Paralegal, Specialty Courts Unit | Criminal Division

City of Seattle•Suite 2050 Seattle, WA

2d•Hybrid

About The Position

With more than 200 attorneys and professional staff, the Seattle City Attorney’s Office is one of the largest law offices in Seattle and is the third-largest public law office in the state. Our office is committed to making Seattle a safe, healthy, empowered, and thriving community for everyone. We strive to address historical injustices within the court system with self-examination and to pursue justice with integrity, creativity, and fairness. We believe working transparently, innovatively, and in collaboration with our partners in the community is necessary to achieve outcomes that promote equity, accountability, and healing. The Specialty Courts Unit (SCU) is seeking a paralegal with demonstrated abilities, flexibility, and communication skills to work with our Specialty Court Unit Infraction Team to meet legal obligations in a fast-paced, high-volume environment.

Requirements

Strong knowledge/skills with Microsoft 365/Excel/Outlook/Word
Ability to remain flexible and collaborate with team members to address changing needs of the office.
A bachelor’s degree and two years of experience performing paralegal duties, or a certification from a nationally accredited paralegal training institution and three years of related experience, or a combination of education and/or training and/or experience that provides an equivalent background required to perform the work of the class.

Responsibilities

Log and file notices of appearances and requests for discovery.
Proactively screen all serious traffic offense referrals and flag all serious traffic offense referrals for prosecutor review.
Proactively order all discovery on all serious traffic offense cases set for contested hearings, including body-worn video, in-car video, and certified copies of driver's license and vehicle registration.
Assist attorneys and interns in preparing for contested hearings by requesting missing discovery from multiple agencies, including SPD, PEOs, Seattle Animal Shelter, and Verra Mobility.
Fulfill requests for additional administrative discovery, including certified DOL copies of driver's license, vehicle registration, and/or abstract of driving records for contested hearings, identity hearings, and impound appeal hearings.
Archive all discovery in case management system.
Provide timely and complete discovery responses.
Prepare and mail witness subpoenas, generate and mail officer subpoenas, and contact and serve subpoenas for speed measuring device experts through Verra Mobility.
Serve as point of contact between witnesses, victims, and law enforcement officers.
Submit Seattle Municipal Court interpreter requests for City’s witnesses for all court proceedings.
Respond to or appropriately direct messages from witnesses, officers, defendants, and/or defense attorneys.
Respond to attorneys’ or interns’ urgent requests for discovery or missing evidence close to or past discovery deadlines
Create and maintain all contested hearing case files on SharePoint/Teams.
Create and maintain all spreadsheets for upcoming calendars.
Monitor and prepare add-on cases for upcoming calendars.
Perform defendant case history searches through criminal history databases and provide results for contested hearings involving moving and animal violations.
File with the court all prosecutor-reviewed infraction tickets.
File with the court discovery responses, City-issued subpoenas, and other documents as necessary.
Assist with all facets of infractions related appeals, assist in perfecting the record, including but not limited to obtaining records, recordings, preparing unofficial transcriptions, researching, writing, and filing.
Upon noticing an error with an infraction filed with the Court (e.g., missing narrative) or a Court’s case file (e.g., a document the Court normally receives/generates, like a Ticket Error Report). Contact SMC, SPD, or PEO as needed.
Train interns every semester on administrative procedures and processes.
Attend monthly case management system meetings.
Run current case management system reports for self and prosecutors for quality check of Infraction Unit’s work as needed or requested.
Demonstrate ability to independently problem-solve and respond to emerging issues.