Paralegal

Overview

Are you interested in growing in a continually evolving work environment with a small, collaborative team?

Travis County Sheriff’s Office is looking for a Paralegal to join our team on-site in Austin, Texas. In this role, you will be working closely with law enforcement, corrections, and the Travis County Attorney’s Office and District Attorney’s Office conducting legal research, responding to open records requests and much more. Travis County Sheriff’s Office promotes a great work‑life balance, holiday, vacation time off, and other great benefits.

• Research inmates’ legal material requests, determine inmates’ status, and assemble responses.
• Maintain logs of output and ensure sufficient supplies for inmate needs; must be comfortable working in high‑security environment.
• Prepare and organize government and open records requests and documents requested through subpoenas, retrieve information from computer to assist case documentation, and contact office staff, court personnel, employees from other criminal justice agencies as required.
• Review, screen, and analyze case‑related materials for assigned cases, provide summary of facts to assigned folders, process documents including preparation, filing and issuance of information, obtain, index, and outline criminal histories, offense reports and all other relevant documents.
• Assist attorney(s) in preparation for depositions, trials, court and administrative hearings; draft correspondence to victims, attorneys, governmental agencies, law enforcement agencies and the general public regarding status of cases, contracts, or opinions.
• Conduct legal research, prepare files, subpoenas and other legal documents as required, meet with respondent’s or defendant’s attorney(s) to provide case information.
• Draft legal documents as needed or directed by TCSO staff.
• May appear in court to provide testimony as custodian of record; coordinate discovery, drafting and calendaring of interrogatories, requests for disclosures, production, admissions and other requests in accordance with local, state, federal, and administrative rules; draft discovery responses and objections.
• Coordinate and schedule court appearances, trials, depositions and meetings; respond to inquiries related to pending cases, communicate with office staff, adverse counsel, court clerks and other Travis County employees.
• May select, train and oversee clerical support staff, including reviewing prepared files and documents, and locate and make contractual arrangements with foreign‑language interpreters.
• Perform other job‑related duties as assigned.

Bachelor's degree in Paralegal Studies, Public Administration, Business Administration or a directly related field AND two (2) years experience as a paralegal; OR any combination of education and experience that is equivalent to the stated education, experience and required knowledge, skills and abilities sufficient to successfully perform the duties and responsibilities of this job.

Paralegal Certificate from a professionally recognized Paralegal/Legal Assistant program. Applicants are required to attach a resume with the online application.

Knowledge of:

• Federal, State, Local and County applicable laws, rules, regulations and guidelines.
• Public Information Act.
• Policies, practices, procedures and legal terminology related to court system.
• Discovery process including subpoenas.
• Current legal trends in the interaction of law and professional ethics.
• Statistical and record keeping applications, including databases and spreadsheets.
• Business letter writing, grammar and punctuation, and report preparation.
• Lexis Nexis, Westlaw, or other case research database software.
• Knowledge of federal and state laws requiring confidential handling of certain health information.

Skill in:

• Acquiring, maintaining, organizing, analyzing and summarizing case evidence.
• Understanding legal terminology and English grammar.
• Case file examination for documentation accuracy.
• Operating modern office equipment, including a computer.
• Effective verbal and written…