Legal Assistant - Trial

Senior Litigation Legal Assistant Location: San Diego, California / Hybrid or Remote Considered Position Type: Full-Time Experience Required: 10+ years Practice Focus: High-stakes civil litigation, probate and trust litigation, trial work We are seeking an exceptional, highly experienced Senior Litigation Legal Assistant to support one of California’s leading trial attorneys. This is a demanding, fast-paced role for a polished legal professional who takes ownership, anticipates needs, and performs exceptionally well under pressure. The ideal candidate has extensive California litigation experience, is comfortable managing complex and document-intensive matters, and is willing to work additional hours when trial deadlines, hearings, filings, or case demands require it. Probate and trust-litigation experience is strongly preferred. Responsibilities • Provide high-level legal and administrative support in complex, high-stakes litigation matters. • Draft, format, proofread, revise, and finalize pleadings, motions, declarations, discovery, subpoenas, correspondence, trial documents, and other attorney-directed work product. • Prepare documents for filing and service; ensure compliance with applicable California and federal court rules, local rules, formatting requirements, and filing deadlines. • Handle electronic filing and service through California state-court systems, San Diego Superior Court systems, federal CM/ECF where applicable, OneLegal, and other approved filing/service providers. • Maintain and independently manage litigation calendars, including court dates, filing deadlines, discovery deadlines, motion schedules, depositions, mediations, settlement conferences, trial-readiness conferences, and trial dates. • Monitor court dockets, notices, tentative rulings, and orders; immediately calendar deadlines and follow up on attorney action items. • Coordinate and calendar depositions, hearings, mediations, client meetings, witness meetings, expert meetings, and trial-related logistics. • Organize, maintain, and update electronic and physical case files, pleadings indexes, correspondence files, discovery records, exhibit lists, witness lists, document chronologies, and case-status reports. • Assist with all phases of discovery, including document collection, production organization, subpoenas, service coordination, tracking discovery requests and responses, and preparing attorney-ready discovery materials. • Support hearing and trial preparation, including preparation of trial binders, electronic exhibit sets, witness files, jury-instruction materials, demonstratives, pleadings binders, deposition designations, and courtroom logistics. • Coordinate with clients, co-counsel, opposing counsel, vendors, court personnel, court reporters, process servers, experts, and witnesses in a professional, responsive manner. • Identify missing information, looming deadlines, incomplete assignments, and procedural issues early; promptly elevate them to the supervising attorney. • Work extended hours, including evenings and occasional weekends, when needed to meet trial, hearing, filing, and emergency-case deadlines. • Maintain strict confidentiality, professionalism, accuracy, and sound judgment in all work. California litigation assistants commonly handle e-filing, deadline management, legal-document preparation, discovery support, and trial/hearing exhibit materials; this role requires mastery of those functions rather than entry-level familiarity.[roberthalf +2] Required Qualifications • At least 10 years of progressively responsible legal-assistant, litigation-secretary, or senior-paralegal experience in a California law firm or comparable legal environment. • Substantial experience supporting attorneys in civil litigation through hearings and trial. • Strong working knowledge of California Superior Court filing practices, California Rules of Court, local court procedures, service requirements, and litigation calendaring. • Demonstrated proficiency with electronic filing, electronic service, court-docket monitoring, and filing vendors, including OneLegal or comparable systems. • Advanced proficiency in Microsoft Word, Outlook, Adobe Acrobat, Excel, PDF creation/OCR, document comparison, redaction, and electronic document organization. • Ability to format and finalize complex pleadings, motions, discovery, declarations, subpoenas, trial materials, and correspondence with exceptional accuracy. • Excellent proofreading skills, including citations, captions, signatures, exhibits, tables of contents/authorities, pagination, and filing compliance. • Strong written and verbal communication skills; excellent client service and professional telephone presence. • Ability to handle multiple urgent, confidential, and competing assignments without losing attention to detail. • Proven dependability, maturity, discretion, and willingness to work at a demanding pace. Preferred Qualifications • Experience in California probate, trust, conservatorship, fiduciary, estate, or related litigation. • Experience with San Diego Superior Court and its local procedures. • Familiarity with complex civil matters, business disputes, real-property disputes, judgment enforcement, appellate support, or contested probate/trust proceedings. • Experience preparing trial exhibits, exhibit lists, witness lists, trial notebooks, deposition designations, and courtroom-ready electronic files. • Experience with case-management and document-management systems, such as Clio, Filevine, MyCase, Smokeball, NetDocuments, iManage, Relativity, or comparable platforms. • Paralegal certificate or certification is welcome but not required where the candidate has superior long-term California litigation experience. Work Style This is not a routine administrative position. The successful candidate will be organized, assertive, calm under pressure, responsive, and able to operate with urgency while maintaining excellent judgment and precision. The attorney and matters demand a person who can move quickly, spot problems before they become emergencies, and bring order to complicated files and trial schedules. Compensation Compensation will be competitive and commensurate with senior-level California litigation experience, technical proficiency, reliability, and demonstrated trial capability. The position may be structured as full-time employment or, for an exceptional candidate, an ongoing contract engagement. California Compliance All substantive legal work will be specifically delegated and performed under the direction and supervision of the attorney. The position does not authorize providing legal advice, representing clients, or independently practicing law.[codes.findlaw +1]