Deputy City Attorney - Dependency & Mental Health Team - City Attorney's Office (8177)

Company Description

Appointment Type: Permanent Exempt (PEX) position; individuals who are appointed to Exempt Positions are appointed at the pleasure of their appointing officer and are considered to be "at-will."

• Application Opening: July 16, 2025
• Application Deadline: Continuous, earliest close 5:00 p.m. Wednesday, July 30, 2025
• Compensation Range: $153,140 - $268,320
• Recruitment ID: RTF0158061-01152111

The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office is looking for a qualified and motivated litigator to join its Dependency & Mental Health Team (Team), to perform juvenile dependency work. Dependency work is a high volume, fast paced, and confidential court-based practice.

About the Office

The San Francisco City Attorney’s Office is an innovative, nationally-recognized municipal law office working to protect and advance the rights and interests of the City and County of San Francisco and its residents. With over 340 talented and dedicated employees, the Office provides exceptional legal services to the City’s Mayor, Board of Supervisors, officials, and departments. Our work empowers City leaders with effective, responsive, and creative legal solutions and representation so they can deliver critical public services, and our affirmative advocacy enhances the lives and wellbeing of San Francisco’s residents and visitors.

The Office recognizes that diversity in the backgrounds, identities, ideas, and lived experiences of our employees enriches our workplace and enhances our work. We aspire to recruit, employ, retain, and promote talented individuals representing the full spectrum of our community, and welcome all candidates, including candidates of any race, religion, national origin, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, and age, and candidates with disabilities. We have a clear vision: to be the place where a diverse mix of people want to come and stay, grow professionally, and find purpose and engagement, and where all employees feel welcomed and respected for their full authentic selves, and valued for their work and contributions to the Office and the City. To learn more about the Office’s efforts to provide an inclusive workplace where employees feel they belong and can meaningfully contribute, please visit: https://www.sfcityattorney.org/aboutus/dei/

Currently, the Office offers a hybrid remote work schedule for eligible employees, with three days onsite and up to two days remote. This schedule may change to conform to Citywide standards of four days onsite work.

To learn more about the City Attorney’s Office please visit: https://www.sfcityattorney.org/

Job Description

About the Team

The Team is a collaborative and dynamic group of 14 attorneys, two paralegals, two legal secretaries, and one legal assistant who handle two confidential court-based practices – dependency and mental health (conservatorship and CARE Court) cases. In its dependency practice, the Team represents the interests of abused and neglected children in San Francisco. There are nine dependency attorneys who advise the City’s Human Services Agency (Agency) prior to the filing of dependency petitions and represent the Agency in court in all phases of dependency litigation.

Every party to a dependency action – both parents and the child – has court appointed counsel. Any hearing can be set for contest, from the initial hearing (detention hearing), jurisdiction and disposition, review hearings (that occur every six months while parents receive reunification services), hearings to terminate services, hearings to terminate parental rights, and subsequent review hearings for youth who are in long term foster care or on a pre-adoption track. In dependency, parents are afforded court-appointed counsel and may appeal any court finding – with the exception of the detention hearing. Our appellate specialist handles all writs and appeals for both our dependency and mental health cases.

In its mental health practice, the Team advises the City’s Public Conservator (PC) and represents them in court proceedings on Lanterman-Petris-Short conservatorships. They also represent the City’s Department of Public Health (DPH) in CARE Court proceedings.

Deputy City Attorney Position and Responsibilities

Attorneys assigned to dependency work juggle caseloads of close to 100 cases at various stages in the dependency process. In addition to working with social workers, they work with professionals such as doctors (child abuse specialists), child psychologists and psychiatrist