Leslie Jefferson
Chesapeake,VA
Summary
Skilled in legal support for attorneys at all levels, as well as supporting command staff. Highly qualified team player motivated to provide high-quality assistance for the office of General Counsels. Experienced legal support specialist knowledgeable about proceedings related to law. Skilled in document management, administrative support and report writing. Proficient in all software. Highly accurate Paralegal Specialist adept at assisting with diverse areas such as Ethics, contracting, Financial Disclosures, FOIA litigation. Excellent listening, reading and writing skills. Seeking to offer 29 years' experience in legal assistance to a dynamic new role. Excellent leadership, time management and organizational skills. Works with minimal oversight to meet dynamic deadlines and levels of accuracy. Trusted Paralegal offering extensive legal skill set, proficiency in managing large caseloads and capacity to meet deadlines. Collects, organizes, analyzes and disseminates significant amounts of information with attention to detail and accuracy. Exercises independent judgment regarding legal and contractual matters within broadly defined practices and policies. Flexible hard worker ready to learn and contribute to team success.
Overview
13
13
years of professional experience
1
1
Certification
Work History
Paralegal Specialist
Naval Supply Fleet Logistics Center
Norfolk, VA
03.2019 - Current
- Assisted in trial preparation by organizing exhibits, preparing witness files, summarizing deposition transcripts and reviewing trial notebooks
- Work independently, but within the framework of established practices and prescribed procedures
- Perform more complicated assignments under close supervision
- Receives instructions on what to do, the methods to use, what to look for, and what to bring attention to the supervisor
- Provided detailed and specific instructions for developmental tasks and tasks involving the use of unfamiliar formats, methods, and procedures
- Refer problems not covered by the supervisor’s instructions or guides to the supervisor for help or a decision
- Reviewed legal documents and prepared summaries of findings for attorneys
- Prepared pleadings, motions, briefs, memoranda of law and other legal documents under the direction of an attorney
- Conducted research on relevant laws, regulations and legal articles.
Legal Assistant
Region Legion
Norfolk, VA
01.2019 - 03.2019
- Prepare legal materials requiring independent research and analysis
- Interview clients and witnesses to obtain and verify information, maintain suspense or tickler system
- Serve as command notary public, answer routine questions about benefits or procedures
- Coordinate handling of all cases involving adoption, name changes, and wills
- Conduct formal execution of all legal instruments, including but not limited to separation agreements, wills, affidavits, powers of attorney, sales, and transfer of documents
- In addition, provide support for Litigation, Research and Ethics, as well as other administrative and legal office management support
- Research, coordinate, and respond to a wide variety of legal assignments, problems, and situations
- Assist in researching the law, with proper citations, to include statutes, regulations, cases, and opinions as requested by Counsel and/or other attorneys
- Participate in the oversight of program compliance requirements, the administration and coordination of the FLCN Ethics Program, perform litigation system management duties on the litigation docket system and maintain a legal docket to advise staff of due dates on various filings of legal materials and required court appearances
- Provide legal advisory functions and support to all command elements and the command FOIA coordinator and provide legal office and resource management support.
Human Resources Assistant
OCHR Norfolk
Portsmouth, VA
02.2011 - 01.2018
- Revised and maintain the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and provide training and instructions for the records room operations, consolidations, Electronic Official Personnel Folder (eOPF) program, procedures, legal requirements and program enhancements
- Develop and present training on eOPF related topics to all command employees across codes, ranging from GS-04 to GS-14
- Responsible for ensuring the quality of all eOPFs created by the OCHR Norfolk, imported from and transferred to other components or agencies
- Respond to questions from Human Resources professional within OCHR Norfolk, servicing centers and other Federal agencies regarding all aspects of the eOPF and its contents
- This includes but is not limited to uploading and deleting documents, transferring and receiving eOPFs, enhancing and purging documents
- Create and run reports related to documents requiring upload, documents that have been reviewed by supporting personnel and transferring, receiving and inactivating records
- Serves as the command's FOIA Coordinator, responding to requests for records under FOIA
- Receives and evaluates FOIA requests for legal sufficiency and processes the requests in accordance with law, regulations, and procedures established by DOD, SECNAV, OCHR, and local instructions
- For records management-related requests, works with the Counsel in determining whether records are releasable based on case law and business sensitivity
- Redacts releasable documents, ensuring that sensitive material is not released
- Establishes and maintains databases, including FOIA tracking, to ensure compliance with FOIA statutory timeframes
- Prepares correspondence
- Interprets and explains FOIA laws, regulations and policies to the business community, corporate counsel attorneys and other interested parties
- Responds to requests for waiver of fees under FOIA
- Prepares annual FOIA report for review by Counsel and submission to OCHR
- Meet personnel goals of customer organizations by processing and removing reprimands received from labor and employee relations personnel by utilizing human resource information systems, such as DCPDS and eOPF to identify the personnel by position and grade to import or export actions to maintain a level of accountability and quality within the workforce environment
- Research problems and complaints that may not be readily understood or involve complicating factors and resolves such issues that involve the proper maintenance, consolidation or transfer of information within the eOPF or the eOPF itself
- Maintain a high degree of professionalism in dealing with all customers
- In addition, I assist the PPP team with processing severance pay calculations using DCPDS to identify if the employee qualifies for severance pay and computing the formula to arrive at designated figures for employees who are affected by reduction in the workforce, generating job offer letters using DCPDs and provided templates to process and annotate the systems for PPP placements to recruit and retain a quality workforce
- The placement of well qualified PPP registrants into positions ensures that our customers retain a quality workforce by ensuring trained, skilled employees to remain in their positions
- Complete and process TSP-19 forms and interact with Civilian Benefits Center (CBC) to resolve related TSP issues
- Provide training on various EOPF operational functions including: EOPF Transfer Requests, Information Technology (IT) operations including training on Microsoft Suite Applications including Word, Excel, Access, Power Point and Outlook
- Assist the Classification team with identifying position designation records for required security clearances and reviewing OF-8s (position description cover sheets) for accuracy
- Process separation actions for resignations, terminations, removals and separations due to reduction in force
- Process packages for insurance and group life insurance.
Education
Master of Science - Criminal Justice
Saint Leo University
05.2017
Bachelor of Science - Criminal Justice
Saint Leo University
05.2015
Skills
- Litigation Support
- FOIA
- Ethics
- Financial Disclosure Management
- EEOC
- Human Resources
- Administrative assistance
Certification
Notary Public
Accomplishments
- Employee of the Quarter 2017
- Commanders Coin 2022
References
References available upon request.
Timeline
Paralegal Specialist
Naval Supply Fleet Logistics Center
03.2019 - Current
Legal Assistant
Region Legion
01.2019 - 03.2019
Human Resources Assistant
OCHR Norfolk
02.2011 - 01.2018
Master of Science - Criminal Justice
Saint Leo University
Bachelor of Science - Criminal Justice
Saint Leo University
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