Washington State Paralegal Association

Primary Purpose

A commissioner’s administrative assistant acts as a confidential administrative secretary and serves as principal paralegal assistant to a commissioner or commissioners of the Court of Appeals.  The administrative assistant relieves the commissioner and legal staff of clerical and administrative duties.

Our Mission:  To serve the People by providing an accessible forum for the independent and impartial review of cases, while maintaining an atmosphere that respects the dignity and safeguards the rights of all.

Job #:             2025-XX

Status:           Regular, Full-Time* 

Location:        Spokane, Washington

Salary:           Range 60: $67,716 - $88,800 per year (DOQ)

Opens:           March 1, 2025

Closes:           March 31, 2025. Candidates are encouraged to apply early. AOC reserves the right to close the recruitment at any time.

Duties and Responsibilities

Note:  The following is a listing of typical duties; the actual duties of a position may not include all those listed or may include other work of a similar nature.

• Types legal correspondence, opinions, orders, prehearing memoranda and rulings; checks legal citations and quotations for accuracy; verifies facts in trial court record; sets up and maintains correspondence and case files.
  
• Schedules motion hearings; notifies counsel; enters appropriate information on the calendaring and computer system.
  
• At the commissioner’s direction, drafts rulings for cases which have been set on the commissioners’ calendar for procedural failures (failure to pay the filing fee, failure to file the brief, etc.) and rulings requiring court reporters to show cause why they should not be sanctioned for failing to timely prepare the appellate record.
  
• Drafts basic rulings when appellate costs are contested.
  
• Monitors perfection of appeals in cases involving child dependencies and termination of parental rights.
  
• Communicates with parties requesting emergency hearings; distributes emergency requests for relief to commissioners and schedules emergency hearings accordingly.
  
• Assists in the preparation of orders on personal restraint petitions for the deciding judge.
  
• Enters appropriate information for databases for all matters pending in the commissioners’ office and produces reports and lists of pending work assignments from that database.
  
• Drafts letters to counsel for commissioners’ signatures in cases where there are problems with the record or in response to inquiries.
  
• Coordinates scheduling of settlement conferences and prepares settlement conference files for assigned commissioner.
  
• Maintains commissioners’ law library, including filing and indexing of volumes, supplements and periodicals. Performs other duties as required.
  

Key Competencies

Knowledge of:   principles of legal research and writing; secretarial and office management practices, procedures and equipment; Washington State court system, procedures and rules; relevant citation and cite-checking sources; legal terminology, forms and documents; English grammar, punctuation and spelling, and arithmetic.

Ability to: compose correspondence on complex matters; independently prepare reports and correspondence; exercise good judgment in evaluating situations and making decisions; proofread accurately; maintain confidentiality; establish and maintain effective working relationships with judges, commissioners and other court staff; learn and apply policies and procedures; perform research of legal citations; operate word-processing equipment; type rapidly and accurately, and understand and follow written and oral instructions.

Qualifications and Credentials

MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS

• Two-year Associate of Arts degree in legal secretarial science or related field or a paralegal degree;
  

and 

• Five (5) years’ experience as a legal secretary or paralegal.  At the discretion of the hiring Division, a legal secretarial certificate or equivalent may be substituted for an AA degree or paralegal degree on a year-for-year basis.
• Paralegal experience or administrative legal experience may be substituted for education on a year-for-year basis.
  
• Word-processing skills required.

How to Apply

For more information about the position, 

to review the job description, application submission requirements, supplemental questions, inquire about benefits  please contact the AOC Human Resource Office, at (360) 705-5337, or fax (360) 586-4409, or via email to Recruitment@courts.wa.gov.