Legal Assistant

Tennessee Department of Human Services; Tennessee; On-site; USD 49,000 - 62,000; Full time

Job summary

The Tennessee Department of Human Services (DHS) Office of General Counsel is seeking a Legal Assistant to support in-house attorneys, manage administrative tasks, and assist with legislative analysis and rulemaking.

The role involves drafting and proofreading legal documents, maintaining case files, and providing litigation support while ensuring confidentiality and excellent customer service to internal and external stakeholders.

Qualifications

• Education requirements include an associate/bachelor/paralegal certificate or one year of graduate law study.

Responsibilities

• Draft routine contracts, organize documents, track routing and execution.
• Conduct legislative analysis and assist with rulemaking scheduling.
• Process public records requests, media requests, subpoenas, translations, and litigation holds.
• Draft and proofread legal documents including pleadings, discovery, subpoenas, and proposed legislation.
• Perform legal research and summarize findings of statutes and case law.
• Manage case files and provide litigation support.
• Handle administrative tasks such as mail, calls, notarization.
• Learn DHS programs to obtain working knowledge.

Skills

Legal research

Case pleadings drafting

Microsoft Office

Virtual meeting platforms

Confidentiality

Westlaw

Education

Associate's Degree in Paralegal or Legal Assistant studies

Bachelor's Degree in Paralegal or Legal Assistant studies

Paralegal Certificate

Graduate law study

High school diploma + 2 years legal research experience

Tools

Westlaw

Cisco WebEx

Microsoft Teams

Word

Outlook

Excel

Job description

The Tennessee Department of Human Services (DHS) is currently seeking experienced candidates for Legal Assistant in the DHS Office of General Counsel (OGC). The Office of General Counsel provides legal advice to DHS programs, legal representation in judicial and administrative litigation affecting the department, prepares departmental rules, and prepares legislation for and analysis of legislation affecting the Department.

This Legal Assistant position will be responsible for supporting multiple in-house OGC Attorneys by providing general and administrative support, knowledge of departmental policies, statutes, and regulations, maintaining positive working relationships with internal and external OGC Partners, and providing excellent customer service to internal and external customers.

Responsibilities:

• Routine contract drafting, document organization, tracking, routing, and execution activities; coordinating stakeholder reviews; and completing procurement portal entries, as needed/assigned.
• Legislative analysis/tracking and assisting with scheduling and other duties related to rulemaking process, as needed/assigned.
• Assisting with the review and production of documents related to public records requests, media requests, response to subpoenas, processing translation requests, and issuing and tracking litigation holds, as needed/assigned.
• Drafting and proofreading various legal documents, including case pleadings, discovery documents, subpoenas, proposed legislation and DHS regulations.
• Conducting legal research and summarizing findings of case law, statutes, and regulations.
• Creating, maintaining, and updating case and litigation files and providing other litigation support.
• Completing administrative tasks, such as processing mail, answering and making telephone calls, notarizing documents, etc.
• Obtaining a working knowledge of all programs administered by DHS.

Qualifications:

• Education equivalent to graduation from an accredited college, university, or professional school with one of the following: (1) an Associate's Degree in Paralegal or Legal Assistant studies; (2) a Bachelor's Degree in Paralegal or Legal Assistant studies; (3) a Paralegal Certificate; or (4) one year (28 semester hours) of graduate level law school.

OR

• Education equivalent to graduation from a standard high school and two years of fulltime experience in researching legal issues and documenting findings to assist in building case files, settling legal disputes, and/or providing legal counsel to clients.

Preferred Skills:

• Two years of experience in a legal office or similar environment performing legal research and documenting findings, drafting legal pleadings, and assisting attorneys with settling legal disputes.
• Strong Microsoft Office skills, including Word, Outlook, and Excel.
• Strong skills setting up and facilitating virtual meeting platforms such as Cisco WebEx or Microsoft Teams.
• Maintain confidentiality of cases.
• Ability to conduct legal research using Westlaw and other electronic resources.

Target Range:

The target range for the Legal Assistant is $49,176 - $61,548. The directly related experience, knowledge, skills and abilities of the selected candidate will determine the actual salary offer.