Legal Assistant (OA)

About the Role

As a Legal Assistant in the United States Attorney's Office (USAO), District of Utah, you will provide a wide variety of technical assistance services related to complex financial litigation actions and matters.

Responsibilities

• Provide a variety of legal assistance and office support services to Attorneys.
• Examine, prepare, and process a variety of technical legal documents which are characteristically voluminous and complex in format.
• Review incoming material and determine the need for assembly and preparation of a variety of legal documents, e.g., complaints, motions, orders, answers, pleadings, subpoenas, and libels.
• Provide assistance to attorneys in trial preparation by performing duties such as compiling trial notebooks, assembling jury instructions, and compiling witness and exhibit lists.
• Assemble exhibits, affidavits, and other legal documents from file material.
• Produce a variety of written documents and materials utilizing a wide range of office software applications.

Responsibilities will increase and assignments will become more complex as your training and experience progress.

Requirements

• You must be a U.S. Citizen or National.
• Initial appointment is conditioned upon a satisfactory pre-employment adjudication. This includes fingerprint, credit and tax checks, and drug testing.
• Continued employment is subject to a favorable adjudication of a background investigation.
• You must be registered for Selective Service, if applicable.
• If selected, you may be required to complete a one-year probationary period.
• You must meet all qualification requirements upon the closing date of this announcement.
• To be qualified, you must type at least 40 words per minute based on a 5-minute sample with three or fewer errors. (A typing test may later be required.)

Qualifications

GS-8: To be eligible at the GS-8 level, you must meet the following condition:

Specialized Experience: One full year of full-time specialized experience equivalent to the GS-7 level. Specialized Experience is defined as serving as the subject matter expert in the processes and procedures related to complex asset identification and debt collection activities. Examples of specialized experience include:

• Working in a collection environment obtaining and analyzing financial information to determine ability to pay.
• Initiating contact with debtors concerning payment of their obligations, their ability to pay, and negotiating written payment schedules to assure successful debt collection.
• Utilizing enforcement tools such as debtor interviews, exams, garnishments, or writs of executions.
• Reviewing debtor financial asset information to prepare payment plans.
• Reconciling payment transactions with records and documents and identifying and resolving inconsistencies.
• Performing skip tracing; locating assets.
• Preparing a variety of legal documents.
• Maintaining files.

Benefits

The Department of Justice offers a comprehensive benefits package that includes, in part:

• Paid vacation, sick leave, and holidays.
• Telework options.
• Life insurance.
• Health benefits.
• Participation in the Federal Employees Retirement System.

Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time, or intermittent.