Duties

Summary

About the Position: If you are currently serving in a permanent, competitive service appointment in the Federal service, and are selected for this position, the appointment will remove you from the competitive service while you occupy the position. Works under the technical and administrative supervision of the Mission and Installation Contract Command (MICC), Chief Counsel.
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Responsibilities

• Serve as a legal adviser to the MICC - Field Directorate Director (FDO) Director.
• Provide legal advice on areas of the law where research direction is not clear-cut where the legal issues involve the most complex fact patterns and present policy and decisional questions of first impression.
• Serve as expert in providing legal opinions and final advisory statements regarding high-level policy or extremely complicated questions.
• Recommend policies and develops procedures and regulations implementing new or amended legislation for the activity.
• Ensure policies, procedures, and regulations are consistent with the intent of the law and are administratively sound, efficient, and economical in operation.
• Provide precedent setting legal advice and assistance on contract law-related matters without regard to dollar limitation on the size of contracts.
• Draft legal responses suggesting modifications consistent with laws, regulations, and policies.
• Serve as a senior attorney-adviser (contract) with designated responsibility for providing legal counsel advice, conducting legal reviews, and corollary legal assistance.
• Serve as an Agency Ethics official providing binding ethics opinions and advice for the Agency.
• Serve as an Agency Procurement Fraud Adviser providing counsel and case directions to the Command, procurement officials, and law enforcement; and also serve as a Freedom of Information Act counsel.

Travel Required

Occasional travel - Business travel requirement of up to 15%.

Supervisory status
No

Promotion Potential
None

Requirements

Conditions of Employment

• Position requires the incumbent be able to obtain and maintain a Secret security clearance or access for the duration of employment.
• Position has a Temporary Duty (TDY) or business travel requirement of up to 15% of the time.
• Position requires pre-employment financial disclosure (OGE Form 450) and annually thereafter in accordance with DoD Directive 5500-7-R.

Qualifications

Who May Apply: US Citizens

In order to qualify, you must meet the education and/or experience requirements described below. 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). You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Your resume must clearly describe your relevant experience; if qualifying based on education, your transcripts will be required as part of your application. Additional information about transcripts is in this document .

Qualification Requirements: The following minimum qualification requirements must be met before applicants are eligible for further consideration.

Education Requirements: Position requires the possession of a professional law degree (LL.B. or J.D.) and, for assignment within the Department of Defense, OGC, or DLSA, active membership in the bar of the highest court of a State, U.S. commonwealth, U.S. territory, or the District of Columbia. The Military Departments may also extend the requirement for active bar membership to assignment of civilian attorneys within their respective Departments.

Only degrees from an accredited college or university recognized by the Department of Education are acceptable to meet positive education requirements or to substitute education for experience. For additional information, please go to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and U.S. Department of Education websites at http://www.opm.gov/qualifications and http://www.ed.gov/admins/finaid/accred/index.html .

Thus, an applicant must have successfully completed a full course of study in a school of law accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) and have the first professional law degree(LLB or JD). A law school transcript must be submitted with your application materials.

Statement of Good Standing: Applicant must currently be a member in good standing of the bar of a state, territory of the United States, District of Columbia, or Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. Proof of such membership and good standing must be submitted with your application materials. See Required Documents section #3 "Good Standing Certificate" for additional details.

Experience: Applicant must have three or more years of professional legal experience, acquired after being admitted to the bar, commensurate with the duties and responsibilities of the position. Graduation from an ABA-Accredited Law School in the top 25% of the class or an advanced law degree such as an LLM may substitute for one year of the required professional legal experience.

You will be evaluated on the basis of your level of competency in the following areas:

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities: Your application package will be evaluated to ensure your experience, knowledge, skills, training and/or education meet the qualification requirements stated in this vacancy announcement. Quality of experience relates to how closely or to what extent an applicant's background and regency of experience and education clearly reflect that you possess the following required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSA's) to successfully perform the duties of this position. The following KSA's must be addressed in your resume. Failure to do so may result in an ineligible rating or affect your overall rating.

