Civil Litigation Attorney

Position Description and Nature of the General Civil Practice: The Civil Division’s general civil
practice is both sophisticated and complex, and includes every phase of litigation, including discovery,
use of experts, pretrial motion practice and trial work. It is sophisticated because of the level of
attention, trial preparation, and resources the Division is able to bring to bear on each case that it
handles. Team defense is practiced at PDS. Depending on the nature of the criminal matter and its
posture, there is frequently close coordination with the criminal defense attorney. PDS’s resources
allow us to staff even complex civil cases. For example, the Civil Division has utilized the services of
medical experts, drug addiction experts, housing experts, psychologists, forensic experts (in the area
of cell phone and tower data analysis), DNA experts, fingerprint experts, child abuse/pediatric medical
experts, and even a cultural anthropologist in a child abuse and neglect case. Our Civil Division
attorneys have ready access to the Trial Division’s Forensic Practice Group to assist with certain types
of scientific evidence.

Beyond being interdisciplinary, the Civil Division’s general civil practice is also made complex because
many cases generate questions that affect a client’s criminal procedure protections. Fifth Amendment
concerns are implicated in any case where the client has a parallel criminal case pending or potential
criminal exposure. As an initial matter, this means in many cases clients are not available to testify in
the civil case. More broadly, what is done in the civil case, for example in discovery, implicates the
Sixth Amendment’s Assistance of Counsel and Right to Present a Defense Clauses, each of which
strongly protect against requiring the defense to disclose its evidence, strategies or theories to the
government. Because these constitutional safeguards can be adversely impacted by how the civil
case is handled, these concerns necessarily drive many tactical and strategic decisions in the
Division’s civil cases. This dynamic adds a layer of complexity to discovery. Thus, civil discovery and
work-product issues abound in many of our cases. The cases are intellectually challenging and require
the highest level of skills to navigate these issues and achieve good outcomes for our clients.

Civil Division generalists must be able to work on a broad array of civil issues and be comfortable
lawyering in unfamiliar areas of the law, often with short notice or on an emergency basis. Further, the
attorney must be able to work well with clients and work collaboratively with colleagues in the Civil
Division and across PDS’s other Divisions. Other responsibilities include assisting in the preparation
of practice guide materials on civil issues for use by PDS’s other Divisions and advising PDS attorneys
in other Divisions on a wide array of civil legal issues.