Litigation Paralegal

Benesch Law•Chicago, IL

8d•Hybrid

About The Position

Benesch is seeking a Litigation Paralegal for their Chicago office. This is a hybrid position with work from home flexibility. The ideal candidate is a seasoned litigation paralegal looking for a fast-paced, challenging position, who thrives on working on trials and complex litigation matters. This role requires managing large-scale litigation matters from start to finish and being heavily involved in trials, working hand-in-hand with trial attorneys at all levels. The position involves providing support and assistance to attorneys in the coordination, management, and supervision of all aspects of litigation, including handling large caseloads, preparing drafts of legal documents and correspondence, compiling and summarizing information, and coordinating efforts between attorneys, clients, outside legal counsel, opposing legal counsel, other parties, and outside vendors.

Requirements

8+ years of litigation experience in an AmLaw 150 firm or specialist litigation practice area.
Experience with all stages of litigation, including intake, discovery and trial, in addition to preparing for and attending trials/arbitration hearings is required.
Strong working knowledge of federal court procedures and electronic filings systems (CM/ECF, PACER) is required.
Demonstrated ability to research and comply with filings rules in multiple jurisdictions.
Experience with platforms such as One Legal, File & ServeXpress, Odyssey and similar e-filing portals.
Solid time management and organizational skills.
High level of accuracy and attention to detail.
Self-motivated and pro-active.
Excellent customer service attitude.
Must be available for overtime work and travel as needed.
Paralegal certification from an ABA-approved program is preferred.
Seven to ten years of litigation experience in an AmLaw 150 firm or specialist litigation practice area.
Must have solid time management and organizational skills; high level of accuracy and attention to detail; self-motivated and pro-active; and have excellent customer service attitude.

Nice To Haves

Experience with Opus 2, TextMap, CaseMap, iManage (or comparable DMS), Everlaw, Relativity, Trial Director, MS Office Suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook) are preferred.

Responsibilities

Drafts, reviews and/or analyzes routine legal documents as requested by attorneys.
Manage large-scale discovery and e-discovery matters, including document preservation, collection and production.
Provides hands-on operational litigation technology support, including database creation and maintenance; importing images into databases; searching data; exporting data; reformatting and converting data; designing forms and reports; e-discovery processes; scanning, OCR and coding use.
Organizes and maintains case files using a variety of automated procedures.
Assists with preparing attorneys and witnesses for depositions and court appearances, including assembling case files and evidence.
Prepares for trials in state and federal court, including managing trial support, creating and overseeing trial exhibits, setting up war rooms and attending trial to assist with presenting evidence, and traveling as needed.
Reviews and summarizes depositions.
Manages and assists with finalizing witness affidavits.
Reviews documents for privilege and drafts privilege logs for attorney review.
Performs legal and factual research.
Interacts with outside entities (i.e., courts, government agencies, expert witnesses, corporations, vendors and other law firms) to gather information or coordinate activities as needed in support of firm activities, specifically trials and arbitrations.
Acts as the liaison between case team attorneys and support staff as needed to ensure that case-specific paralegal services are meeting the team's expectations.
Meet billable goals as established by practice management.
Coordinate with attorneys and other legal staff to ensure filings and discovery are reviewed, formatted correctly, and submitted on schedule in compliance with requirements of each courtroom, county and jurisdiction, including proofreading, cite checking, compiling exhibits and preparing slipsheets, adding bookmarks to final PDFs per California Rules of Court, adding hyperlinks to citations when required, preparing exhibit indices, running word counts, preparing redactions, etc.
Finalize and electronically file pleadings, motions, discovery, and other legal documents in California state courts directly via OneLegal (or another electronic service), ensuring strict adherence to local rules and procedural requirements; proactively manage service and proof of service.
Manage e-filings in federal courts using CM/ECF and PACER systems.
File documents in other state courts across various U.S. jurisdictions, maintaining up-to-date knowledge of or reviewing relevant filing procedures and platform requirements for each jurisdiction.
Coordinate with vendors for manual filings, courtesy/chambers copies, personal service, and record retrieval.
Monitor court docket systems for updates, deadlines, and filings. Regularly review the internal docketing system and clean dockets by removing or marking non-essential/duplicative dates.
Track and manage calendaring related to court deadlines and filing schedules.
May require overtime as needed.
Performs additional office support duties as assigned/requested.