Applicants for attorney positions must possess a professional law degree (LL.B. or J.D.) and have admission to the Bar. Additional requirements are as follows: At the GS-11 level, applicants must have a year of professional legal experience or the second professional law degree (LL.M), if it required one full academic year of graduate study. Additionally, the first professional law degree can be fully qualifying provided the applicant's record shows superior law student work or activities as demonstrated by:
academic standing in the upper third of his/her law school graduating class;
work or achievement of significance on his/her law school's official law review;
special high-level honors for academic excellence in law school;
winning of a moot court competition or membership on the moot court team which represents the law school in competition with other law schools; or
full-time or continuous participation in a legal aid program as opposed to a single, intermittent or casual participation, or significant summer law-office clerk experience, or equivalent evidence of clearly superior achievement.
For the GS-12 level applicants must have 2 years of professional legal experience (at least one of which must have been at or equivalent to the GS-11 level); or the second professional law degree (LL.M.) plus one year of professional legal experience (at/or equivalent to the GS-11 level).For positions above the GS-12 level applicants must have such professional legal experience in excess of two years as is commensurate with the duties and responsibilities of the position being filled.
