Assistant City Attorney/Senior Assistant City Attorney City of Concord, CA Concord, CA 94519

• Providing legal advice to the Planning Commission and Planning Division on Development Code interpretation, land use applications and entitlements (with a focus on interpreting and applying state housing legislation) environmental law, telecommunications law, conflict of interest law, and open meeting laws and procedures.
• Attendance at evening Planning Commission meetings, and other day and evening meetings as needed.
• Assistance with long-range planning projects, including commercial cannabis licensing and permitting, and the update to the Housing Element.
• Assistance with oversight of outside counsel in civil litigation.
• Drafting and reviewing real estate contracts, deeds, ordinances, resolutions, staff reports, municipal policies and procedures, and other legal documents.
• Preparing legal opinions considering the actions, powers, duties, functions, and obligations of City officials.
• The study, interpretation, and application of laws, court decisions, ordinances, and other legal sources in advising the City in legal matters.
• Legal research and analysis on a wide variety of municipal law topics, and effectively communicating sound legal recommendations based on that research and analysis.

• Significant first-hand experience and expertise in CEQA, real estate and land use, the Brown Act, the California Public Records Act, and public contracting, bidding, and prevailing wage laws, and public agency ethics and conflict of interest laws.
• Experience in drafting and interpreting contracts, resolutions, ordinances, and policies and procedures.
• Excellent oral and written communication, legal research and writing, decision-making, and leadership skills.
• Willingness to learn new areas of the law and to adapt to changing assignments needed to meet the City’s evolving legal service needs.
• Experience interacting with appointed and elected officials.
• Dedication to public service, a strong work ethic, and high ethical standards.
• Ability to identify complex problems and review related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.

Position Descriptions

The position description for Assistant City Attorney is below; to view the position description for Senior Assistant City Attorney, please click HERE

ASSISTANT CITY ATTORNEY

Purpose
Performs professional legal work; assists with the administration and control of the City Attorney’s Office; acts on behalf of the City Attorney in the latter’s absence; performs related and other work as required.

Equipment, Methods & Guidelines
Uses a variety of legal references describing Federal, State, and local laws, ordinances, policies, procedures, and decisions of courts or quasi -judicial bodies. Uses written and oral language skills.

Working Conditions
Include inside work involving travel and frequent attendance at evening meetings. Also include occasional irregular hours necessary to meet deadlines.

Physical Demands
Emphasize speech, hearing, and vision.

Supervisory Guidance Received/Given
Supervision received is frequently characterized by administrative support and control intended to define objectives and problems. Although the full range of supervisory authority is not delegated, an incumbent does provide lead direction to clerical staff in order to accomplish work assignments.

Allocation Factors/Distinctions
Appointive position in the City’s Exempt Service.

Essential Job Functions
Essential functions, as defined under the Americans with Disabilities Act, may include any of the following tasks, knowledge, skills and other characteristics. The list that follows is not intended as a comprehensive list; it is intended to provide a representative summary of the major duties and responsibilities. Incumbent(s) may not be required to perform all duties listed, and may be required to perform additional, position-specific tasks.

Examples of duties include, but are not limited to:

Qualifications:Knowledge

• Administration and Management – Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, leadership technique, and coordination of people and resources.

• Clerical – Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.

• Computers and Electronics – Knowledge of computer hardware and software.

• Customer and Personal Service – Knowledge of principles and processes for providing (internal or external) customer services including customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for service, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.

• Economics and Accounting – Knowledge of economic and accounting principles and practices, and the analysis and reporting of financial data.

• Education and Training – Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.

• English Language – Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.

• Law and Government – Knowledge of laws, legal codes, government regulations, and agency rules.

• Mathematics – Knowledge of arithmetic, statistics, and their applications.

• Personnel and Human Resources – Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, and personnel information systems.

Skills

• Active Learning – Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.

• Active Listening – Giving appropriate attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.

• Attention to Detail – Maintaining appropriate attention to detail based on the complexity of work performed.

• Communication and Comprehension – Conveying written and/or non-written information effectively; comprehending and understanding documentation and verbal or visual communications.

• Complex Problem Solving – Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.

• Critical Thinking – Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.

• Instructing – Teaching others how to do something; selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when teaching new things.

• Judgment and Decision Making – Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.

• Management of Financial Resources – Determining how resources will be allocated to accomplish work getting done, and accounting for these expenditures.

• Management of Personnel Resources – Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.

• Mathematics – Using mathematics to solve problems.

• Monitoring – Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.

• Negotiation – Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.

• Persuasion – Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.

• Quality Control Analysis – Conducting tests and inspections of products, services, or processes to evaluate quality or performance.

• Service Orientation – Actively looking for ways to help people.

• Social Perceptiveness – Being aware of others’ reactions and understanding why they react as they do.

• Time Management – Managing one’s own time and the time of others.

• Troubleshooting – Determining causes of operating errors and deciding what to do about it.

Abilities

• Category Flexibility – The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.

• Deductive Reasoning – The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.

• Fluency of Ideas – The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic.

• Inductive Reasoning – The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).

• Information Ordering – The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).

• Mathematical Reasoning and Number Facility – The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem; the ability to perform calculations quickly and correctly.

• Originality – The ability to come up with original or novel ideas for a certain situation, or to develop creative ways to solve a problem.

• Problem Sensitivity – The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong.

• Selective Attention – The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.

• Speed of Closure – The ability to quickly make sense of, combine, and organize information into meaningful patterns.

• Time Sharing – The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information.

Education/Experience

Education: Possession of a Juris Doctorate degree from an accredited law school.

Experience: Three years’ experience as a practicing attorney, typically including rendering advice to elected and/or appointed officials and employees on questions of law; conducting and supervising litigation for, or in defense of, a public agency; preparing briefs; and, presenting arguments in court and before administrative bodies without supervision.

Other: Other Requirements
Active membership in the State Bar of California.

A California Driver’s License and satisfactory driving record are conditions of initial and continued employment.