Career Opportunity

Paralegal - Labor Team - City Attorney's Office (8151)

Recruitment: RTF0131223-01112732

Published: February 08, 2023

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About:

Application Opening: February 8, 2023

Application Closing: Continuous, earliest close 5:00 p.m. February 22, 2023

Compensation Range: $113,958-$138,450

Recruitment ID: RTF0131223-01112732

About the Office: The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office (Office) is an innovative, nationally-recognized municipal law office working to protect and advance the rights and interests of the City and County of San Francisco and its residents. With over 300 talented, dedicated, and diverse employees, the Office provides exceptional legal services to the City’s Mayor, Board of Supervisors, officials, and departments. Our work empowers the City’s public servants with effective, responsive, and creative legal solutions and representation so they can deliver critical public services and our affirmative advocacy enhances the lives and wellbeing of San Francisco’s residents and visitors.

The Office recognizes that diversity in the backgrounds, identities, ideas, and lived experiences of our employees enriches our workplace and enhances our work. We aspire to recruit, employ, retain, and promote talented individuals representing the full spectrum of our community, and welcome all candidates, including candidates of any race, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, and age, and candidates with disabilities. We have a clear vision: to be the place where a diverse mix of people want to come and stay, grow professionally, and find purpose and engagement, and where all employees feel welcomed and respected for their full authentic selves, and valued for their work and contributions to the Office and the City. To learn more about the Office’s efforts to provide an inclusive workplace where employees feel they belong and can meaningfully contribute, please click here.

The Office offers a hybrid remote work schedule for eligible employees, with three days onsite and up to two days remote.

To learn more about the City Attorney’s Office please visit: https://www.sfcityattorney.org/

Role description

About the Labor Team

The Labor Team is a collaborative and dynamic group of attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants and legal secretaries. The Team defends the City in state and federal civil litigation (through trial and appeals) and administrative proceedings involving labor and employment matters and provides proactive advice and risk management strategies to its client departments on all aspects of the City’s labor and employment relationships. The Team advises and represents the City in its on-going relationships with the more than 30 unions that represent City employees, including collective bargaining, labor grievance arbitrations, and defending unfair labor practice and other administrative charges. The Labor Team is made up of 18 attorneys, 3 paralegals, 2 legal assistant, and 6 secretaries. We are recruiting to fill a vacant paralegal position.

Paralegal Position and Responsibilities

Paralegals work under the direction of attorneys and provide a variety of paraprofessional legal duties in a fast-paced, high-volume litigation practice. The responsibilities listed below are representative of the range of duties assigned and are not intended as an exhaustive list.

• Assist with drafting and implementing litigation holds across various City departments.
• Assist in drafting and reviewing, responsive pleadings, various discovery documents, subpoenas, legal memoranda and correspondence.
• Assist with discovery, particularly electronic discovery, and the organization, case management, collection, review and production of documents obtained from litigants and City departments and maintained in electronic databases.
• Conduct database searches in IPRO Eclipse, Concordance, CaseMap and Text Map, and review documents within these programs for relevance, responsiveness and privilege.
• Organize and prepare documents, exhibits, and other materials for use in discovery, hearings or trials, including preparing and running Trial Director.
• Assist in preparing various motions and ensuring that filings are accurate, properly formatted and filed in a timely manner.
• Assist on appeals, including assembling the record and conducting fact and legal cite checking.
• Correspond and communicate with vendors, attorneys and representatives of City departments regarding case status and discovery.
• Manage multiple projects and prioritize work for several different attorneys.
• Mentor and train legal assistants and paralegal interns in the Office. This includes training on legal procedures, as well as litigation support software.

How to qualify

Minimum Qualifications

• Paralegal certificate from an ABA-approved program, or other significant work experience that satisfies statutory requirements (i.e., Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 6450 compliant).
• 5 years of experience as a paralegal or legal assistant.