1. Knowledge of laws, regulations and legal precedent bearing upon government procurement law.

2. Ability to communicate effectively, both orally and in writing.

3. Ability to plan, organize work, and meet deadlines.

4. Ability to recognize and analyze problems, conduct research, summarize results, and make appropriate recommendations.

Specialized experience and knowledge regarding federal laws, regulations, policies and procedures related to providing legal advice and legal reviews on construction, architect engineering, and real estate services contract formation and contact administration issues(including knowledge of and experience in interpreting the Federal Acquisition Regulation(FAR), Department of Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (DFARS), Army Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement (AFARS), and the USACE Acquisition Instructions(UAI) and other agency contracting regulations and requirements.

Knowledge, skills, and abilities as it applies to providing legal advice on interagency actions and authorities to include the Economy Act requirements, applying another agency's authorities when acting as a servicing agency, interagency agreements, and general fiscal law requirements and principles.

NOTICE OF VETERAN'S PREFERENCE:
There is no formal rating system for applying veterans' preference to attorney appointments in the excepted service; however, the Department of Defense considers veterans' preference eligibility a positive factor for attorney hiring. Applicants eligible for veterans' preference must include that information in their cover letter or resume and attach supporting documentation (for example, DD Form 214, "Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty") to their submissions.

Although the point-preference system is not used, applicants eligible to claim a 10-point preference must submit a Standard Form (SF) 15, "Application for 10-Point Veteran Preference," and supporting documentation required for the specific type of preference claimed. The SF 15 will identify the supporting documentation required along with a list of the types of 10-point preference. The SF 15 is available from the OPM at https://www.gsa.gov/portal/forms/type/sf/ ."

Education

Only degrees from an American Bar Association accredited school of law are acceptable to meet positive education requirements or to substitute education for experience.

For a listing of ABA accredited law schools, please visit: americanbar.org . Please refer to Qualifications section for information on the education requirements for this position.

Additional information

• This is considered a mid range, Staff Attorney position within the organization. The pay cap for this position restricts this position pay range between $117,191.00 to $160,822.00 annually.
• Male applicants born after December 31, 1959, must complete a Pre-Employment Certification Statement for Selective Service Registration.
• You will be required to provide proof of U.S. Citizenship.
• Two year trial/probationary period may be required.
• Direct deposit of pay is required.
• This position requires you to submit a Confidential Financial Disclosure Report (OGE450) upon entry, and annually thereafter.
• This is a Career Program (CP) 56- Legal position.
• You may claim military spouse preference.
• Multiple positions may be filled from this announcement.
• Salary includes applicable locality pay or Local Market Supplement.
• When you perform a Civilian Permanent Change of Station (PCS) with the government, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) considers the majority of your entitlements to be taxable. Visit https://www.gsa.gov/cdnstatic/FTR%20Bulletin%2018_05%20Relocation%20Allowances_0.pdf for more information.
• If you are unable to apply online or need to fax a document you do not have in electronic form, view the following link for information regarding an Alternate Application .
• Permanent Change of Station (PCS) allowances may be authorized, subject to the provisions of the Joint Travel Regulations and an agency determination that a PCS move is in the Government Interest.

How You Will Be Evaluated

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

Once the announcement has closed, a review of your application package (resume, supporting documents, and responses to the questionnaire) will be evaluated for basic qualification requirements and for the skills needed to perform the duties of the position, as described in this vacancy announcement and identified by the Selecting Official. Please follow all instructions carefully when applying, errors or omissions may affect your eligibility.

Veteran's preference requirements do not apply to attorney positions in the excepted service, however the principles of veteran's preference will be followed to the extent which is administratively feasible.

