ATTORNEY-ADVISER (GENERAL)

Applications will be accepted from all qualified candidates.

This position is in the excepted service. It is filled by an alternative hiring process and is not in the competitive civil service.

Position is located in: DFAS Office of General Counsel, Military & Civilian Pay Law Directorate, Indianapolis, IN. Education requirements are listed in the Qualifications section above. GS-11 Qualifications: Assignments require the first professional law degree (LL.B. or J.D.) and active membership in the bar of the highest court of a State, U.S. commonwealth, U.S. territory, or the District of Columbia. In addition, one of the following requirements must be satisfied:
1. One year of professional legal experience.
2. The second professional law degree (Master of Laws (LL.M.)) provided it required 1 full academic year of graduate study.
3. Superior law student work or activities as demonstrated by one of the following:
a. Academic standing in the upper third of the attorney's law school graduating class.
b. Work or achievement of significance on one of the attorney's law school's official law reviews or journals.
c. Special high-level honors for academic excellence in law school (e.g., membership in the Order of the Coif, winning of a moot court competition, or membership on the moot court team that represents the attorney's law school in competition with other law schools).
d. Full-time or continuous participation in a legal aid program as opposed to one-time, intermittent, or casual participation.
e. Significant summer law office clerk experience.
f. Other evidence of clearly superior accomplishment or achievement.

GS-12 Qualifications: Assignments involve extremely complex and difficult legal questions requiring extensive research, analysis, and evaluation of information in controversial scientific, financial, corporate, and medical engineering areas, or in other highly technical areas. Cases have an important impact on major private or public interests. Attorneys at this level are entrusted with the initial preparation of proposed solutions to projects. To this end they conduct investigations to obtain facts, study legal precedents, make recommendations, and prepare necessary documents. They receive preliminary instructions, their commitment authority is limited, and their completed written work is carefully reviewed. Assignments require the first professional law degree (LL.B. or J.D.) and active membership in the bar of the highest court of a State, U.S. commonwealth, U.S. territory, or the District of Columbia. In addition, one of the following requirements must be satisfied:
a. Two years of professional legal experience at or equivalent to the GS-11 level.
b. The second professional law degree (LL.M.) plus 1 year of professional legal experience at or equivalent to the GS-11 level.
2. An attorney without experience may, in unusual cases, be employed at the GS-12 or equivalent level provided the individual has advanced educational attainments substantially beyond those required for work at the GS-11 or equivalent level, and his or her education clearly indicates ability to perform work of the type to be assigned; for example, education that included courses directly pertinent to the work of the agency. The essential point in such cases is to ensure that the individual's education has enabled him or her to step into complex legal work characteristic of the GS-12 or equivalent level, and to operate with the degree of independence and responsibility typical of that level.

GS-13 Qualifications: Assignments require the first professional law degree (LL.B. or J.D.) and active membership in the bar of the highest court of a State, U.S. commonwealth, U.S. territory, or the District of Columbia. In addition, the attorney shall have professional legal experience in excess of 2 years that is commensurate with the duties and responsibilities of the position.