Job Description
Legal Administrative Assistant – Litigation Federal Courts
(Downtown San Jose, Silicon Valley)
The Litigation Legal Administrative Assistant will provide essential administrative support to attorneys and paralegals, primarily supporting two shareholders within the Intellectual Property Litigation practice group.
This role requires someone who has at least 7 years of litigation experience — significantly in Federal Court — and highly self-motivated, working independently to ensure all tasks are completed promptly and professionally. The ideal candidate will be a proactive partner to legal teams, ensuring compliance with court rules and case deadlines, and accuracy in document preparation, legal formatting, and terminology. This position involves maintaining organized workflows, managing case deadlines, and leveraging software tools for efficient document processing, retrieval, and management.
Qualifications
- High School education or equivalent required; Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree preferred.
- Minimum of 7 years as a litigation administrative assistant in a law firm. Legal Secretary Certificate from an ABA-accredited school preferred.
- At least 7 years of civil litigation calendaring and court filing experience.
- Familiarity with Intellectual Property and class action litigation. Strong knowledge of motions, discovery, evidence, and litigation documentation, as well as court rules, procedures, and deadlines.
- Knowledge of e-filing in State Courts in Bay Area counties (Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo), Federal, and Appellate Courts. Significant experience with Federal courts required.
Please send resume and cover letter to Debbie Sanders, Director of HR and Operations, Hoge Fenton: debbie.sanders@hogefenton.com
Job Duties and Responsibilities
- Maintains client and administrative files. Opens and closes matters promptly and following firm and practice group policies and procedures; obtains new client matter information, such as contact information, scope of engagement, fee agreement, conflict results, financial and corporate standing reports, and conflict waivers; enters new client matter information in ProLaw and NetDocs, and keeps updated throughout engagement.
- Communicates with clients and other parties electronically and by phone at the direction of their assigned timekeepers.
- Greets and assists clients and other visitors to the firm; arranges parking and building security access, reserves conference room, and ensures technical needs are arranged.
- Provides meticulous document formatting. Creates, formats, proofreads, redlines, and edits drafts of documents, including administrative correspondence and all forms of litigation documents for filing with the court.
- Schedules and reserves dates for hearings with California and Federal Courts.
- Maintains attorney calendars; schedules conferences and meetings; schedules, calculates, records, and monitors all court appearance dates and associated deadlines; calendars depositions and discovery deadlines
- Arrange court reporters for hearings and depositions.
- Responsible for profiling documents into the document management system following practice group guidelines during the course of the engagement.
- Manages incoming mail process: copy/download, scan, name, and file mail for attorneys according to practice group guidelines; calendar dates, and determine next steps based on the content of the correspondence.
- Organize exhibits, documents, evidence, briefs, and appendices; prepare documents and binders for hearings, trials, and meetings.
Other administrative duties
- Monitor and assist attorneys with the status of receivables.
- Review and approve vendor invoices and ensure they are submitted to the accounts payable department.
- Coordinate attorneys’ travel arrangements; book airfare and hotel, and make other arrangements as needed.
- Keeps record of attorney’s expenses for submission to the Accounting Department.
- Register attorneys for professional, business development, and continuing education events.
- Assists with attorney timekeeping, as well as invoice reviewing and processing.
- Assists with other duties as assigned.
- Backs up assigned team members.
Qualifications
Education
- High School education or equivalent required; Associate’s or Bachelor’s degree preferred.
Experience
- Minimum of 7 years as a litigation administrative assistant. Legal Secretary Certificate from an ABA-accredited school preferred.
- At least 7 years of civil litigation calendaring and court filing experience.
- Familiarity with Intellectual Property and class action litigation. Strong knowledge of motions, discovery, evidence, and litigation documentation, as well as court rules, procedures, and deadlines.
Skills
- Strong skills in Microsoft Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint. Familiarity with NetDocs and ProLaw a plus.
- Strong word processing skills using Microsoft Word, especially formatting pleadings, preparing Table of Contents and Table of Authorities, and redlining.
- Knowledge of legal calendaring is required.
- Knowledge of e-filing in State Courts in Bay Area counties (Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo), Federal, and Appellate Courts . Significant experience with Federal courts required.
- Ability to handle the workload for three or more attorneys and/or paralegals.
- Keen attention to detail.
- Strong proofreading skills.
- Ability to manage multiple priorities and work under the pressure of deadlines.
- Ability to think critically and analytically in a pressured environment.
- Maintains a method of tracking one’s own assigned tasks in an effective and systematic manner.
- Works efficiently and effectively using the firm’s systems, software, and procedures.
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills to interact with attorneys, clients, vendors, court personnel, and other staff members.
Personal Attributes
- Strong work ethic.
- Well organized.
- Punctual and reliable.
- Practices and fosters an atmosphere of teamwork and cooperation; work productively and cooperatively with other employees.
- Ability to constantly adapt and develop skills as they become necessary.
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