Paralegal Operations Manager

Who We Are:

American Oversight is a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog that advances truth, accountability, and democracy by enforcing the public's right to government records. From the federal Freedom of Information Act to state transparency laws, we file carefully crafted records requests to extract information from the government, and if officials fail to respond as required by law, we take them to court and enforce the public's right to hold our leaders accountable. Since our founding in 2017, we have obtained and published more than one million pages of emails, memos, calendars, text messages, and other records to ensure accountability, expose misconduct, and drive significant corrective action at all levels of government.

For more information, please visit our website: www.americanoversight.org

About the Role:

Reporting to the Deputy Chief Counsel, American Oversight is seeking a Paralegal Operations Manager to join its team. The Paralegal Operations Manager will provide day-to-day and functional leadership to the paralegal team. This includes providing the team with professional development through feedback, coaching, and resources as well as leading and maintaining operational excellence in its processes, practices, systems, and norms.

The paralegal team serves a core function at American Oversight (AO) by managing, processing, and organizing outgoing records requests, incoming agency correspondence, and document productions. This crucial work provides a foundation for all AO functions.

What You Will Do:

• Manage a team of direct reports (senior paralegal(s) and paralegals) in their daily work; promote team cohesion and collaboration; and provide professional growth and development through AO’s performance management practices and tools, individual coaching and feedback, and other learning resources and opportunities.
• Lead team in identifying, designing, and implementing new or refined processes, practices, systems, or norms that will sustain collaboration, knowledge sharing, and team and cross-functional effectiveness. Proactively monitor and evolve processes, practices, systems, or norms to meet the needs of AO’s portfolio of work, including providing guidance to senior paralegal(s) in coordinating updates to and maintenance of process and training documents.
• Oversee team’s workflows and responsibilities, including by monitoring incoming workflows and backlogs, adjusting workload distribution as appropriate, and setting and managing benchmarks.
• Guide team of direct reports in organizing and prioritizing their work and troubleshooting problems.
• Work closely with senior paralegal(s) to audit and perform quality assurance of paralegals’ work.
• In coordination with senior paralegal(s), identify and proactively address staffing and workload needs.
• Act as a liaison between, and in partnership with Deputy Chief Counsel, the paralegal team and other members of AO leadership to proactively gather feedback from stakeholders to ensure service levels meet organizational needs, while effectively communicating team capacity, and optimizing resource allocation for effectiveness.
• Ensure the smooth operation of the team’s workflows, processes, and systems, and as needed, participate in paralegal team’s daily work to address high volume and/or reduce backlogs, including by:
  • Monitoring shared email inboxes, as well as incoming physical mail, for incoming correspondence and document productions from government agencies and offices.
  • Interacting with federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and state agency open records personnel directly or notify AO attorneys of correspondence requiring their review.
  • Finalizing and filing FOIA and state records requests with government agencies.
  • Creating folders and database entries within AO’s document management systems, and tracking FOIA and open records request deadlines.
  • Processing incoming document productions, including by entering production information in databases, saving documents to proper folder locations, and processing the documents to make them text searchable and to apply pagination and AO’s logo.
  • Providing litigation case support to attorneys, including service of process, organizing and maintaining litigation files and calendars, and other litigation projects, as assigned.

What You Will Bring:

• 5+ years of work experience that includes progressively increasing responsibilities; 2+ years experience leading, managing, and professionally developing direct reports, including early career professionals; 1+ years experience working in an office environment.
• Experience working within and thriving in an environment that is:
  • Fast paced and requires an ability to rapidly respond to requests and needs with accuracy.
  • Remote, distributed, and diverse.
• Exceptional skills in the following:
  • Project Management: tracks, drives, reports, and engages the necessary stakeholders, tools, resources, and information to produce desired results; facility with multi-tasking and handling competing deadlines.
  • Communication: written, oral, and listening; managing expectations; curiosity, asking questions early; anticipating and preparing next steps and outcomes.
  • Judgment and Decision Making: understands who the key stakeholders are; seeks input and feedback from relevant stakeholders; escalates and addresses concerns/challenges appropriately and in a timely manner.
  • Problem Solving: uses critical thinking to proactively identify issues, troubleshoot problems, and surface creative solutions to achieve desired outcomes.
  • Collaboration: is an inclusive, highly engaged team player, who proactively seeks and provides thought partnership, assistance, and/or resources with/to colleagues.
• Extraordinary attention to detail and accuracy.
• Experience working in and/or desire to contribute to workplaces with a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
• High degree of professional ethics and integrity.
• Demonstrated proficiency in standard office software and/or document/file management programs and tools and flexibility to quickly learn new software programs and systems.
• This is a hybrid position and requires working on site at AO’s Washington, DC office two days a week.

Desired Qualifications:

• Proficiency in Airtable, Dropbox, and/or Logikcull or another document review platform (e.g., Relativity, Concordance, etc.).
• Experience maintaining and navigating high-volume document management systems.
• Familiarity with pro-democracy issues, including but not limited to voting rights, election administration, civil rights and civil liberties, or threats like abuse of power, corruption, or undue influence.

We encourage individuals to apply even if they do not have any of the desired qualifications.

What We Offer:

American Oversight offers its employees a generous and comprehensive benefits package that includes 80% of health, dental, and vision premiums paid by the organization, a retirement plan with a matching contribution, and remote office reimbursements for personal devices and wireless connectivity.

Location:

American Oversight is a remote-first employer with an office in Washington, D.C. as an optional workspace. This is a hybrid role and will require the person to work onsite in our Washington, D.C. office two days a week.

Salary Range:

$90,000 - $115,000 (commensurate to experience)

Application Deadline:

Interested applicants are encouraged to apply by November 29, 2024 to ensure consideration of your application. Following this deadline, we will continue to review applications on a rolling basis until the position is filled.

Our Commitment to an Inclusive Workplace:

At American Oversight, we value and strive to hire, develop, and grow a diverse and inclusive team. We are an equal opportunity employer, and encourage applications from all individuals without regard to an individual’s race, color, sex, gender identity, gender expression, religion, age, national origin or ancestry, physical or mental disability, medical condition, family care status, marital status, domestic partner status, sexual orientation, genetic information, military or veteran status, or any other basis protected by federal, state, or local laws. We strongly encourage individuals to apply for opportunities at American Oversight even if they do not have any of the desired qualifications.