Supervisory Legal Assistant (Office Automation)

Clarification from the agency

Current Federal employees in permanent competitive service positions (status candidates) of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. Merit Promotion/Internal Employees Only.

If selected for this position, you will join a well-respected team that is responsible for a full range of legal assistant duties. As a first level Supervisory Legal Assistant (Office Automation), you will serve as a supervisor of subordinate staff assigned to Civil Division in the Los Angeles Office of the United States Attorney's Office for the Central District of California. Typical work assignments will include:

• Provide administrative and technical supervision to support staff who provide technical and legal assistant services to one or more Assistant United States Attorneys (AUSAs).
• Develop and train all new legal assistants and clerical staff assigned.
• Revise work schedules to meet changes in workload considering factors such as constantly changing deadlines, case priority, availability of staff, and processing time requirements.
• Create and provide verbal and/or written instructional guidelines for the performance of tasks in the division.
• Advise employees of their performance requirements of their position, complete mid year progress review reports, and prepare annual performance evaluations.
• Participate in hiring applicants, recommend promotions, reassignments, awards, step increases, disciplinary actions and resolve grievances that can be resolved at the supervisory level.
• Provide a variety of direct legal support assistance service to AUSA staff to include preparing and processing a variety of complex legal clerical work.
• Provide a variety of direct clerical and administrative support to include assigning and monitoring the closing of case files, maintains calendar of assigned active cases.
• Produce a variety of written documents and materials using a wide range of office software applications.
• Acts as document manager for floor, maintaining storage room(s) and file cabinets.
• Answer technical questions.
• Review, accepts, amends or rejects work for which quality standards may not yet have been established.
• Oversees attendance and leave, approves sick leave and coordinates annual leave and vacation schedules.
• Advises disciplinary, performance or leave abuse problems to the Chief of Criminal Division.

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

Conditions of employment

• 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.
• If selected, you will be subject to the satisfactory completion of a one year supervisory or managerial probationary period unless this requirement has been met previously.
• Time-in-Grade: Federal employees must meet time-in-grade requirements within 30 days after the closing date of this announcement.
• You must meet all qualification and eligibility requirements within 30 days after the closing date of this announcement and before placement in the position.

Qualifications

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.)

GS-9: To be eligible at the GS-9 level, you must have at least one full year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-8 level in Federal service. Specialized Experience: One full year of specialized experience equivalent to the GS-8 level. Specialized experience is defined as experience performing the following types of duties: planning work schedules, distributing work and expeditious handling priority work; recommending administrative and technical procedures, and reviewing for accuracy the work of subordinates with respect to various complex legal clerical documents, such as, subpoenas and writs.

How you will be evaluated

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

Your complete application package (resume/supporting documentation, online questionnaire, and USA Hire Competency Based Assessment) will be used to determine whether you meet the job qualifications listed on this announcement. If you are basically qualified for this job, your resume and supporting documentation will be compared to your responses on the online questionnaire. If you rate yourself higher than is supported by your application materials, your responses may be adjusted and/or you may be excluded from consideration for this job. If you are found to be among the top candidates, you will be referred to the selecting official for employment consideration.

You will be rated on the following Competencies (see The OPM Website for definitions):


To be considered for this position, you must complete all required steps in the process. In addition to the application and application questionnaire, this position requires an online assessment. The online assessment measures critical general competencies required to perform the job.

Overstating your qualifications and/or experience in your application materials or application questionnaire may result in your removal from consideration. Cheating on the online assessment may also result in your removal from consideration.

To apply for this position, you must provide a complete Application Package, which includes:

- Required: Your responses to the Online Occupational Questionnaire (This is completed automatically during the apply online process).

- Required: Your resume cannot exceed two pages - you will be deemed ineligible and receive no further consideration if your resume exceeds two pages - see USAJOBS for formatting requirements. Include relevant employment history as outlined below for each job:

• Official position title (if Federal, include series/grade),
• Employer name and contact information,
• Start and end dates (for full consideration you must include month, day, and year),
• Indicate full-time or number of hours worked per week if part-time, and
• A list of duties performed and accomplishments.

Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

- Required if you are a current or former Federal employee: a recent copy of an SF-50, Notification of Personnel Action, showing title, series, grade, and full performance level (FPL); AND a copy of your most recent performance appraisal. Please note your SF-50 must include your FPL in the remark section (e.g., appointment, reassignment, promotion actions), pay adjustments and awards do not include this information so they are not acceptable.

- Required, if applicable: CTAP/ICTAP documentation (a copy of a separation notice or other proof of eligibility for priority selection; a copy of an SF-50, Notification of Personnel Action, showing current position, grade, promotion potential, and duty location; AND a copy of your most recent performance appraisal.

- If you are requesting a reasonable accommodation to the USA Hire Competency Based Assessments, you must submit documentation to support your request, including the Reasonable Accommodation Request Form found at: https://help.usastaffing.gov/Apply/index.php?title=Reasonable_Accommodations_for_USA_Hire

- Current or Former Political Appointees: The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) must authorize employment offers made to current or former political appointees. If you are currently, or have been within the last 5 years, a political Schedule A, Schedule C, Non-career SES or Presidential Appointee employee in the Executive Branch, you must disclose this information to the Human Resources Office by providing a copy of your applicable SF-50, along with a statement that provides the following information regarding your most recent political appointment:

• Position title;
• Type of appointment (Schedule A, Schedule C, Non-career SES, or Presidential Appointee);
• Agency; and
• Beginning and ending dates of appointment.

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