JOB TITLE: SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST, OGC

JOB CODE: 07092

SERIES NATURE OF WORK: The Legal Analyst job series describes work in the evaluation and analysis of complex legal, policy, transactional, and administrative issues within the Office of General Counsel (OGC).

DEFINITION: This is advanced professional work conducting legal research and gathering, analyzing, summarizing, and presenting relevant materials to support legal recommendations.

An employee in this job performs substantive and complex legal research and analysis on federal and state laws and regulations; legislative history; agency programs; and judicial, legislative, transactional, and administrative processes. Work involves analyzing and summarizing the impact of legislative and regulatory changes, making recommendations regarding agency operations or policy; synthesizing, summarizing, and presenting case-specific research and investigative data and making recommendations for case legal strategy; and writing pleadings, briefs, and other legal documents to be used in preparing for or arguing a case before administrative decision makers or the courts, or for use by an attorney in providing legal advice to clients. Work involves the development, interpretation, and implementation of commonwealth policies or legal protocols and processes; managing large and complex legal research projects or legal document production operations; drafting, reviewing, and analyzing agreements; and preparing procurement solicitations and related documents. Work may also include exercising discretion and judgment in the development and application of commonwealth and OGC policies related to procurements and solicitations as well as the conduct of budgetary analyses in the development thereof. Work may include all pre-decisional activities for assigned legal matters. Work is assigned by an attorney or non-attorney supervisor with minimal guidance or oversight, but attorneys remain responsible for the legal decisions and recommendations resulting from the employee’s work.

   DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERISTICS: Work is differentiated from the lower-level job based on the complexity of work performed as characterized by:

• Leading the research, analysis, and document production and review efforts of complex cases involving large settlements relative to agency historic averages, multiple governing boards, no prior agency or industry precedence, or coordination of information and resolution across agencies;

• Managing and coordinating complex legal research projects through a team of individuals from multiple and varied programmatic areas to recommend revisions to agency operations and policy as a result of complicated regulatory or legislative changes.

EXAMPLES OF WORK: (NOTE: The examples of work are representative of the work, but every position classified to this job may not perform all examples of work listed. Conversely, this is not an all-inclusive list of work examples.)

• Researches complex legal issues that may have limited agency or industry precedent to find supportive arguments, case documentations, and law library references and summarizes and presents findings to an attorney.

• Analyzes legislation, court procedures, and case law for legal intent and administrative impact to agency; summarizes recommendations to bring agency policy and operations into compliance.

• Participates in legal strategy discussions and leads discussions on issues, research findings, and investigation results.

• Drafts and prepares pleadings, motions, briefs, abstracts, petitions, summary judgments, and legal correspondence for complex cases.

• Develops and manages document production, tracking, and review systems for complex cases that require coordination, implementation, and communication among multiple agency resources and outside parties.

• Analyzes, recommends, and implements improvements and best practices pertaining to case management or legal document production and review processes.

• Issues, evaluates, monitors, and recommends transaction policies and procedures to ensure that office transaction and procurement operations are handled in an efficient and effective manner.

• Conducts pre-review of contracts and purchase orders to ensure necessary documents are prepared and available for execution before forwarding to the attorney.

• Prepares procurement solicitations; advises on status of spending plans and suggests resolutions of various budgetary issues as they may arise; researches and advises on procurement issues; and completes necessary actions for service requisitions.

• Participates in legal practice meetings pertaining to legal office or agency policy development and implementation.

• Establishes processes, systems, and summary reporting necessary to prepare cost analyses and bill summaries for proposed legislation, legal action, or case settlements.

• Receives and reviews inquiries from the general public or other commonwealth parties related to pending regulation or cases, and drafts responses for review by an attorney.

• Provides training, instructional content, and technical assistance to Legal Analysts and Law Clerks on research and analysis tools, protocols, and policies.

• Serves as project lead on legal operations support and automated litigation projects.

• Assesses, coordinates, and directs the procurement and maintenance of legal research services such as Westlaw and Lexis.

• Drafts, reviews, and analyzes agreements; prepares procurement solicitations and related documents.

• Performs the full range of supervisory duties.

• An employee in this job may participate in the performance of subordinates’ work consistent with operational or organizational requirements.

• Performs related work as required.

ENTRY LEVEL KNOWLEDGES, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES:

• Knowledge of legal terminology, principles, systems, and processes.

• Knowledge of legal research principles, methodology, and tools.

• Knowledge of legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, and the political process.

• Knowledge of case management systems and databases.

• Knowledge of the use and functionality of Windows Office suite software.

• Ability to present legal analysis, conclusions, and recommendations in writing and orally.

• Ability to understand and interpret constitutional provisions, statutes, administrative regulations, contracts, and legal precedent.

• Ability to gather, analyze, and interpret contract and legal data.

• Ability to communicate effectively orally.

• Ability to communicate effectively in writing.

• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships.

FULL PERFORMANCE KNOWLEDGES, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES: (NOTE: These are expected of an employee performing the work of this job at the full performance level. These may not be used for merit system evaluation or examination purposes and are not position-specific performance standards.)

• Knowledge of the assigned agency’s program operations and the relevant state and federal laws, policies, and procedures that pertain to those operations.

• Ability to draw valid legal conclusions from a variety of sources as a basis for recommending legal action.

• Ability to plan, coordinate, and lead projects.

MINIMUM EXPERIENCE AND TRAINING: (NOTE: Based on the Entry Level Knowledges, Skills, and Abilities)

• Two years of experience as a Legal Analyst, OGC (commonwealth title);

or

• Two years of professional experience in legal research and analysis, and a Juris Doctor degree from an American Bar Association accredited law school.

or

• Five years of professional experience in legal research and analysis, and a bachelor’s degree;

or

• Seven years of legal research and analysis experience including five years at the professional level, and an associate’s degree;

or

• An equivalent combination of experience and training which includes four years of professional experience in legal research and analysis.