Office of The State Attorney, Fifth Judicial Circuit, Florida
Serving the Citizens of Citrus, Hernando, Lake, Marion, and Sumter Counties
Our office is dedicated to seeking justice. We seek to employ a hard-working staff with good character, a strong sense of ethics, a commitment to public service, and a desire to seek justice. In our five offices, located in Brooksville, Bushnell, Inverness, Ocala, and Tavares, we employ over 230 staff members, making us one of the largest litigation firms in the area.
Our attorneys are diverse in background and experience. We have a comprehensive training program for new attorneys, as well as in-house continuing legal education throughout their careers. We often send our lawyers to trainings and seminars to enhance their prosecutorial abilities in more specialized areas. Our office embraces a work-life balance for its attorneys by offering a flexible, remote work schedule as long as all in-person professional obligations are fulfilled. It is our goal to help our attorneys grow in all aspects of litigation and advocacy as we promote the principles of justice, service and accountability as we serve our constituents.
While experience is a plus, we regularly hire entry-level attorneys as trial attorneys in our county court or intake divisions. We begin interviewing law students in their third year of law school. Depending on the applicant’s qualifications and our hiring needs, we may offer employment before a new law school graduate takes and passes the Florida Bar. In those situations, we prefer attorneys who are post-graduate CLI eligible.
We offer paid and unpaid internships across the circuit for law school students. If an intern is CLI eligible, he or she may also receive school credit for work with our office. We accept interns for the Fall, Spring and Summer terms.
In addition to lawyers, we employ a professional staff of investigators and victim/witness specialists. In order to be considered preliminarily for an investigator position, the applicant must have an active, valid law enforcement certificate in the State of Florida. The victim/witness specialists must have a minimum of a 4-year degree in an associated field, such as Psychology, Social Work, or Criminal Justice.
Finally, we have an excellent clerical staff comprised of secretaries and paralegals, who do much of the heavy lifting to make sure that the cases are efficiently processed through the system and the lawyers are supported in their efforts.
We are always accepting qualified applicants for positions across the circuit. Applicants must submit an Application for Employment which is available on the link below. Those applications can be emailed to our Executive Director, Bridget Kiefer at hiring@sao5.org.