Paralegal Specialist

This position is located in the Office of Chief Counsel in Camp Springs, MD. As a Paralegal Specialist, you will provide legal support arising from Federal litigation involving immigration benefits administered by USCIS and DHS, commercial and administrative law matters, ethics concerns, civil procedure, and criminal law issues, along with preparing visa petition appeal briefs.

Duties

• Conduct substantive research using attorney files, law reports, statutes and regulations, library reference files, computer databases, and other pertinent sources.
• Analyze facts and legal issues, and prepare appropriate memorandum, discussion paper, brief or report reflecting facts, supporting case law, applicable regulations, sources, citations, and other items discovered during the course of legal research.
• Establish and maintain computer filing system to track correspondence, visa petition appeals, legal advice, and federal litigation.
• Input data into computer databases and systems concerning federal court litigation and visa petition appeals, retrieve and analyze data therefrom and prepares reports and charts as needed.
• Review, develop and recommend to Division Chief and attorneys' action to be taken on visa petition appeals, draft briefs and write reports for District personnel in the area and the Department of Homeland Security on behalf of the division attorneys.
• Other administrative support duties as assigned in support of the legal program.

Salary

$117,962 - $153,354/year

Conditions of Employment

• You must be a U.S. Citizen or U.S. National to apply for this position.
• Successfully pass a Background Investigation including financial disclosure.
• You must pass a drug screening.
• You must submit resume and supporting documentation.
• Males born after 12/31/1959 must be registered with the Selective Service.
• Political appointees may require OPM approval before on-boarding.
• USCIS applies the Telework Enhancement Act of 2010 to its telework and remote work programs.

This position is in the bargaining unit.

Residency Requirement

There is a residency requirement for all applicants not currently employed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. This residency requirement states that candidates must have, for three of the last five years immediately prior to applying for this position; (1) resided in the United States; OR (2) worked for the United States Government as an employee overseas in a Federal or Military capacity, OR (3) been a dependent of a U.S. Federal or Military employee serving overseas.

Probationary Period

You may be required to serve a probationary period of 1 year.

This position IS NOT considered "essential" for purposes of reporting to work when the facility might otherwise be closed.

Qualifications

The qualifications for this position must be met by 11:59 PM (Eastern Time) on 10/30/2024. GS -13 level if you possess one (1) year of specialized experience, which is equivalent to at least the GS-12 level in the federal government, that equipped you with the skills needed to successfully perform the duties of the position. You must have experience performing the following duties:

• Planning, developing, interpreting and resolving broad, complex and unprecedented problems.
• Providing authoritative advice to external parties dealing with the organization or internal agency employees, and making decisions or recommendations with respect to cases and assignments.
• Analyze issues of fact and issues of law to make recommendations to attorneys on factual and legal issues involved in their cases.
• Analyze new legislation, which has an impact on agency policies, procedures, and guidelines or implementation.

Required Documents

Resume: You must submit a resume that clearly demonstrates you have experience that meets the requirements of this position as outlined in the "Qualifications" section. USCIS' Human Resources Office will only review the first 5 pages of your resume to determine your eligibility/qualifications.

In order to ensure that you include all necessary information within the first 5 pages of your resume, you are highly encouraged to save and submit your resume as a PDF instead of submitting it through Resume Builder or a word-processing program such as Word or Google Docs.

Your responses to the job questionnaire here , which are submitted through the on-line application process in USAJOBS, DO NOT need to be attached as an additional document to your application.