Career Opportunity

Legal Secretary I – Labor Team – City Attorney’s Office (1458)

Recruitment: RTF0141610-00205803

Published: November 01, 2023

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About:

The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office is looking for a qualified and motivated legal secretary to join its Labor Team.

Appointment Type:

• Temporary Provisional (TPV) position, limited to no more than 3 years in duration. This temporary position is excluded by the Charter from the competitive Civil Service examination process, is considered "at will" and shall serve at the discretion of the Department Head. This position will be subject to the Permanent Civil Service examination process. Successful participation in the Permanent Civil Service examination and selection through an open competitive process is needed in order to be considered for the permanent appointment.

Specific information regarding this recruitment process:

• Application Opening: November 1, 2023
• Application Deadline: Continuous, earliest close 5:00 p.m. Wednesday, November 22, 2023
• Compensation Range: $87,802- $106,730
• Recruitment ID: RTF0141610-00205803

About the Office

The San Francisco City Attorney’s 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 and dedicated employees, the Office provides exceptional legal services to the City’s Mayor, Board of Supervisors, officials, and departments. Our work empowers City leaders 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 visit: https://www.sfcityattorney.org/aboutus/dei/

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 17 attorneys, three paralegals, three legal assistants, and six 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.

Legal Secretary I Position Information and Responsibilities

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

• Preparing and editing a wide variety of legal documents in proper format, such as briefs, motions, discovery, correspondence, subpoenas, jury instructions, notices, exhibit and witness lists, verdict forms, and legislative documents (including resolutions and ordinances).
• Legal filing (including E-Filing) documents with state and federal trial courts, courts of appeal, and administrative bodies.
• Maintaining attorney calendars and case calendars.
• Opening, maintaining and closing files; abstracting information from various sources to prepare legal documents according to attorney instructions; answering requests for information from attorneys, opposing counsel, court staff and members of the public.
• Coordinating depositions and attorney appearances or meetings.
• Maintaining up-to-date knowledge of court rules and practices according to jurisdiction.
• Utilizing a wide variety of word processing, case management and calendaring software.
• Performing related duties as required.

How to qualify

Minimum Qualifications

Experience

Two (2) years of verifiable experience as a legal secretary transcribing dictation and typing legal documents including petitions, motions, briefs, complaints and other legal forms; AND

The ability to type 55 net WPM

Substitution

A certificate of completion in legal secretarial skills from a recognized college, university, or training program, which involved learning legal terminology and legal formats and forms, may substitute for six (6) months of the required legal secretarial experience. Proof of satisfactory completion must be submitted at the time of filing.

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.

Desired Qualifications

• Excellent verbal and writing skills, and an ability to work independently as well as collaboratively across multiple legal teams. 
• Ability to manage multiple tasks and deadlines, accept and implement written and oral instructions.
• 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, with a focus on Excel.
• Experience with Adobe Professional, Cisco WebEx, Microsoft Team.
• Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university.
• Commitment to valuing diversity and contributing to an inclusive working and learning environment.

The stated desirable qualifications may be considered at the end of the selection process when candidates are referred for hiring.

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, disqualification or may lead to lower scores.

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 next stage of the selection process.

What else should I know?

Salary and Benefits

The Legal Secretary I position has a 5-step salary scale ranging from $87,802 – $ 106,730. The successful applicant is appointed to a salary step based on years of experience. The City offers robust health, retirement, and other benefits. For more information please visit: https://sfdhr.org/benefits-overview. Legal Secretaries are represented by the Service Employees International Union, Local 1021. Information about compensation and benefits is available by entering Classification Code 1458 at https://careers.sf.gov/classifications/.

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

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.

Human Resources Analyst Information: If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please send your inquires to Asa Nojd, HR Analyst, at asa.nojd@sfcityatty.org.

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.