Time in Grade: The Qualifying Authorities (QA's) will make a determination as to the applicability of time in grade based on the requirements of the position. If you are currently employed as an attorney by the Federal government you must have completed one year at the next lower grade level within 30 days of the closing date of the announcement, or previously served at the same or higher grade level as the position being filled.

Background checks and security clearance

Security clearance
Secret

Drug test required
No

Position sensitivity and risk
Noncritical-Sensitive (NCS)/Moderate Risk

Trust determination process
National security

Required Documents

The documents you are required to submit vary based on the authority you are using to apply (i.e., applying as a veteran, applying as a current permanent Federal employee, applying as a reinstatement, etc). Please review the following links to see which documents you need to provide to prove your eligibility to apply: Applicant Merit Checklist and Proof of Eligibility .

As described above, your complete application includes your resume, your responses to the online questionnaire, and documents which prove your eligibility to apply. If you fail to provide these documents, you will be marked as having an incomplete application package and you will not be considered any further.

1. Your resume:

• Your resume may be submitted in any format and must support the specialized experience described in this announcement.
• If your resume includes a photograph or other inappropriate material or content, it will not be used to make eligibility and qualification determinations and you may not be considered for this vacancy.
• For qualifications determinations your resume must contain dates of employment (i.e., month/year to month/year or month/year to present). If your resume does not contain this information, your application may be marked as incomplete and you may not receive consideration for this position.
• For additional information see: What to include in your resume .

2. Official Law School Transcripts:

Official law school transcript and an official statement of relative standing in class. Photo static copies of documents are acceptable when applying but certified documents must be furnished if interviewed for the position within 20 days of request.

3. Good Standing Certificate:

Good Standing Certificate - An applicant MUST submit an official certificate and/or letter issued by a United States state or territory, the District of Columbia, or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico attorney licensing authority that demonstrates that the applicant is an active member in good standing. The certificate and/or letter MUST BE DATED BY THE ISSUING AUTHORITY NO MORE THAN THREE MONTHS PRIOR TO THE DATE OF APPLICATION IS SUBMITTED. COPIES OF BAR CARDS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE REPLACEMENTS FOR THE CERTIFICATE AND/OR LETTER. Active status authorizes an attorney who is a member in good standing to immediately practice law before the highest court of the licensing authority. This certificate is required to be submitted by all applicants to include attorneys currently appointed to positions under any qualifying authority of the Army (including Army Civilian Attorneys and active duty Army Judge Advocates). Photocopy is acceptable when applying but official certificate must be furnished within 20 days of request.

4. Fitness to Practice Statement:

Fitness to Practice Statement: A sworn (notarized) statement from you that your fitness to practice law or conduct as an attorney has never been challenged in any jurisdiction; or, if either has been challenged, a sworn (notarized) statement concerning the facts and circumstances, together with any explanation that you may deem appropriate. As an alternative to a sworn (notarized) statement, a declaration under penalty of perjury may be submitted in the following format: "I declare (or certify, verify, or state under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed on (date) (your signature)."The statement must be dated no more than three months prior to the date the application is submitted.

5. Other supporting documents:

• Cover Letter, optional
• Most recent Performance Appraisal, if applicable
• Veterans documents, if applicable
• Permanent Change of station (PCS) orders and marriage license, if claiming military spouse preference.

NOTE: Documents submitted as part of the application package, to include supplemental documents, may be shared beyond the Human Resources Office. Some supplemental documents such as military orders and marriage certificates may contain personal information for someone other than you. You may sanitize these documents to remove another person's personal information before you submit your application. You may be asked to provide an un-sanitized version of the documents if you are selected to confirm your eligibility.

If you are relying on your education to meet qualification requirements:

Education must be accredited by an accrediting institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education in order for it to be credited towards qualifications. Therefore, provide only the attendance and/or degrees from schools accredited by accrediting institutions recognized by the U.S. Department of Education .

Failure to provide all of the required information as stated in this vacancy announcement may result in an ineligible rating or may affect the overall rating.