Legislative Specialist

Clarification from the agency

This vacancy announcement is open to the public. This position allows for situational and recurring telework, but does not qualify for full-time or remote telework. The duty station is in the Thurgood Marshal Federal Judiciary Building at One Columbus Circle NE in Washington, DC, across the street from Union Station with easy access to Metro (red line), VRE, MARC, and Amtrak.

The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO), Office of Legislative Affairs (OLA) is seeking an experienced professional Legislative Specialist to join its team. OLA performs the federal judiciary's legislative liaison activities with Congress, other governmental entities, and private sector organizations with an interest in legislation and other activity affecting the judicial branch.

The Legislative Specialist identifies, monitors, and tracks legislation of importance to the judiciary and performs preliminary analysis of proposed legislation to determine its impact. The Legislative Specialist also provides a wide range of legislative, legal, program, and administrative support services to OLA attorneys; identifies and provides preliminary analysis of laws, agency documents, press articles, and other legislative and media materials; and performs a host of activities essential to judicial and congressional information management.

The incumbent must demonstrate strong verbal and written communication skills; apply knowledge and previous experience with congressional and judicial operations to all tasks; and prioritize multiple assignments and work effectively in a fast-paced, high priority, deadline-driven environment. As needed, the incumbent may need to work beyond core office hours to support OLA's response to impromptu congressional developments that occur late in the workday. This position reports to OLA's Supervisory Administrative Analyst.

The duties of this position include, but are not limited to:

1. Preparing a daily summary of items of interest from the Congressional Record for judiciary-wide distribution.
2. Analyzing the impact of legislative proposals on the judiciary and performing legislative research using online research tools such as Congress.gov, LexisNexis, Westlaw, Bloomberg, and Congressional Quarterly (CQ).
3. Evaluating and maintaining congressional materials (e.g., House/Senate bills, hearings, testimony, etc.) of judicial relevance and importance.
4. Conducting and summarizing legislative and legal research, including searching for and extracting information from reports, publications, recordings, and other materials.
5. Compiling and organizing correspondence, bills, memoranda, and other related materials to create legislative histories.
6. Attending or monitoring Congressional hearings and markups and providing written and oral reports of proceedings.
7. Partnering with OLA attorneys and AO leadership to prepare federal judiciary witnesses for testimony during congressional committee hearings.
8. Designing and maintaining databases and repositories, such as web pages and SharePoint sites, to organize and store policy, legislative, and strategy information.
9. Developing and maintaining working relationships with staff of the AO, the federal courts, congressional committees, and key agencies in the executive branch.
10. Composing and reviewing complex and/or sensitive AO and OLA correspondence or other written materials.
11. Performing administrative tasks, including receiving telephone calls and visitors and making appropriate referrals, preparing and formatting letters, and memoranda, and reviewing and distributing incoming mail.

Conditions of employment

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

1. All information is subject to verification. Applicants are advised that false answers or omissions of information on application materials or inability to meet the following conditions may be grounds for non-selection, withdrawal of an offer of employment, or dismissal after being employed.
2. Selection for this position is contingent upon completion of OF-306, Declaration of Federal Employment during the pre-employment process and proof of U.S. citizenship for competitive status positions or conversion to a competitive status position with the AO. If non-citizens are considered for hire into a temporary or any other position with non-competitive status or when it is confirmed by the AO Human Resources Office there are no qualified U.S. citizens for a competitive status position (unless prohibited by a law or statue), non-citizens must provide proof of authorization to work in the U.S. and proof of entitlement to receive compensation. Additional information on the employment of non-citizens can be found at USAJOBS Help Center | Employment of non-citizens/. For a list of documents that may be used to provide proof of citizenship or authorization to work in the United States, please refer to Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification.
3. All new AO employees will be required to complete an FBI fingerprint-based national criminal database and records check and pass a public trust suitability check.
4. New employees to the AO will be required to successfully pass the E-Verify employment verification check. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights/responsibilities, visit https://www.e-verify.gov/.
5. All new AO employees are required to identify a financial institution for direct deposit of pay before appointment.
6. You will be required to serve a trial period if selected for a first-time appointment to the Federal government, transferring from another Federal agency, or serving as a first-time supervisor. Failure to successfully complete the trial period may result in termination of employment.
7. If appointed to a temporary position, management may have the discretion of converting the position to permanent depending upon funding and staffing allocation.

Qualifications

Applicants must have demonstrated experience as listed below. This requirement is according to the AO Classification, Compensation, and Recruitment Systems which include interpretive guidance and reference to the OPM Operating Manual for Qualification Standards for General Schedule Positions.

Specialized Experience: Applicants must have at least one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience which is in or directly related to the line of work of this position. Specialized experience must demonstrate experience in ALL areas defined below:

• Expertise or experience in the administrative and legislative processes of Congress.
• Conducting legislative and legal research and analysis.
• Drafting legislative and legal research and analyzing written materials.
• Using online research tools, web page maintenance, and chart and database software.
• Planning and coordinating stakeholder, executive, or committee meetings and supporting congressional outreach efforts.

• Professional experience working directly for a member of Congress or a congressional committee.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

We will review your resume and supporting documentation and compare this information to your responses on the occupational questionnaire to determine if you meet the minimum qualifications for this job. If you meet the minimum qualifications for this job, we will evaluate your application package, to assess the quality, depth, and complexity of your accomplishments, experience, and education as they relate to the requirements listed in this vacancy announcement.

You should be aware that your ratings are subject to evaluation and verification. If a determination is made that you have rated yourself higher than is supported by your resume and/or narrative responses, you will be assigned a rating commensurate to your described experience. Failure to submit the mandatory narrative responses will result in not receiving full consideration and/or rating credit. Deliberate attempts to falsify information may be grounds for not selecting you, withdrawing an offer of employment, or dismissal after being employed.

For this job announcement the following documents and/or information are required:

• Resume - Any written format you choose to describe your job-related qualifications.
• Citizenship - Include country of citizenship on resume.
• Notification of Personnel Action (SF-50) - All applicants outside of the AO must submit a copy of your latest SF-50 to verify current or former Federal employment status.
• Veterans Preference documentation - Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty (DD Form 214), if applicable Application for 10-Point Veteran Preference (SF-15) and an official statement, dated 1991 or later, from the Department of Veterans Affairs or from a branch of the Armed Forces, certifying to the veteran's present receipt of compensation.

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