Career Opportunity

Deputy City Attorney - Dependency & Mental Health Team - City Attorney's Office (8177)

Recruitment: RTF0158061-01152111

Published: July 16, 2025

Apply using SmartRecruiters, the City and County of San Francisco's application portal.

About:

Appointment Type: Permanent Exempt (PEX) position; individuals who are appointed to Exempt Positions are appointed at the pleasure of their appointing officer and are considered to be "at-will."

• Application Opening: July 16, 2025
• Application Deadline: Continuous, earliest close 5:00 p.m. Wednesday, July 30, 2025
• Compensation Range: $153,140 - $268,320
• Recruitment ID: RTF0158061-01152111

The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office is looking for a qualified and motivated litigator to join its Dependency & Mental Health Team (Team), to perform juvenile dependency work. Dependency work is a high volume, fast paced, and confidential court-based practice.

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 340 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/

Currently, the Office offers a hybrid remote work schedule for eligible employees, with three days onsite and up to two days remote. This schedule may change to conform to Citywide standards of four days onsite work.

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

Role description

About the Team

The Team is a collaborative and dynamic group of 14 attorneys, two paralegals, two legal secretaries, and one legal assistant who handle two confidential court-based practices – dependency and mental health (conservatorship and CARE Court) cases. In its dependency practice, the Team represents the interests of abused and neglected children in San Francisco. There are nine dependency attorneys who advise the City’s Human Services Agency (Agency) prior to the filing of dependency petitions and represent the Agency in court in all phases of dependency litigation.

Every party to a dependency action – both parents and the child – has court appointed counsel. Any hearing can be set for contest, from the initial hearing (detention hearing), jurisdiction and disposition, review hearings (that occur every six months while parents receive reunification services), hearings to terminate services, hearings to terminate parental rights, and subsequent review hearings for youth who are in long term foster care or on a pre-adoption track. In dependency, parents are afforded court-appointed counsel and may appeal any court finding – with the exception of the detention hearing. Our appellate specialist handles all writs and appeals for both our dependency and mental health cases.

In its mental health practice, the Team advises the City’s Public Conservator (PC) and represents them in court proceedings on Lanterman-Petris-Short conservatorships. They also represent the City’s Department of Public Health (DPH) in CARE Court proceedings.

Deputy City Attorney Position and Responsibilities

Attorneys assigned to dependency work juggle caseloads of close to 100 cases at various stages in the dependency process. In addition to working with social workers, they work with professionals such as doctors (child abuse specialists), child psychologists and psychiatrists, law enforcement, and service providers. Our Team provides on going trainings for child welfare workers about the legal aspects of their practice and advises the Agency on requests for confidential child welfare records.

How to qualify

Minimum Qualification

• Licensed to practice law in California.

Desired Qualifications

• Three or more years of litigation experience.
• Three or more years of dependency practice, whether litigation or advice.
• Ability to assume responsibility quickly and work independently, collaboratively, and efficiently.
• Ability to manage a high volume, fast paced caseload, and adjust to occasional workload increases.
• Excellent oral and written communication and advocacy skills.
• Ability to exercise good judgment, multi-task, and meet deadlines.
• Strong interpersonal skills and a positive attitude.
• Commitment to valuing diversity and contributing to an inclusive working and learning environment.
• Desire and ability to work successfully as part of a team.

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 oral/performance interview.

What else should I know?

Salary and Benefits

The Deputy City Attorney position has a 16-step salary scale ranging from $153,140 to $268,320. The successful applicant is appointed to a salary step based on years of experience as a lawyer. The City offers robust health, retirement and other benefits. For more information please visit: https://sfdhr.org/benefits-overview. Attorneys are represented by the Municipal Attorneys Association. Information about compensation and benefits is available by entering Classification Code 8177 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
• 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
• Include your CA Bar Number in the education section on your application
• Upload a Cover Letter and a Resume

Applicants who advance in the selection process must submit two references and at least one writing sample.

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 (@sfcityatty.org, @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 Jumy Dang, Senior Human Resources Analyst, at jumy.dang@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.