Legal Proofreader

New York, NY or Washington D.C.

Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m.-5:30 p.m. 

This position is responsible for reviewing the spelling, grammar, formatting, citations, and style of complex legal documentation to ensure accuracy and compliance with industry standard guidelines and practice group standards. Additionally, this position proofs and edits internal documentation, web content, and marketing and business development materials for accuracy and in accordance with firm brand/style guidelines.

Responsibilities

• Check citations, case outcomes, Defined Terms, Tables of Authorities, and Tables of Contents in complex legal documents to ensure information is accurate and in compliance with industry standard guidelines.
• Checks cited facts in referenced hyperlinks, and check URL accuracy; check hyperlink functionality.
• Utilize practice group standards to review legal documents.
• Proof legal documents, web content, marketing and business development materials, internal communications and documents, and training materials for grammatical, spelling, typographical, mathematical, and style/formatting errors.
• Proof external and internal web content, as well as internal documentation, to ensure compliance and consistency with firm style guides.
• Ensure formatting and tone of voice are consistent across related texts.
• Use the Track Changes function in Word to edit text and make notes within documents. Mark copy with standard proofreading marks to notify users of necessary changes.
• Compare hand-written markup to electronic document drafts to confirm addition of all requested changes.
• Compare Word documents and PDFs to confirm a word-for-word match. Mark up PDFs using Text Markup tools in Adobe Acrobat.
• Closely monitor the department job request log to meet posted deadlines.
• Provide scanning, copying, and miscellaneous administrative assistance as required.
• Actively research and use available technology to maximize efficiency on tasks.  

Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in English, Journalism, or related field required.
• Two years of experience reviewing and advising on technical content, preferably in a legal environment.

Excellent grammar and punctuation skills. Candidate is responsible for the knowledge and practice of the guidelines in the following manuals:

The Chicago Manual of Style

The Elements of Legal Style

The Associated Press Style Book

The Redbook: A Manual on Legal Style

The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (Federal Courts)

The Greenbook: Texas Rules of Form

• Microsoft Office Suite, Adobe Professional, Nuance.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong attention to detail with an emphasis on accuracy and quality.
• Ability to be thorough, even when tasks are tedious.
• Ability to prioritize work and to balance multiple projects and deadlines.
• Must score 45 wpm with a 2% or less error rate on the firm’s legal typing test and 90% or higher on the firm’s legal spelling test.
• Ability to maintain confidentiality required.