Public Defender's Office - Legal Secretary, Senior (Grant-Funded)

Essential Duties
As directed supervises department employees, including assigning and reviewing work, training, providing input on performance evaluations, and making recommendations on hiring, terminating, and disciplining personnel;
 
Plans, directs, and coordinates, through subordinate-level staff, the department work plan;
 
Assists with managing the career development and performance of staff assigned;
 
Meets with management staff to identify and resolve problems;
 
Assigns projects and programmatic areas of responsibility; and reviews and evaluates work methods and procedures;
 
Assumes responsibility for delegated administrative and clerical tasks, including correspondence, educational publications, records management, report preparation;   and other materials from rough draft or from source documents for review and signature; reads and reviews outgoing correspondence; may perform data entry, process billings; receive payments; balances receipts with payments; and mail processing;
 
Assists with developing internal policies and procedures;  

Assists attorneys in collecting information such as employment, medical, and other records;
 
Provides broad administrative and office support to assigned department; screens visitors and telephone calls; responds to complaints and information requests on a wide array of topics; conducts preliminary interviews of prospective clients;
 
Types and proofreads a wide variety of reports, letters, memos, tables and charts; composes correspondence for review and signature by management staff;
 
Develops and maintains various filing systems, records and logs; maintains various automated data bases; conducts file close-out; collects and compiles data to draft and produce various reports and correspondence;
 
Prepares various legal documents; secures authorized signatures and delivery to the appropriate party;
 
Pulls dockets, scans new cases, prints out judgements, files orders, and redacts information;
 
Drafts and edits legal pleadings as directed;
 
Provides attorney staff with all aspects of case preparation; compiles petitions and reports; conducts research as needed;
 
Calendars hearings and meetings for attorneys;
 
Retrieve files for attorneys; responds to questions regarding case disposition;
 
Reviews the completion of various applications or documents and processes;
 
Redacts court orders; copies and files records; notifies attorneys of filings;
 
Assists the public with inquiries and handles challenging members of the public and/or clients, and non-routine problems;
 
Substitutes, if assigned, for coworkers during temporary absences by performing delegated duties sufficient to maintain continuity of normal operations;
 
Attends and participates in meetings, training and information sessions;
 
Stays abreast of new trends and innovations in the field;
 
Commits self to providing excellent customer service and demonstrate commitment through cooperative team and individual efforts; and
 
Creates a high quality work culture through participation in and emphasis on training and mentoring to develop leadership, management, and technical skills in self and all employees, including safety related training and skills.
 
May serve as back up:
 
Archives files;
 
Works with open records requests as directed; database maintenance, pretrial, trial, appellate, and civil level legal work, and other areas as directed;
 
Depending on area assigned:
 
Prepares extradition packages, involves: formatting, preparing, and signing forms; reviews information set by codes and statutes;
 
Conducts backgrounds on orders; checks for outstanding warrants;
 
Locates and sends police/offense reports for cases assigned;
 
Maintains non-arrest case activation;
 
Prepares cases and indictments for special courts i.e. grand jury;
 
Upgrades and modifies felony and misdemeanor cases from law enforcement agencies;
 
Investigates cases as directed;
 
Supports attorneys with other case preparation, as directed;
 
Supports appellate attorneys, as directed;
 
Verifies cases in Writs list; examines cases to set trials or release;

Other Important Duties
Performs such other related duties as may be assigned.
 
Maintains a safe and healthy work place environment.
 
As members of the County of El Paso Emergency Response System, all El Paso County employees are designated as Disaster Service Workers during a proclaimed emergency and may be required to train on emergency response and/or perform certain emergency services at the direction of their supervisor.
 

Summary of Position
The Legal Secretary, Senior under minimum supervision provides clerical support to assigned attorneys. This designation is distinguished from the Legal Secretary classification by greater work complexity, broader work activities and some lead work authority.