Duties

Summary

As a Legal Assistant in the Office of Chief Counsel, Finance and Management (F&M), you will have the opportunity to serve fellow Americans by providing legal support for the largest tax law firm in the country. This position offers a career path with competitive advancement opportunities within the Legal Assistant series (up to GS-08), and then a competitive career path into Legal Support Coordinator, Operations Coordinator, and various managerial positions.

Learn more about this agency

Responsibilities

The mission of the Office of Chief Counsel is to serve America's taxpayers fairly and with integrity by providing correct and impartial interpretation of the internal revenue laws and the highest quality legal advice and representation for the Internal Revenue Service. The Associate Chief Counsel, Finance and Management (F&M) organization supports the administrative, financial, and managerial programs of the Office of Chief Counsel and Deputy Chief Counsel on all management matters for the organization nationwide. F&M is also responsible for providing support services to all of Chief Counsel's field offices located in over 50 cities nationwide.

As a Legal Assistant (OA), you will perform a variety of clerical, technical, and administrative tasks while providing legal support to attorneys and paralegals. Practice areas may include general litigation, tax litigation, criminal tax, and advisory services.

As a Legal Assistant (OA), you will:

• Utilize basic office software such as Outlook (including eFax), Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Desktop Publishing, Access, SharePoint, and Adobe Acrobat to prepare legal documents and correspondence.
• Prepare and assemble documents, including necessary transmittal forms and envelopes, in accepted office format pursuant to court rules for timely mailing, submission to courts and service of others as appropriate. File Chief Counsel, Justice Department, and U.S. Attorney court pleadings and follows steps to document that they have been filed or logged with the appropriate recipient. Review outgoing correspondence and documents to ensure proper signature and conformance to style and format requirements and procedural instructions, and necessary attachments and enclosures.
• Open all cases related to functional area. Review mail related to the assigned functional area and inputs the appropriate tracking data into case management information systems. The incumbent must also notes all expiration dates to ensure information reflects the current status of the cases.
• Prepare routine correspondence and legal documents such as legal citations of a less complicated nature. Assemble files for submission to administrative bodies and the Department of Justice. Present correspondence in final form with responsibility for format, arrangement, grammar, spelling, etc.
• Receive visitors and phone calls. Ascertain nature of requests and directs callers to appropriate staff, or personally provides the information desired when routine or procedural matters of the office are involved. Determine what information can be divulged in ascertaining the nature of call.

Please note this is not a complete list of the duties you will perform.

Travel Required

Not required

Supervisory status
No

Promotion Potential
07

Requirements

Conditions of Employment

• Please refer to "Conditions of Employment."
• Click "Print Preview" to review the entire announcement before applying.
• Must be a U.S. Citizen or U.S. National.

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT:

• A one-year probationary period is required (unless already completed).
• Must successfully complete a background investigation.
• Complete a Declaration for Federal Employment to determine your suitability for Federal employment, at the time requested by the agency.
• If you are a male applicant born after December 31, 1959, certify that you have registered with the Selective Service System or are exempt from having to do so.
• Have your salary sent to a financial institution of your choice by Direct Deposit/Electronic Funds Transfer.
• Go through a Personal Identity Verification (PIV) process that requires two forms of identification from the Form I-9 . Federal law requires verification of the identity and employment eligibility of all new hires in the U.S.
• Undergo an income tax verification.
• The employment of any candidate selected for this position, including a current employee or a new hire, may be conditional upon classification and/or audit of federal tax returns. This audit may include up to two years of returns.

Because of its tax-related mission, the Office of Chief Counsel requires fingerprinting, tax verification, and a background security investigation as part of the pre-employment process.

Qualifications

You must meet the following requirements by the closing date of this announcement:

TYPING PROFICIENCY:
A typing proficiency of 40 words per minute with no more than three errors is required. Proof of an acceptable typing speed must be submitted with the application in one of the following ways: a current notice of test results (from an appropriate testing authority) based on a five-minute typing test which includes words per minute and error rate ; or you may self-certify by indicating typing speed on application.

OFFICE AUTOMATION SKILLS:
This position requires office automation skills. Some examples of office automation software include electronic spreadsheets, database management, desktop publishing, electronic calendar, and electronic mail.

