Deputy District Attorney I
Minimum Qualifications
Professional License: Current active membership in the State Bar of California.
Experience: Completion of a law clerk program in a District Attorney's office is highly desirable.
License: Possession of a valid driver’s license at the appropriate level including special endorsements as required by the State of California to perform the essential job functions of the position.
Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities
Knowledge of: the duties, powers, limitations, and authorities of the Office of the District Attorney; the principles of civil or criminal law, principles of trial procedure, and rules of evidence; legal research methods and judicial procedures; written and oral communications, including language mechanics, syntax and English composition.
Ability to: research, analyze and apply legal principles, facts, evidence and precedents to legal problems; establish and maintain effective working relationships with staff members, departmental representatives, county officials, the courts, law enforcement agency officials, and the general public; understand and accept differences in human behavior, and cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
Selection Procedure & Some Helpful Tips When Applying
- Your application information and your responses to the supplemental questions are evaluated and taken into consideration throughout the entire selection process.
- You should list all employers and positions held within the last ten years in the work history section of your application. Be as thorough as possible when responding to the supplemental questions.
- You may include history beyond ten years if related to the position for which you are applying. If you held multiple positions with one employer, list out each position separately.
- Failure to follow these instructions may impact your competitiveness in this process or may result in disqualification.
Please visit Getting a Job with the County of Sonoma to review more detailed information about the application, examination, and department selection processes.
Responses to supplemental questions will be scored using position-specific criteria. Please provide specific and detailed responses of a reasonable length to allow for thorough assessment of your qualifications. Responses which state "See Resume" or "See Application" may be considered insufficient and therefore may not be scored.
The selection procedure will consist of the following examination:
An Application & Supplemental Questionnaire Appraisal Examination(weight 100%) will be conducted to evaluate each applicant's application and supplemental questionnaire for satisfaction of minimum qualifications (pass/not pass); and for educational coursework, training, experience, knowledge, and abilities which relate to this position. Each applicant will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
- Relevance of work history, related experience, and achieved level of education and/or training as described in the application and responses to the supplemental questions.
Candidates demonstrating possession of the minimum qualifications will be placed on an employment list in order of most qualified to least qualified based on the achieved score received in the Application & Supplemental Questionnaire Appraisal Examination. Scores may be adjusted based on such factors as number of candidates, anticipated vacancies, past practice, and natural breaks in the scores achieved by this group of candidates.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
It is the policy of law enforcement departments (Sheriff, District Attorney, and Probation), in the County of Sonoma, that job candidates complete a thorough background investigation process prior to employment. This policy is imperative in order to keep the department's employees and the public safe, and to maintain high standards in the law enforcement community. Candidates referred to departments for a selection interview are typically required to sign authorization and release forms enabling such an investigation. Failure to sign prescribed forms will result in the candidate not being considered further for that vacancy. Reference information will not be made available to applicants.
The background investigation will include a thorough assessment of a candidate's personal, employment, educational, criminal, and credit history. The investigation may include, but is not necessarily limited to: use of prescription and/or other drugs, reports from former employers, friends, family members, educational institutions, law enforcement agencies, credit reports, court reports, public records search, and/or other relevant sources. Candidates must be honest and forthcoming about information that may arise during the background process. Deception during any portion of this process is grounds for disqualification, even after employment.
Depending on the assignment, candidates may be required to take a pre-employment medical examination and may be required to take a polygraph examination. All candidates for law enforcement positions are required to undergo drug testing as part of the selection process. Additionally, candidates may be required to take a pre-employment psychological and physical abilities examination. The results of these examinations and the background investigation shall be confidential and shall not be available to the candidate for review. Failure to pass the background investigation will eliminate a candidate from the employment process. You may also review the Job Classification Screening Schedule to determine the requirements for this position.
Any issues that arise during the investigation process will be assessed and judgment and discretion will be used to determine the employability of the candidate. Where there is evidence of a candidate's past use of controlled substances, many factors shall be used to determine the employability of the individual such as pattern of use, kind of drug used, circumstances of the start of the drug use, treatment, behavior and attitude since discontinuance, etc. Please note that a history of using controlled substances does not result in automatic disqualification from the selection process. Prior to disqualifying any candidate whose profile falls within the provisions of the policy, the candidate shall be given the opportunity to present any and all evidence of mitigating facts which the candidate feels should be considered by the hiring authority.