General Attorney

General Attorney

Department: Department of Veterans Affairs

Location(s): Anywhere in the U.S. (remote job), United States

Salary Range: $125776 - $197200 Per Year

Job Summary: The Office of Accountability and Whistleblower Protection (OAWP) is committed to ensuring accountability within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). OAWP was statutorily established by the VA Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017 (Accountability Act), P.L. 115-41, and its functions are codified under 38 U.S.C. § 323.

Major Duties:

• The Investigative Attorney provides legal advice and assistance to OAWP investigators, reviews investigative work-product, and assists in preparing reports of investigation and recommendations, including for disciplinary action against VA senior leaders and supervisors. Legal Advice and Assistance: The incumbent provides thorough expert legal advice and assistance to OAWP investigators and staff related to the collection and documentation of facts, documents, witness testimony, and other information necessary to develop an evidentiary record. The incumbent readily identifies appropriate sources of information. The incumbent independently conducts extensive legal research and evaluation of various theories and subjects and applies such legal analysis to the facts obtained in the evidentiary record. The incumbent memorializes factual and legal analyses in various work products, including reports of investigation, correspondence, legal opinions, and memoranda. The incumbent assists in preparing reports of investigation and recommendations, including for disciplinary action, pertaining to senior leader accountability and whistleblower retaliation matters. The incumbent ensures the reports of investigation are succinct, legally sufficient, cite all applicable law and evidence, and appropriately represent the facts gathered during the investigation. The incumbent works closely with OAWP investigators and staff as they prepare reports of investigation and recommendations and other work products. The incumbent advises OAWP investigators and staff on possible courses of action for complex and controversial issues, including legal and factual that may lack available precedent. These issues interpreting or applying statutes, regulations, rules, policies, contracts, comments, orders, decisions, opinions, and other legal instruments of importance to OAWP. The incumbent will provide legal support for and may complete complex, large scale, and multi-jurisdictional investigations and investigative reports involving numerous parties and multiple issues, including long-term and/or systemic problems. Policy Development: The incumbent provides proactive, thorough expert legal advice and assistance to OAWP on establishing and revising standard operating procedures and policies related to OAWP investigations and related processes. The incumbent independently considers the importance of establishing or changing precedent as well as other considerations. These projects typically require multi-dimensional analyses. In developing these analyses, the incumbent displays an understanding of various considerations, such as policy and operational factors, and can incorporate such factors into analyses to assist OAWP in identifying appropriate courses of action. Training: The incumbent develops and presents OAWP training, including on laws relating to administrative investigations, senior leader accountability, and whistleblower rights. The incumbent may assist OAWP with developing whistleblower rights and protections training for VA Administrations and Staff Offices. The incumbent must possess superior communication skills. Performs other duties as assigned. Promotion Potential: The selectee may be promoted to the full performance level without further competition when all regulatory, qualification, and performance requirements are met. Selection at a lower grade level does not guarantee promotion to the full performance level. Work Schedule: Full-time - Required to work Monday through Friday with various tours available pending supervisory approval. May be subjected to change based on operational needs. Compressed/Flexible: May be authorized by supervisor Remote: This is a remote position Position Description/PD#:1571282 Relocation/Recruitment Incentives: None Financial Disclosure Report: Not required

Qualifications: To qualify for this position, applicants must meet all requirements by the closing date of this announcement, 05/08/2026. Basic Requirements: All attorneys in the GS-0905 series must be active members in good standing of the bar of a state or territory of the United States or the District of Columbia and must hold a current, unrestricted license to practice law. Quality of Experience: Applicants must possess a total of four years of progressively responsible experience, which can include one year of relevant experience gained before admission to the bar. This experience can be from one or a combination of the following types: Practice of law includes private, state, or Federal practice in any field of law. Other legal experience of a responsible nature is experience in any one or a combination of the following performed in a law office, government office, or in the legal department of a business establishment, in the armed forces, or other Federal service: Conducting legal research, analyzing statues, writing legal opinions: Writing authoritative or advisory legal opinions involving interpretation of state or Federal laws, regulations, and orders, or the drafting of such regulations or orders; or Drafting, analyzing, and other legal activities with respect to bills, regulations, Executive Orders, proclamations, or statutory provisions. Special Placement Factor: At minimum, incumbent must have demonstrated experience in one of the following: Conducting investigations; Providing legal advice on investigations; or Preparing and/or reviewing reports of investigation. You may qualify at the GS-14 based on your experience as described below: Qualified applicants must possess four (4) years of progressively responsible experience as described in Quality of Experience above, of which a maximum of one (1) year of the required experience may be acquired prior to admission to the bar, and that demonstrates the professional and administrative abilities required to perform similar work and responsibilities described in Nature of Cases or Legal Problems, Type III and Level of Responsibility D, in the OPM Position Classification Standard for General Attorney Series, GS-0905. You will be rated on the following Competencies for this position: Analytical Reasoning Attention to Detail Communications Customer Service Decision Making Flexibility Influencing/Negotiating Integrity/Honesty Interpersonal Skills Learning Legal, Government and Jurisprudence Problem Solving Reasoning Self-Management Stress Tolerance Teamwork Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religions; spiritual; community; student; social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies, knowledge, and skills and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience. Note: A full year of work is considered to be 35-40 hours of work per week. Part-time experience will be credited on the basis of time actually spent in appropriate activities. Applicants wishing to receive credit for such experience must indicate clearly the nature of their duties and responsibilities in each position and the number of hours a week spent in such employment. Physical Requirements: The work is primarily sedentary. For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at http://://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.