GS-07: You must have one year of specialized experience at a level of difficulty and responsibility equivalent to the GS-06 grade level in the Federal service. Specialized experience for this position includes experience analyzing information and preparing a variety of legal documents; reviewing documents for content and grammatical accuracy; controlling, processing, and monitoring documents for input into case tracking systems; reviewing legal documents to determine regulatory requirements and ensuring that deadlines are entered into case tracking systems; reviewing reports to monitor due dates and workflow; interpreting and applying regulatory resources and materials; and utilizing various software programs to prepare documents and assist with trial preparation needs.

OR

You may substitute education for specialized experience or general experience as follows:

One full year of graduate education if coursework is directly related to the work of the position. One year of full-time graduate education is considered to be the number of credit hours that the school attended has determined to represent one full year of full-time study.

OR

You may qualify by a combination of experience. Options for qualifying based on a combination will be identified in the online questions.

The experience may have been gained in 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/year and the number of hours worked per week on your resume.

In addition to the above requirements, you must meet the following, if applicable: you must have been at the GS-06 level for 52 weeks (time-in-grade requirement).

Education

If you are qualifying for this position by substituting education or training for experience, submit a copy of your transcripts or equivalent. An official transcript will be required if you are selected.

The education generally must be from an accredited (or pre-accredited) college or university recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. For a list of schools which meet these criteria, please refer to Department of Education Accreditation page.

Additional information

• We may select from this announcement or any other source to fill one or more vacancies.
• This is a bargaining unit position.
• We offer opportunities for flexible work schedules.

How You Will Be Evaluated

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

Your application includes your resume, responses to the online questions, and the required supporting documents. Please be sure your resume includes detailed information to support your qualifications for this position, as failure to provide sufficient evidence in your resume may result in a "not qualified" determination.

Rating: Your application will be evaluated in the following areas: 1) Skill in the use of office automation equipment and software; 2) Ability to research, assemble, and summarize legal information; 3) Knowledge of office procedures relating to the receipt, control, and tracking of correspondence and related material (including the use of case tracking databases); 4) Ability to prepare, screen and distribute correspondence, and review correspondence for format, grammar, and tone; and 5) Ability to plan, organize, and coordinate, variety of clerical and administrative activities. Your application will be rated and ranked among others based on your responses to the online questions regarding your experience, education, training, performance appraisal, and awards relevant to the duties of this position.

Referral: If you are among the top qualified candidates, your application may be referred to a selecting official for consideration. You may be required to participate in a selection interview. We will not reimburse costs related to the interview, such as travel to and from the interview site.

If you are a displaced or surplus Treasury employee eligible for the Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP) , you must score an 85 or higher to be rated as well qualified to receive special selection priority.

To preview questions please click here .

Background checks and security clearance

Security clearance
Other

Drug test required
No

Required Documents

A complete application includes 1. A resume; 2. Vacancy question responses; and 3. Submission of any required documents. Please note that if you do not provide all required information as specified in this announcement, you may not be considered for this position (or may not receive the special consideration for which you may be eligible).

All applicants are required to submit a resume either by creating one in USAJOBS or uploading one of their own choosing. Cover letters are optional. To receive full credit for relevant experience, please list the month/year and number of hours worked for experience listed on your resume. We suggest that you preview the online questions, as you may need to customize your resume to ensure that it supports your responses to these questions. Please view Resume Tips for further guidance.

CAREER TRANSITION ASSISTANCE PLAN (CTAP) DOCUMENTATION: If you are a displaced or surplus Federal employee, click CTAP for eligibility and a detailed list of required documents.

PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL: Submit a copy of your most recently signed and completed annual performance appraisal which includes the final rating. If it is not dated within the last 12 months, or if you have not received a performance appraisal, please explain why in your application.

EMPLOYMENT DOCUMENTATION:

• Submit a copy of your SF-50, Notification of Personnel Action, which shows your current (or most recent) grade and competitive service status. (The "position occupied" block on the SF-50 should show a "1" and your "tenure" block should show a "1" or "2".)
• If you are currently on a Veterans Recruitment Appointment (VRA), submit a copy of an SF-50 showing such. You must also submit a copy of your DD214 or other documentation showing dates of service and type of discharge, as well as any other applicable documents, such as SF-15, VE letters, etc.

EDUCATION DOCUMENTATION: For positions with an education requirement, or if you are qualifying for this position by substituting education or training for experience, submit a copy of your transcripts or equivalent. An official transcript will be required if you are selected.

A college or university degree generally must be from an accredited (or pre-accredited) college or university recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. For a list of schools which meet these criteria, please refer to Department of Education Accreditation page .

If you are qualifying based on foreign education, you must submit proof of creditability of education as evaluated by a credentialing agency. Refer to the OPM instructions.

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.