Deputy General Counsel

Reporting to the General Counsel of the Administrative Office of the Courts, the Deputy General Counsel’s primary responsibilities include research, analysis, support, advice, and advocacy regarding a wide variety of legal matters affecting the Oklahoma judiciary, and managing multiple projects and functions related to support and administration of law libraries statewide.

Salary Range: Commensurate with education and experience.

Responsibilities and Essential Functions may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Assists the General Counsel and the AOC Administrative Director in a diverse variety of legal and administrative matters.
• Conducts research, writing, and analysis.
• Researches and updates various legal forms.
• Supports planning, development, and coordination of physical and digital law library operations, to include the Court’s role as official publisher of Oklahoma Supreme Court and Oklahoma Civil Court of Appeals Opinions through tasks that include but are not limited to:
  • Responds to inquiries from judges, attorneys, and vendors regarding opinions, rules, forms, and other legal resources.
  • Reviews, formats, and prepares opinions for online and print publication and distributes opinions to internal and external users.
  • Reports on budget and operations of law library program.
  • Serves as primary point of contact for legal research contracts and subscriptions, including but not limited to Westlaw, for law libraries statewide.
  • Adds Pacific Reporter citations to opinions of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, Court of Civil Appeals, and Court of Criminal Appeals.
  • Provides varied support as needed for District Court law libraries.
  • Works with Management Information Systems department on publication of opinions online on  and other law library matters.
  • Serves as organization’s subject matter expert and central point of contact for guidance regarding standardization and formatting for publications including but not limited to opinions, Supreme Court Rule regarding public domain citations, mandates, release dates, official publication, organization of information, standardization, etc.
  • Posts content online to the  website.
• Provides support, oversight, management, and reporting for law libraries and other law related programs or projects, as assigned, including but not limited to those provided through contracts.
• Performs other duties and projects as assigned by the General Counsel or AOC Administrative Director.

Knowledge, Skill, and Ability Requirements:

• Extensive knowledge of functions and organization of state government.
• Strong interpersonal, public speaking, research and writing skills.
• Ability to multi-task, prioritize, and manage multiple diverse projects and deliver results with minimal supervision.
• Ability to develop and maintain collaborative working relationships.
• Ability to research and compose well‐written communications and publications, suitably adapted to the audience, covering a variety of topics.
• Ability to utilize  and Westlaw.
• Proficient knowledge of Microsoft operating systems and Office suite.
• Strong analytical, problem solving, issue spotting, and critical thinking skills.
• Strong organizational skills.
• Attention to detail required for extensive formatting and proofreading of documents to be published.
• Experience with or willingness to learn basic HTML or other web programming language.

Education and Experience Requirements:

• Juris Doctorate, current license to practice law in Oklahoma, required.
• Four (4) or more years of relevant experience preferred, which may include but is not limited to:
  • Work in an academic library or law library setting or
  • Preparation and publication of web-based content.

Travel:

Occasional in-state travel is required.

This job operates in a professional office environment. This role routinely uses standard office equipment such as laptop computers, photocopiers, and smartphones.

Physical Demands:

While performing the duties of this job, the employee is regularly required to talk, hear, comprehend, observe, and evaluate. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision and ability to adjust focus. This position requires the ability to lift files, open filing cabinets,…