Clarification from the agency

This vacancy announcement is open to the public who live in the Washington, DC commuting area.

OLA provides legislative counsel to the Director and staff of the AO and the Judicial Conference and its committees, monitors legislative activities and advocates legislative positions of importance to the judiciary. The incumbent of this position provides a range of legislative, program, and administrative support services for the office. The incumbent will: 1) conduct legislative and legal research; 2) identify issues and analyze legislation, laws, agency documents, press articles and other materials; 3) provide clear and effective written and oral presentations which summarize issues and analysis; 4) perform other activities essential to information management; 5) apply knowledge and previous experience with Congressional operations to all tasks; and 6) prioritize multiple assignments and work effectively in a fast paced, high priority, deadline driven environment.

The duties include, but are not limited to:

1. Preparing a "Congressional Record Summary" of all items of interest to the federal judiciary in each daily edition of the Congressional Record for wide distribution within the Administrative Office and the federal judiciary, along with alerting OLA attorney staff to subject matter highlights from the summary, when necessary.
2. Analyzing the impact of legislative proposals, performing legislative research, and answering inquiries utilizing on-line research tools, such as Library of Congress, Lexis-Nexis, Westlaw, and Congressional Quarterly.
3. Performing data entry and related maintenance of OLA databases, including text-searchable databases of all legislative files.
4. Analyzing or interpreting data or other information; analyzing, evaluating and maintaining congressional materials (House/Senate bills, hearings, testimony, etc.) for relevance and importance to the judiciary.
5. Searching for and extracting information from files, documents, reports, publications, recordings, or other materials.
6. Tracking the progress of work (for example, legislation) through an established system.
7. Reading and understanding non-technical materials (for example, letters, memoranda, electronic mail, simple instructions).
8. Compiling and organizing correspondence, bills, memoranda, and other related materials to create legislative histories of bills of importance to the federal judiciary.
9. Performing updates and related maintenance to OLA's intranet website.
10. Performing administrative tasks to include, but not limited to, receiving telephone calls and visitors and making appropriate referrals; preparing and formatting letters, memoranda, congressional testimony and other documents; reviewing and distributing incoming mail and tasks.
11. Attending and/or monitoring hearings and markups as required by the needs of the office, along with providing written and oral reports of proceedings, with emphasis on items of importance to the federal judiciary.
12. Establishing and maintaining working liaisons with congressional committees, White House Clerk's Office, Federal Register, AO senior staff and other judicial employees, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Sentencing Commission, Federal Judicial Center, Government Printing Office, and other federal agencies as required.
13. Composing complex correspondence or other written work.
14. Serving as the primary point of contact for a specific duty or subject area.

Conditions of employment

CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT

1. All information is subject to verification. Applicants are advised that false answers or omissions of information on application materials or inability to meet the following conditions may be grounds for non-selection, withdrawal of an offer of employment, or dismissal after being employed.
2. Selection for this position is contingent upon completion of OF-306, Declaration of Federal Employment during the pre-employment process and proof of U.S. citizenship for competitive status positions or conversion to a competitive status position with the AO. If non-citizens are considered for hire into a temporary or any other position with non-competitive status or when it is confirmed by the AO Human Resources Office there are no qualified U.S. citizens for a competitive status position (unless prohibited by a law or statue), non-citizens must provide proof of authorization to work in the U.S. and proof of entitlement to receive compensation. Additional information on the employment of non-citizens can be found at USAJOBS Help Center | Employment of non-citizens/. For a list of documents that may be used to provide proof of citizenship or authorization to work in the United States, please refer to Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification.
3. All new AO employees will be required to complete an FBI fingerprint-based national criminal database and records check and pass a public trust suitability check.
4. New employees to the AO will be required to successfully pass the E-Verify employment verification check. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights/responsibilities, visit https://www.e-verify.gov/.
5. All new AO employees are required to identify a financial institution for direct deposit of pay before appointment.
6. You will be required to serve a trial period if selected for a first-time appointment to the Federal government, transferring from another Federal agency, or serving as a first-time supervisor. Failure to successfully complete the trial period may result in termination of employment.
7. If appointed to a temporary position, management may have the discretion of converting the position to permanent depending upon funding and staffing allocation.

Qualifications

Applicants must have demonstrated experience as listed below. This requirement is according to the AO Classification, Compensation, and Recruitment Systems which include interpretive guidance and reference to the OPM Operating Manual for Qualification Standards for General Schedule Positions.

Specialized Experience: Applicants must have at least one full year (52 weeks) of specialized experience which is in or directly related to the line of work of this position. Specialized experience is demonstrated experience is demonstrated experience in ALL of the following areas:

1. Conducting legislative and legal research and analysis of such research;
2. Conveying the results of such research in a written product; and
3. Utilizing online research tools, web page maintenance, and chart and database software.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

We will review your resume and supporting documentation and compare this information to your responses on the occupational questionnaire to determine if you meet the minimum qualifications for this job. If you meet the minimum qualifications for this job, we will evaluate your application package, to assess the quality, depth, and complexity of your accomplishments, experience, and education as they relate to the requirements listed in this vacancy announcement.

You should be aware that your ratings are subject to evaluation and verification. If a determination is made that you have rated yourself higher than is supported by your resume and/or narrative responses, you will be assigned a rating commensurate to your described experience. Failure to submit the mandatory narrative responses will result in not receiving full consideration and/or rating credit. Deliberate attempts to falsify information may be grounds for not selecting you, withdrawing an offer of employment, or dismissal after being employed.