Litigation Paralegal

Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff; San Francisco (CA); On-site; USD 120,000 - 185,000; Full time

Job summary

Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff in San Francisco seeks an experienced litigation paralegal to manage large-scale matters from start to finish, with heavy trial involvement. You will coordinate with attorneys, clients, outside counsel, and vendors to ensure seamless trial preparation and execution.

You will support discovery and e-discovery, draft and file documents in state and federal courts, review depositions, and manage trial exhibits.

Qualifications

• Paralegal certification from an ABA‑approved program and extensive litigation experience in a top firm.
• Experience with intake, discovery and trial, including preparation for trials/arbitration hearings.
• Strong knowledge of federal court procedures and e‑filings (CM/ECF, PACER) is required.

Responsibilities

• Draft, review and analyze routine legal documents as requested by attorneys.
• Manage large-scale discovery and e‑discovery matters, including preservation, collection and production.
• Provide hands‑on litigation technology support (op, database creation, OCR, coding).
• Organize and maintain case files using automated procedures.
• Prepare attorneys and witnesses for depositions and court appearances; assemble case files and evidence.
• Prepare for trials, manage trial exhibits, set up war rooms and attend trials.
• Review and summarize depositions; manage witness affidavits; draft privilege logs.
• Perform legal and factual research; coordinate with courts, vendors and outside counsel.
• Act as liaison between case team and support staff; meet billable goals.

Skills

Litigation paralegal

Trial support

E-discovery

CM/ECF

Legal research

Time management

Communication

Education

ABA-approved paralegal certification

Tools

Opus 2

TextMap

CaseMap

iManage

Everlaw

Relativity

Trial Director

MS Office

Job description

Position Summary

Are you a seasoned litigation paralegal looking for a fast‑paced, challenging position? Do you thrive on working on trials and complex litigation matters? This role is for an experienced litigation paralegal who is excited about managing large‑scale litigation matters from start to finish and being heavily involved in trials.

The Litigation Paralegal is responsible for providing support and assistance to attorneys in the coordination, management, and supervision of all aspects of litigation, including but not limited to handling large caseloads, preparing drafts of legal and other documents and correspondence for attorney review, compiling, analyzing and summarizing information, and coordinating efforts between attorneys, clients, outside legal counsel, opposing counsel, and outside vendors.

Essential Functions

• 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 projects such as 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, managing trial support, creating and overseeing trial exhibits, setting up war rooms, and attending trial to assist with presenting evidence, 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 (e.g., 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 to ensure that case‑specific paralegal services meet the team’s expectations.
• Meets billable goals as established by practice management.

Essential Filing Functions

• 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, 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.

Additional Responsibilities

• May require overtime as needed.
• Performs additional office support duties as assigned/requested.

Qualifications

1. Paralegals should preferably have a Paralegal certification from an ABA‑approved program, in addition to 8+ years of litigation experience in an AmLaw 150 firm or specialist litigation practice area.
2. Experience with all stages of litigation, including intake, discovery and trial, in addition to preparing for and attending trials/arbitration hearings is required.
3. Strong working knowledge of federal court procedures and electronic filings systems (CM/ECF, PACER) is required.
4. Candidates must have a demonstrated ability to research and comply with filings rules in multiple jurisdictions and experience with platforms such as One Legal, File & ServeXpress, Odyssey and similar e‑filing portals.
5. Experience with Opus 2, TextMap, CaseMap, iManage (or comparable DMS), Everlaw, Relativity, Trial Director, MS Office Suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook) are preferred.
6. 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.
7. Must be available for overtime work and travel as needed.

Confidentiality

Due to the nature of your employment, various documents and information, which are confidential in nature, will come into your possession. Such documents and information must be kept confidential at all times.

Salary

The salary range for this position is $120K to $185K.

Please note that quoted salary ranges are based on Benesch's reasonable expectations at the time of the job posting and are not a guarantee of what final salary offers may be. Base pay is based on market location and may vary depending on job‑related knowledge, skills, and experience. Base pay is only one part of the Total Rewards that Benesch provides to compensate and recognize our staff professionals for their work. Full‑time positions are eligible for a discretionary bonus and a comprehensive benefits package.

Equal Opportunity Employer

Benesch is an equal opportunity employer. We strongly value and encourage diversity and solicit applications from all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, gender, sex, age, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability (where applicant is qualified to perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodations), medical condition, protected veteran status, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. Applicants who are interested in applying for a position and require special assistance or an accommodation during the process due to a disability should contact the Benesch Human Resources Department by phone at 216‑363‑4578 or email at [e-mail].