Paralegal - County Attorney's Office

Multnomah County • Portland, OR

1d • Hybrid

About The Position

Join a mission-driven team at Multnomah County’s Office of the County Attorney, where your expertise as a Paralegal directly impacts our community and the integrity of our legal system. We offer a collaborative and supportive environment that values teamwork with no billable hour requirement. As a key member of our team, you will engage in challenging, high-impact work, providing sophisticated legal support that drives successful outcomes for the County. If you are looking for a career where your strategic contributions and e-discovery expertise are valued, we invite you to apply.

Requirements

• Paralegal Certification, the completion of an authorized Paralegals Program, or a Bachelor’s Degree approved by the American Bar Association
• Two (2) years of litigation paralegal experience
• E-discovery certifications or demonstrated skillset in e-discovery software

Nice To Haves

• Experience in public sector municipal law

Responsibilities

• Manage the comprehensive lifecycle of litigation files, from case initiation and discovery through trial preparation, settlement, or final disposition.
• File management, including creating, organizing and maintaining electronic files and physical files, and establishing consistent tracking systems across cases for matter-critical information and deadlines.
• Conduct initial case research, including gathering, organizing and tracking matter related documents from various departments required for initial case review and analysis by County attorneys.
• Develop and maintain comprehensive case chronologies and timelines derived from evidentiary materials.
• Manage witness logistics, including identification, scheduling interviews and depositions, and coordinating preparation sessions to support County attorneys through all stages of litigation, including mediations, arbitrations, and trial.
• Draft answers and affirmative defenses based on interviews; draft motions, declarations, orders, subpoenas and other case pleadings.
• Prepare case related correspondence and communications with parties, court, vendors, experts and witnesses.
• Issue civil subpoenas for depositions and trials.
• File, distribute and serve true copies of pleadings and exhibits accurately with the jurisdictional court, opposing parties, Court staff and attorneys.
• Maintain calendars for County attorneys and schedule activities, meetings, court dates, and coordinate all participants including client representatives, witnesses, court reporters, videographers and investigators.
• Create and maintain templates for routine legal correspondence and case pleadings to enhance document consistency and operational efficiency.
• Serve as point person for litigation support; leverage technological proficiency to troubleshoot issues and train team members on document management systems.
• Assist attorneys by conducting comprehensive cite-checking and proofreading of legal documents, ensuring all citations are accurate, properly formatted using BlueBook, and up to date.
• Identify and assess gaps in existing legal technology and workflows; research potential solutions and navigate established procurement and approval channels to implement improvements.
• Research case facts and perform case research.
• Determine immediate necessary case procedure and action.
• Analyze and review federal, state and local laws, regulations, policies and procedures in order to ensure compliance.
• Proactively conduct advanced legal and factual research; utilize critical thinking to analyze complex case data, identify key issues, assess potential liability, and provide actionable recommendations to County attorneys.
• Research criminal and judicial systems / networks to obtain relevant police reports and other discoverable information on behalf of attorneys.
• Prepare legal research memos for attorneys on various legal issues; summarize positions / deposition summaries.
• Draft and issue timely legal hold notices across County departments immediately upon the identification of potential litigation.
• Use legal expertise to identify and obtain documents relating to litigation claims and responsive to discovery requests.
• Work collaboratively with County departments to ensure all documents required are retrieved.
• Coordinate, draft, and track discovery requests and responses, including analyzing opposing counsel’s requests and preparing responses based on document retrieval and assert various objections based on court rules and rules of evidence.
• Perform initial document reviews to identify key case facts and potential issues, utilizing critical thinking to filter and flag relevant materials for deeper attorney analysis.
• Independently manage review progress and take initiative in collaborating with attorneys to define review protocols, assist in the setup of review assignments, and ensure all discovery deadlines are met.
• Utilize eDiscovery software to manage and organize case documents, develop effective search queries to target relevant information, generate Bates-stamped productions, and maintain itemized document and privilege logs.
• Perform quality control reviews of document productions, including checking for privileged or confidential information, ensuring redactions are applied correctly, and verifying that all productions meet court-ordered formatting and metadata specifications.
• Proactively participate in trial strategy meetings, anticipating the needs of the trial team.
• Use technology tools available to you to create, assign and independently manage trial task lists.
• Prepare case related trial documents including but not limited to, case statements, trial memorandums, motions in limine, jury instructions, deposition clips and indexing, expert contracts and evidence binders, exhibits and exhibits lists, and subpoenas.
• Use legal expertise to perform trial support including creation, organization and exchanging of trial exhibits and trial notebooks, annotate depositions, subpoena and coordinate witnesses for trial testimony.
• Attend trials to support attorneys during trial by coordinating witnesses, exhibits, technical support issues and any other needs that arise during trial.
• Coordinate exhibits with the Court and provide admitted exhibits to jurors for use during deliberation.
• Coordinate and set up all technology used during trial to include court reporters, videos, projectors, televisions for discovery review and deposition clips, and demonstrative exhibits.
• Provide expert guidance regarding legal procedures and processes.
• Respond to questions from witnesses regarding legal procedure and the process of discovery, hearings, depositions, mediation, arbitration and trial.

Benefits

• employer-funded retirement savings
• health and dental insurance at very low cost to full-time employees and their dependents
• paid parental leave
• wellness programs
• a focus on work-life balance

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level