Paralegal

State Bar of Texas; San Antonio (TX); On-site; USD 85,000 - 110,000; Full time

Job summary

State Bar of Texas is seeking a Senior Litigation Paralegal to work closely with the managing attorney on high-exposure personal injury cases. This is not a volume seat; you will steward a smaller docket of catastrophic matters and will know each file inside and out.

You will own the file from suit through trial, manage the calendar, and anticipate issues before they arise. Strong writing, organization, and client communication are essential.

Qualifications

• 7+ years of plaintiff-side personal injury litigation experience, post-suit.
• Ability to manage the full litigation life cycle from pleadings to trial.
• Strong writing and communication skills in complex matters.

Responsibilities

• Own and manage files from suit through trial, tracking deadlines and dependencies.
• Draft discovery responses, handle document production, and manage medical records.
• Coordinate depositions, mediations, and trial logistics; supervise staff as needed.
• Write memoranda, chronologies, and internal analyses for senior attorneys.

Skills

Plaintiff-side litigation

Legal writing

Discretion and judgment

Organizational discipline

Proactive problem solving

Calm under pressure

Client communication

Scheduling and deadlines

Team leadership

Education

Paralegal certificate

Associate's degree

Bachelor's degree

Tools

Case management software

Microsoft 365

e-filing/e-service

Job description

The Short Version

We are hiring one Senior Litigation Paralegal to work shoulder-to-shoulder with our managing attorney on the firm's largest and most complex personal injury cases.

This is not a volume seat. You will not be handed sixty soft-tissue files and a stack of demand letter templates. You will carry a smaller docket of high-exposure, hard-fought matters — catastrophic injury, wrongful death, commercial vehicle and trucking, premises, and multi-party litigation — and you will be expected to know each one cold.

We are looking for a career professional — someone who carries themselves accordingly with clients, opposing counsel, court staff, and experts, and who moves on a file before being asked to.

If you are the paralegal other paralegals go to when a case gets complicated, keep reading.

What This Role Actually Is

The managing attorney is trying cases. That means the person in this seat is the one holding the architecture of the litigation together: the deadlines, the discovery, the experts, the record, the moving parts, and the people.

You will own the file. From suit through trial, you are the person who knows where every case stands, what is due, what is missing, and what is about to become a problem. You will build and defend the deadline calendar across a docket of active matters and you will not need to be asked twice about a scheduling order.

You will get ahead of the case, not react to it. The difference between a good paralegal and the one we are hiring is anticipation. We want the person who flags the expert designation deadline six weeks out, who notices the treating physician's records stop in March, who has the mediation binder built before it is requested, and who walks into the office with the problem and the proposed solution. If you find yourself waiting to be told what the next step is, this seat will not suit you.

You will drive discovery. Drafting and responding to written discovery, running document productions, assembling and mastering the medical record, building chronologies and damages summaries, tracking outstanding responses, and preparing the deficiency letters that make opposing counsel comply.

You will write. Discovery responses, deposition summaries, mediation memoranda, case chronologies, expert and witness correspondence, and internal analysis the attorney will rely on to make strategic calls. Your writing will go out over the firm's name. Clean, organized, persuasive prose is not a bonus qualification here — it is the job.

You will run the logistics that win cases. Depositions, mediations, experts, court reporters, videographers, record retrieval vendors, trial technology, exhibits, witness coordination, and trial notebooks. When trial is set, you are the one who makes the courtroom work.

You will manage people and pressure. You will direct legal assistants, case managers, and support staff on your matters — assigning work, setting internal deadlines, and holding the line on quality. Large cases generate friction: clients under stress, opposing counsel behaving badly, experts who go quiet, deadlines that collide, and a trial calendar that does not care about anyone's week. We need someone who absorbs that pressure and keeps the file — and the team around it — steady and moving. Composure under tension is a core requirement of this position, not a soft skill.

You will have the attorney's ear. You will be in the strategy conversations. Your read on a witness, a record, or a deadline risk will be heard and acted on. Judgment matters more here than task completion.

• - 7+ years of plaintiff-side personal injury litigation experience, post-suit (pre-suit demand and negotiation work alone is not what this role needs)
• - Command of the litigation life cycle: pleadings, written discovery, motion practice, depositions, mediations, pretrial deadlines, and trial preparation
• - Working knowledge of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure and Texas state court practice; e-filing and e-service proficiency
• - Demonstrated ability to run multiple active litigation files independently, with minimal supervision and no reminders
• - Strong, professional writing — the kind that does not need to be rewritten
• - Organizational discipline that holds up when three cases heat up in the same week
• - A proactive operating style: you identify what the case needs next and move on it, rather than waiting for assignment
• - Genuine professionalism — polished presence and sound judgment with clients, opposing counsel, court staff, and experts; discretion with confidential information; reliability that others can plan around

Strongly Preferred

• - Spanish fluency sufficient to conduct client interviews and handle client communication without an interpreter — a meaningful share of our clients are Spanish-speaking. This is a preference tied to client-communication needs; candidates who are not bilingual will be fully considered.
• - Paralegal certificate, associate's, or bachelor's degree
• - Experience with catastrophic injury, wrongful death, trucking/commercial vehicle, or other high-value litigation
• - Federal court experience
• - Case management software proficiency; Microsoft 365; RingCentral or comparable phone/communication platforms
• - Experience supervising, training, or directing support staff
• - Trial experience — actual trials, start to finish

Is This You?

This role fits someone who:

• - Wants depth over volume, and takes pride in knowing a case better than anyone else in the building
• - Would rather be trusted with real responsibility than be told exactly what to do
• - Is direct, steady, and does not need to be managed
• - Reads a scheduling order once and calendars it correctly the first time
• - Treats this as a profession rather than a job — and it shows in how they write, how they speak, and how they follow through
• - Wants a long-term seat at a firm where the work is serious

This role is probably not the right fit if:

• - You are looking for a hybrid or remote arrangement — this position is fully in-office
• - Your experience is primarily pre-litigation demand and negotiation work
• - You prefer a defined, repeating task list over owning outcomes
• - You would rather be given the next step than determine it yourself
• - High-stakes deadline pressure is something you would rather avoid than manage