Career Opportunity

Deputy City Attorney - Strategic Advocacy Team - City Attorney's Office (8177)

Recruitment: RTF0157310-01076889

Published: July 15, 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 14, 2025
• Application Deadline: Continuous, earliest close 5:00 p.m. Monday, July 28, 2025
• Compensation Range: $153,140 - $268,320
• Recruitment ID: RTF0157310-01076889

The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office is looking for an experienced and motivated attorney to join its Strategic Advocacy Team. 

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/.

Currently, 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 Strategic Advocacy Team

The Strategic Advocacy Team is a new team established to respond to complex and novel issues at the intersection of litigation and advice work.  Currently the team is exclusively focused on developing, coordinating, and implementing strategies to respond to federal administration actions that threaten the City and County of San Francisco and its residents.  In the future, the team may also address other major issues that require significant litigation and legal counsel. The team acts as a force multiplier that allows the Office to leverage internal and external resources to deliver meaningful results on high-priority matters.

Our litigation docket is currently in federal court and generally involves cases with significant public policy implications, constitutional claims, novel legal issues, and multiple parties.  Our advice work typically addresses matters of citywide concern or issues that relate to pending or anticipated litigation.  We also handle projects and assignments that extend beyond traditional legal work.  No task is too big or too small for this team, and we aspire to be low ego, high energy, creative, collaborative, and nimble. 

Deputy City Attorney Position and Responsibilities

Attorneys on the team handle both litigation and advice matters, as well as special projects and external coordination on assigned matters.  These matters typically require team members to work collaboratively with other lawyers and professional staff across the Office, as well as with other City agencies. Team members also collaborate with other local and state law offices, non-profit organizations, private law firms, and academia.

Attorneys perform complex legal and factual research; monitor and analyze executive, legislative, and regulatory actions; identify litigation trends and propose litigation strategies; and provide written and oral reports to the City Attorney and other City officials.  In litigation, attorneys are responsible for case development; drafting and reviewing complaints, motions and briefs; working with client departments, including on declarations; and managing outside counsel and discovery when necessary.  In advice work, attorneys are responsible for coordinating with other attorneys in the Office to provide oral and written advice on a broad range of legal issues, including interpretation of local, state, and federal laws and the legal risks of proposed actions.  

How to qualify

Minimum Qualification

• Licensed to practice law in California

Desired Qualifications

• At least five years of experience handling complex litigation or advice matters, including at least three years of litigation experience
• Ability to quickly learn new areas of law and think deeply about novel legal issues
• Excellent written and oral communication skills
• Demonstrated project management skills
• Experience reviewing and editing work by other attorneys
• Experience managing outside counsel
• Excellent judgment and the ability to gather and distill necessary information and make decisions quickly and confidently, but also inclusively, and be comfortable recommending deliberate and responsible risks where warranted
• Ability to manage competing priorities and deadlines, produce high-quality work on tight timelines, embrace last-minute assignments, and demonstrate grace under pressure
• Excellent interpersonal skills, a strong interest in working as part of a team, ability to work both collaboratively and independently, and comfort being in or out of the spotlight
• Ability to work effectively and collaboratively with colleagues
• Commitment to valuing diversity and contributing to an inclusive working and learning environment

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 three references and a 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 (@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.