Paralegal Specialist

This is a term position in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Legal Division. The incumbent serves as a Paralegal Specialist and provides legal support on complex professional legal-related work connected with the work of the office.

Qualifications:

You must meet the following requirements within 30 days of the closing date of this announcement.

Specialized experience for the CN-52 is defined as one year of experience at the CN-51 (GS-11 level), or equivalent that is directly related to the position and which has equipped the candidate with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. Specialized experience for this position is conducting legal research in support of staff attorneys, including:

- Experience working with attorneys in a legal office, including creating and maintaining knowledge management and tracking systems to manage and maintain record copies of legal opinions, directives, guides, instructions, and other resources, and accessing them electronically; AND
- Experience using one or more of the commonly used computerized legal reference systems: Lexis Nexis, Lexis Advance, Westlaw, and/or Westlaw Next; AND
- Experience checking legal citations; AND
- Experience corresponding with and advising legal counsels or expert witnesses in preparation for depositions, hearings or other legal proceedings; AND
- Experience performing legal analysis in preparing reports, summaries, briefs and other legal correspondence for review/approval by attorneys.

Specialized experience for the CN-51 is defined as one year of experience at the CN-40 (GS-9 level), or equivalent that is directly related to the position and which has equipped the candidate with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position. Specialized experience for this position is conducting legal research in support of staff attorneys, including:

- Experience working with attorneys in a legal office, including maintaining knowledge management and tracking systems to manage and maintain record copies of legal opinions, directives, guides, instructions, and other resources, and accessing them electronically; AND
- Experience using one or more of the following computerized legal reference systems: Lexis Nexis, Lexis Advance, Westlaw, and/or Westlaw Next; AND
- Experience checking legal citations; AND
- Experience assisting in the preparation of reports, summaries, briefs and other legal correspondence for review/approval by attorneys.

OR;

Education substitution: Ph.D. or equivalent doctoral degree or 3 full years of progressively higher-level graduate education leading to such a degree or LL.M., if related.

OR;

Combination: You may qualify by a combination of experience and education. To combine education and experience, the total percentage of experience at the required grade level compared to the specialized experience requirement, as well as the percentage of completed education compared to the education requirement must equal at least 100 percent. A combination of education and experience. Only graduate level education in excess of 36 semester hours (54 quarter hours), may be used to combine education and experience.

The experience may have been gained in either the public, private sector or volunteer service. One year of experience refers to full-time work; part-time work is considered on a prorated basis. To ensure full credit for your work experience, please indicate dates of employment by month/day/year, and indicate number of hours worked per week on your résumé.

CFPB uses an experience-based process to set pay for employees. Experience is evaluated and credited using the employee's résumé. To ensure that all of your prior work experience (e.g., internships, volunteer work, details, part-time, self-employment, secondary jobs, etc.) is considered and accounted for, please ensure that your résumé covers the following:

• your entire work history with specific start and end dates (MM-DD-YYYY) provided for each listed position
• hours worked per week for each position
• degrees and the dates conferred (MM-YYYY)

Part-time experience will be credited pro-rata based on a 40-hour work week, while work of 32 hours or more will be rounded up to full-time experience. If you have multiple positions that have overlapping start and/or end dates, only 40 hours of experience will be credited for a given work week. Refer to Resume Tips for more information on how to submit a comprehensive résumé. See information on our base pay ranges and salary structure.

Responsibilities:

The following are the duties of this position at the CN-52, broadly equivalent to the GS-12. If you are selected at a lower grade level, you will have the opportunity to learn to perform all these duties, and will receive training to help you grow in this position.

• Research legislation, regulations, and cases involving Federal consumer financial, administrative and general law.
• Manage the Legal Division's review of documents, including regulations, supervisory and enforcement documents, memos, reports, speeches, consumer education materials, and other documents (including but not limited to the "Clearance process").
• Gather, organize, and assemble legal documents requiring attachments, enclosures, and authorities in highly sensitive matters.
• Maintain assignment management, knowledge management, work tracking systems, and meeting agendas for work of the Legal Division.