How to Apply: Please read the entire announcement and all the instructions before you begin an application. To apply and be considered for this position, you must complete all required questionnaires, assessments and submit all required documentation as specified in the How to Apply and Required Documents section. The complete application package must be submitted by 11:59 PM (ET) on the closing date of the announcement to receive consideration. The application process is as follows: Click the Apply Online button. Answer the questions presented in the application and attach all necessary supporting documentation. Click the Submit Application button prior to 11:59 PM (ET) on the announcement closing date. If you are required to complete any USA Hire Assessments, you will be notified after submitting your application. The notification will be provided in your application submission screen and via email. The notification will include your unique assessment access link to the USA Hire system and the completion deadline. Additionally, in USAJOBS you can click "Track this application" to return to your assessment completion notice. Access USA Hire using your unique assessment link. Access is granted through your USAJOBS login credentials. Review all instructions prior to beginning your assessments. You will have the opportunity to request a testing accommodation before beginning the assessments should you have a disability covered under the Rehabilitation Act of1973 as amended. Set aside at least 3 hours to take the USA Hire Assessments; however, most applicants complete the assessments in less time. If you need to stop the assessments and continue later, you can re-use your unique assessment link. Your responses to the USA Hire Assessments will be reused for one year (in most cases) from the date you complete an assessment. If future applications you submit require completion of the same assessments, your responses will be automatically reused. NOTE: It is your responsibility to ensure your responses and appropriate documentation is submitted prior to the closing date. Visit the USA Hire Applicant Resource Center for practice assessments and assessment preparation resources at: https://support-usahire.opm.gov/hc/en-us Beginning September 27, 2025, Federal agencies will only accept resumes up to two pages in length to comply with the Merit Hiring Plan. Resumes longer than two pages will result in ineligibility for further consideration for the position. USAJOBS will not allow you to upload or build resumes longer than two pages, and you will need to update the resumes in your profile before applying for a job. Resumes should include information relevant to the knowledge, skills, abilities, and competencies of the position to which you are applying. VA is unable to make assumptions about qualifications if not clearly listed. Resumes must be legible so they can be reviewed for eligibility, minimum qualifications and other position requirements listed in the job announcement. Your resume must be 5MB or less. We recommend saving and uploading your resume as a PDF to maintain formatting and number of pages. We also accept GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, TXT, PDF, ODT or Word (DOC or DOCX). We do not accept PDF portfolio files. We recommend using a sans-serif font size like Lato, if available. Other widely available options are Calibri, Helvetica, Arial, Verdana, Open San Source Sans Pro, Roboto or Noro Sans. Make your page margins 0.5 inches. Consider using 14-point size font for titles and 10-point for the main text in your resume. The resume builder can help you create a resume using these recommendations and uses the information in your USAJOBS profile to help you get started. Helpful Hints for Creating a Two-Page Resume: Prioritize most relevant and recent experience Use concise, results focused language Align language from the job announcement Focus on demonstrating skills and competencies Remove outdated or unrelated experience Use the USAJOBS resume builder Additional guidance on this new requirement and resume building tools can be found at: https://help.usajobs.gov/faq/application/documents/resume/page-limit https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-information/merit-hiring-plan-resources/applicant-guidance-on-the-two-page-resume-limit/ To update your application, including supporting documentation: During the announcement open period, return to your USAJOBS account, find your application record, and click Edit my application. This option will no longer be available once the announcement has closed. To view the announcement status or your application status: Click on this: https://www.usajobs.gov/Help/how-to/application/status/. Your application status page is where you can view your application status, USA Hire assessment completion status (if applicable), and review your notifications sent by the hiring agency regarding your application.

Application Deadline: 2026-05-08