Desired Qualifications

• Excellent verbal and writing skills, and an ability to work independently, as well as collaboratively with attorneys, other paralegals, secretaries and others.
• Ability to analyze legal problems and perform detailed analytical work with accuracy and initiative.
• Ability to manage multiple tasks and deadlines, accept and implement written and oral instructions, and communicate effectively and tactfully with attorneys, office personnel, court personnel, vendors and representatives of other governmental departments/entities and the general public.
• Working knowledge of civil legal procedures, legal terminology and court rules.
• Adept in Microsoft Office Suite.
• Experience with Adobe Professional, Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Team, TextMap, Concordance, IPRO Eclipse, CaseMap, Trial Director, or other similar software.
• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university.

One year of full-time employment is equivalent to 2000 hours. (2000 hours of qualifying work experience is based on a 40-hour work week.) Any overtime hours that you work above forty (40) hours per week are not included in the calculation to determine full-time employment.

Verification

Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience at any point during the recruitment and selection process. If education verification is required, information on how to verify education requirements, including verifying foreign education credits or degree equivalency, can be found at https://sfdhr.org/how-verify-education-requirements.

Note: Falsifying one’s education, training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco.

All work experience, education, training and other information substantiating how you meet the minimum qualifications must be included on your application by the filing deadline. Information submitted after the filing deadline will not be considered in determining whether you meet the minimum qualifications.

Resumes will not be accepted in lieu of a completed City and County of San Francisco application.

Applications completed improperly may be cause for ineligibility or disqualification.

Selection Procedures

The selection process will include evaluation of applications in relation to minimum requirements. Applicants meeting the minimum qualifications are not guaranteed advancement to the interview. Depending on the number of applicants, the Department may establish and implement additional screening mechanisms to comparatively evaluate the qualifications of candidates. If this becomes necessary, only those applicants whose qualifications most closely meet the needs of the Department will be invited to participate in the oral/performance interview. 

What else should I know?

Additional Information Regarding Employment with the City and County of San Francisco:

• Information About the Hiring Process
• Conviction History
• Employee Benefits Overview  
• Equal Employment Opportunity 
• Disaster Service Worker
• ADA Accommodation
• Veterans Preference
• Right to Work
• Copies of Application Documents
• Diversity Statement

HOW TO APPLY

Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process. Visit https://careers.sf.gov/ and begin the application process.

• Select the “Apply Now” button and follow instructions on the screen

Official Public Health Order -Shelter in Place: In line with the Official Public Health Order to slow the spread of COVID-19, “shelter-in-place” has been issued for all San Francisco residents that is expected to be in effect until further notice. As a result, Department of Human Resources (DHR)’s office (located at 1 South Van Ness Avenue, 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103) is currently closed to the general public. If you have any questions, please feel free to email the Exam Analyst listed at the end of this job ad.

Applicants may be contacted by email about this recruitment and, therefore, it is their responsibility to ensure that their registered email address is accurate and kept up-to-date. Also, applicants must ensure that email from CCSF is not blocked on their computer by a spam filter. To prevent blocking, applicants should set up their email to accept CCSF mail from the following addresses (@sfgov.org, @sfdpw.org, @sfport.com, @flysfo.com, @sfwater.org, @sfdph.org, @asianart.org, @sfmta.com, @sfpl.org, @dcyf.org, @first5sf.org, @famsf.org, @ccsf.edu, @smartalerts.info, and @smartrecruiters.com).

Applicants will receive a confirmation email that their online application has been received in response to every announcement for which they file. Applicants should retain this confirmation email for their records. Failure to receive this email means that the online application was not submitted or received.

If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please send your inquires to Nikki Chew, Sr. HR Analyst at nikki.chew@sfcityatty.org.

CONDITION OF EMPLOYMENT:  All City and County of San Francisco employees are required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment. Someone is fully vaccinated when 14 days have passed since they received the final dose of a two-shot vaccine or a dose of a one-shot vaccine. Any new hire must present proof of full vaccination status to be appointed. Any new hire who will be routinely assigned or occasionally enter High-Risk Settings, must provide proof of having received a COVID-19 booster vaccine by March 1, 2022, or once eligible.

The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.