitely want to uplift that and like I said I do recognize that this council has been very laser focused on LEB and there's so many other components of CCHR so I've been trying to like shift us little bit to talk more comprehensively about the agency.
0:46:08
So for now I'll go back to staffing questions.
0:46:13
And the first question I have is what is the average length of employment for an attorney at CCHR?
Katherine Carroll
0:46:30
Thank you for that question madam chair.
0:46:33
It truly varies.
0:46:35
By way of example, I've been at the commission for twelve years and we have some attorneys that start their career here and find after a year it's not for them.
0:46:45
It is a very intense workplace because there's a lot of vicarious trauma our staff attorneys are subject to at listening to allegations of discrimination and harassment all day long.
0:46:56
So we do see a lot of attorneys at the beginning of their career who realize this is not the place for them, who move on to a general counsel's office or a policy role.
0:47:06
But then there have been some agency attorneys who've been with us for over twenty years, some who are more mid level have been there for you know five or four years and then so it really varies depending on what someone's looking for out
Caroline Blanton
0:47:18
of their career.
0:47:20
Do you
Nantasha Williams
0:47:20
have an average?
0:47:21
So if like two people have been there for twenty years but like 20 have been there for only two then like the average would reflect that number.
Katherine Carroll
0:47:32
We can do the math on that and get it back to you but I don't have it
Nantasha Williams
0:47:35
with We have heard previously and it comes up every hearing that one of CCHR's issue is the fact that the commission is not able to follow-up to follow-up to the competitiveness of the private sector?