Senior Legal Editor

at  Washington State Bar Association

EDUCATION REQUIRED:

• Graduation from an accredited law school with Juris Doctorate or successful completion of WSBA Law Clerk Program.
• Membership in a state bar, preferably the Washington State Bar Association.

EDUCATION PREFERRED:

• Bachelor’s degree in English or Journalism

EXPERIENCE REQUIRED:

• Three years of substantive editorial experience analyzing legal issues and concepts and identifying and correcting legal errors in material written by lawyers and other subject matter experts.
• Two years of experience in managing staff (performance management and coaching, annual evaluations, etc.).
• Experience with legal research and cite-checking (including use of online research tools such as Lex Fastcase; Lexis; and Westlaw).
• Experience in copyediting to conform to house styles: high level of familiarity with style guides such as the Associated Press Style Guide, Chicago Manual of Style, The Bluebook, and the Washington Supreme Court Office of Reporter of Decisions Style Sheet.
• Experience with Microsoft Office Suite in a Microsoft 365 environment with particular emphasis on Word (especially Track Changes and version control), Excel, Outlook, and Teams; experience in editing in Adobe Acrobat.
• Experience drafting annual budgets and monitoring actuals against budget throughout the fiscal year.

EXPERIENCE PREFERRED:

• Law practice or other basis for familiarity with Washington’s legal community and legal culture
• Writing marketing copy.

COMPETENCIES (SKILLS/ABILITIES) REQUIRED:

• Ability to manage volunteers effectively in order to recruit them to participate, to enforce deadlines, and to make their volunteer experience a positive one for them.
• Ability to communicate tactfully with volunteer authors to resolve conflicts over legal issues and maintain the reputation of deskbooks as objective, authoritative treatises on substantive areas of Washington law.
• Ability to exercise a professional demeanor, sound judgment, and a consistently high level of service orientation in interactions with a potentially demanding membership in a variety of situations.
• Strong organizational skills and ability to work independently, set priorities, manage multiple projects, and meet and enforce deadlines in an extremely detail-oriented environment.
• Ability to move between “big picture” strategic planning and highly detailed work like proofreading.
• Superior written and oral communication skills.
• Excellent proofreading ability.
• Ability to negotiate effectively with vendors, publishing partners, advertising sales representatives, etc., and to work with the WSBA Office of General Counsel to review and propose revisions to contracts with such entities.
• Basic competency of office equipment including phone, videoconferencing tools, and photocopier.

COMPETENCIES (SKILLS/ABILITIES PREFERRED):

• Familiarity with conversion of content from print to digital formats.
• Experience with advertising sales (digital and print) for magazines.

THE WSBA IS COMMITTED TO FOSTERING A DIVERSE ENVIRONMENT AND IS PROUD TO BE AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY EMPLOYER. ALL QUALIFIED APPLICANTS WILL RECEIVE CONSIDERATION FOR EMPLOYMENT WITHOUT REGARD TO RACE, COLOR, RELIGION, GENDER, GENDER IDENTITY OR EXPRESSION, SEXUAL ORIENTATION, NATIONAL ORIGIN, GENETICS, DISABILITY, AGE, OR VETERAN STATUS.

The statements contained in this job announcement are not necessarily all-inclusive; additional duties may be assigned, and requirements may vary from time to time.
Washington State Bar Association (WSBA) Compensation Philosophy and Compensation Grid

PURPOSE AND POSITION SUMMARY:

The Senior Legal Editor ensures the quality and legal accuracy of a library of comprehensive legal reference deskbooks relied on by members of the Washington State Bar Association. In additional to editorial oversight, this position is responsible for the production (in print and digital delivery), marketing, and fiscal aspects of deskbooks.
This position also has editorial and fiscal oversight of the WSBA’s member magazine, Washington State Bar News, (in print and digital delivery), vetting submissions to ensure that published articles will be of interest to practicing lawyers and editing all content in each issue for style, accuracy, and compliance with parameters established in court rules and legal precedent for permissible publication by a mandatory bar association.
As part of its responsibility for the magazine, this position manages the relationship with the WSBA Career Center, the organization’s partner-led job-posting center. The Senior Legal Editor is a member of the Communications and Outreach Department’s management team.

PRIMARY JOB DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:

Deskbooks:

• Manage the fiscal, editorial, production, marketing, and fulfillment functions of WSBA Deskbooks in print and online versions.
• Manage partnerships with outside entities to license deskbooks for online and e-book release.
• Serve as contract sponsor for such licensing agreements.
• Plan and produce annual budget for deskbook line, including topics, formats, and pricing, and track actual revenues and costs against budget projections throughout the fiscal year.
• Develop new titles (acquisitions) via monitoring legal developments, negotiations with Bar Sections, and communication with other CLE publishers nationally.
• Set and enforce quality standards and best practices for deskbooks; exercise final decision-making authority regarding acceptance of submissions for publication.
• Help recruit volunteer authors and editors and manage those relationships if issues arise.
• Supervise the Deskbook Coordinator II, including performance of all management functions for personnel issues (hiring, retention, coaching, training, performance evaluations, etc.) and providing leadership, strategic visions, and oversight for their work.

Washington State Bar News:

• Oversee team of five (only one of whom is a direct report) in producing nine issues per year of the WSBA’s official member magazine.
• Guide processes for content development and provide review—or recruit peer reviewers—to evaluate substantive legal content.
• Perform final review over all content prior to publication.
• Develop and oversees the budget, and monitor efforts of outside ad sales company and Career Center, to reach budget revenue goals in order to cover costs of producing the magazine.
• Supervise the WA State Bar News Editor, including performance of all management functions for personnel issues (hiring, retention, coaching, training, performance evaluations, etc.) and providing leadership, strategic vision, and oversight for their work.

Performs other duties as needed and assigned.