Main Responsibilities of a Project Coordinator at Legal Aid San Mateo County
Maraina's role as a Project Coordinator at The Legal Aid Society involves managing a diverse workload, "it's different every day," including intake calls, referral processing, and case management; a significant portion of the work involves "talking to people" in both English and Spanish, connecting clients with appropriate resources within and outside the organization.
Project Management, Communication, Bilingual Skills, Resource Management, Client Interaction
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Maraina Weyl
Project Coordinator
The Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County
Syracuse University
Santa Clara University School of Education and Counseling Psychology- M.A. Counseling
International Relations & Affairs
Government & Public Sector, Nonprofit, Foundations & Grantmaking
Consulting
Scholarship Recipient, Pell Grant Recipient, Worked 20+ Hours in School, LGBTQ, First Generation College Student
Video Highlights
1. The daily tasks involve managing a lot of information, including checking emails, software for cases, call logs, and faxes, to ensure all information is organized and readily available for use by the team and clients.
2. A significant portion of the job includes client interaction, taking intakes, and referring clients to appropriate resources, which often involves being bilingual (Spanish) to effectively communicate with a diverse clientele.
3. The role demands strong organizational and time-management skills, with the need to prioritize tasks from various sources such as emails, software, and phone calls, and constantly follow up to ensure all issues are addressed promptly and effectively
Transcript
What does a day in the life of a project coordinator look like?
This is actually the first job I've ever had where that answer isn't different every day. This is a relatively monotonous role, which I think after teaching is really great for me because I'm used to just putting out fires that are different every single time I walk in the room.
So this job, I pretty much know what I'm gonna get when I wake up in the morning. I will start my day usually by checking my email, going into our software to check on cases. If there are any releases that are missing, I'll send those emails off and connect with those parents to make sure they get signed. Until the releases are signed, our lawyer can't do anything to support the family.
Then I will check our call log, go through all the voicemails, and make sure we have all the information set for myself or the other coordinator to follow up with people that have called us or that we have referrals for. Referrals usually come in the form of fax, so I have to check through the faxes and put them all into the call log. It's a lot of kind of managing of information in the beginning of the day.
Then I'll make my calls and do some intakes. In many cases, we'll get people who actually don't live in San Mateo County. From there, I will be kind of sharing other resources with them, referring them out to Legal Aid in Santa Clara County or to Project Sentinel, for example, for housing issues that we don't handle. Our housing team only works on evictions.
So I'm basically talking through what exactly it is that you need and making sure that those people are getting connected to all the right resources. Sometimes that means they get a case with us, and then they also get referred out to other places. Usually, it's just a lot of talking to people.
This is a bilingual role, so I do about half of this in Spanish, sometimes more than half actually. Then kind of the end of the day winds down, and I'm usually just cleaning up files, making sure all the information is in there. All the while, my particular boss is an emailer. So it's just one email after another with to-dos, and I'm responding to those emails. They're not really organized in any particular space; it's just being really on top of my email.
So yeah, that's pretty much a day in the life.