About Center for Food Safety
What is Center for Food Safety?
Center for Food Safety (CFS) "empowers people, supports farmers, and protects the Earth from the impacts of industrial agriculture. With groundbreaking legal, scientific, and grassroots action, we fight for your right to safe food and a healthy environment." For more than 25 years its legal, policy and campaign work has aimed to curb toxic pesticides and GMOs in agriculture and to promote "an organic, ecological, and just food and farming system." It says it has won high-profile lawsuits against Monsanto "to protect public health and endangered species from pesticides like the cancer-causing Roundup, drift-prone dicamba, bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides, and toxic fungicides"; stopped GMO wheat, rice, potatoes, tomatoes, fish, trees and grass; won GMO labeling fights; protected organic standards from pesticides and GMOs; shut down polluting mega-factory farms from Hawaiʻi to Washington to New York; and, through its litigation, kept more than 270,000 miles of US ocean waters free of industrial fish farms. Its timeline includes litigating the first US Supreme Court case on GMO regulation.
Where will I work?
At one of three offices: San Francisco (the West Coast office on Market Street), Portland, Oregon (the Pacific Northwest office on NE Alberta Street) or Washington, DC (Maryland Avenue NE). Work is hybrid: its September 2026 opening, an associate attorney, was "Hybrid – San Francisco, CA | Portland, OR", and the posting describes "a flexible hybrid work environment".
What is the Center for Food Safety team like?
CFS is a small team of attorneys, scientists, and policy, communications and development staff, led by co-executive directors George Kimbrell, who is also legal director, and Sylvia Wu. Kimbrell has been counsel in many CFS cases, among them the first US Supreme Court case on the regulation of genetically engineered crops, and Wu has litigated against federal agencies over herbicide-resistant crops, pesticides that harm pollinators and industrial offshore aquaculture. "Every day at CFS we work towards this critical goal—through education and media, in courtrooms, and before state and federal agencies and legislatures across the country."
Work-Life Balance
"We recognize the importance of having time to rest, recharge, and attend to personal and family needs." CFS's careers page offers "a four-day workweek with flexible Fridays when schedules and deadlines allow", and its September 2026 posting lists "a four-day workweek" among the benefits. Because the Friday depends on schedules and deadlines, it is a flexible Friday rather than a guaranteed day off. Paid time off covers vacation, sick and personal leave, designated personal holidays, and paid medical and family leave, and staff can take optional extra time off over the year-end holidays, subject to workload and supervisor approval.
Perks and Benefits
- A four-day workweek with flexible Fridays when schedules and deadlines allow
- Vacation, sick and personal leave, and designated personal holidays
- Optional extra time off over the year-end holidays
- Paid medical and family leave
- Medical, dental and vision coverage, with employer-supported reimbursement of medical deductibles
- Life and long-term disability insurance
- Flexible spending accounts for healthcare, dependent-care and commuting costs
- A 401(k) with "a generous employer match"
- Hybrid work