National Endowment for the Arts logo

Attorney Advisor

National Endowment for the Arts

Washington, DCFull-time$122–187K/yrPosted today

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At a glance

Compensation
$122–187K/yr
Location
Washington, DC
Schedule
Full-time
Work Authorization
US work authorization required

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Requirements

Credentials this posting asks for.

Good Standing With Bar

Job overview

The Attorney Advisor serves in the National Endowment for the Arts Office of General Counsel as a principal subject-matter attorney for federal financial assistance and the legal development and implementation of agency programs. The role advises leadership and program officials on grants, cooperative agreements, statutory authority, appropriations, and award administration, and reviews public-facing program materials and award terms.

Skills & qualifications

RequiredNice to have

Skills

Federal Financial Assistance LawGrants and Cooperative AgreementsStatutory InterpretationAppropriations LawLegal CounselingLegal Review

Qualifications

ABA-Accredited LLB or JDGood Standing With Bar1.5+ Years Post-Bar Experience2.5+ Years Post-Bar ExperienceU.S. Citizen or NationalBackground InvestigationSelective Service Registration

Full job description

Summary

This position is located in the Office of General Counsel, National Endowment for the Arts (Arts Endowment). The incumbent serves as an Attorney Advisor and a principal subject-matter attorney for federal financial assistance and the legal development and implementation of the Arts Endowment programs. Who May Be Considered: U.S. Citizens View common definitions of terms found in this announcement.

Duties

In this position, you will serve as an Attorney Advisor. Typical work assignments include: Serving as a legal advisor to leadership on grants, cooperative agreements, and other federal financial assistance, including the design, development, implementation, administration and oversight of agency programs. Advising leadership and program officials on whether proposed activities comply with statutory authority and agency appropriations. Interpreting and applying federal frameworks, including the Federal Grant and Cooperative Agreement Act and the OMB Uniform Guidance (2 CFR 200), appropriations provisions and other statutes, regulations, executive orders, government-wide requirements and agency policies governing agency financial assistance. Providing legal review of public-facing materials, including program solicitations, application guidelines, eligibility requirements, and award terms and conditions. Counseling program grants-management, budget, civil rights and other agency personnel-on applicant eligibility, cost allowability, and compliant merit-review panel procedures. Advising on complex or sensitive award administration issues, such as changes in project scope, budget revisions, subawards, recipient noncompliance, suspension, termination, and intellectual property provisions. Requirements

Must be a U.S. Citizen or National Suitable for Federal employment, determined by a background investigation May be required to successfully complete a probationary period Selective Service registration required. All employees are required to participate in Direct Deposit/ Electronic Funds Transfer for salary payments. All qualification requirements must be met by the closing date of this announcement and clearly documented in your resume. Relocation expenses are not authorized. Other recruitment incentives may be authorized. In accordance with Executive Order 14170, applicants are encouraged to respond to the four short, free-response, essay questions in the questionnaire. Answers to these questions are not scored or rated. Your answers to the essay questions will be reviewed by the hiring manager and agency leadership if you are referred for selection consideration. Qualifications

Applicants must demonstrate that they meet the Basic Requirements AND Minimum Qualification requirements as noted below. BASIC REQUIREMENTS: You must be a graduate of an accredited law school with an LLB or JD from a law school accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) a full course of study in a school of law accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA). (Must provide Transcripts) You must be currently in good standing with the Bar of a state, territory of the United States, District of Columbia, or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. AND Minimum Qualifications: GS-13: You qualify for the GS-13 grade level (starting salary $121,785.00) if you have at least 1.5 years of professional experience acquired after being admitted to the Bar, one of which was specialized experience at, or equivalent to, the level of difficulty and responsibility equivalent at GS-12 level in Federal service. Examples of such specialized experience include: Providing legal advice concerning grants, cooperative agreements, or other financial-assistance programs; and, Counseling program officials concerning the legal design, development, implementation, administration, or enforcement of such programs. OR GS-14: You qualify for the GS-14 grade level (starting salary $143,913) if you have at least at least 2.5 years of professional experience acquired after being admitted to the Bar, one of which was specialized experience at, or equivalent to, the level of difficulty and responsibility equivalent at GS-13 level in Federal service. Examples of such specialized experience include: Providing legal advice concerning grants, cooperative agreements, or other financial-assistance programs; and Counseling Program officials concerning the legal design, development, implementation, administration, or enforcement of such programs. NOTE: Your resume must explicitly indicate how you meet this requirement, otherwise you will be found ineligible. In order to qualify for this position, your resume must provide sufficient experience and/or education, knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform the duties of the specific position for which you are being considered. Your resume is the key means we have for evaluating your skills, knowledge, and abilities as they relate to this position. Therefore, we encourage you to be clear and specific when describing your experience. Your resume must demonstrate at least one year of specialized experience at or equivalent to the advertised grade level or pay band in the Federal service or equivalent experience in the private or public sector. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer and part time experience. You must clearly identify the duties and responsibilities in each position held and the dates worked and total number of hours per week. National Service Experience (i.e., volunteer experience): 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; religious; 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. Current or Former Political Appointees: The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) must authorize employment offers made to current or former political appointees. If you are currently, or have been within the last 5 years, a political Schedule A, Schedule C, Non-career SES or Presidential Appointee employee in the Executive Branch, you must disclose this information to the Human Resources Office. Qualifications Must Be Met The qualification requirements listed above must be met by the closing date of this announcement.

Education

Education must be from an accredited institution recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. For additional information, refer to the U.S. Department of Education web site at http://www.ed.gov.Submit a copy of your college transcript (unofficial is acceptable) or you may submit a list with all of your courses, grades, semester, year, and credit for the courses. Foreign Education: Education completed in foreign colleges or universities may be used to meet Federal qualification requirements if you can show that your foreign education is comparable to education received in accredited educational institutions in the United States. For example, specific courses accepted for college-level credit by an accredited U.S. college or university, or foreign education evaluated by an organization recognized for accreditation by the Department of Education as education equivalent to that gained in an accredited U.S. college or university. It is your responsibility to provide such evidence with your application. See Recognition of Foreign Qualifications for more information. All materials must be submitted by the closing date of the announcement. How You Will Be Evaluated

Once the application process is complete, a review of your resume and supporting documentation will be made and compared against your responses to the assessment questionnaire to determine if you are qualified for this job. If, after reviewing your resume and or supporting documentation, a determination is made that you have inflated your qualifications and or experience, you may lose consideration for this position. Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your eligibility. Qualified candidates will be assigned to one of 3 quality categories: Best Qualified, Highly Qualified, and Qualified. The category assignment is a measure of the degree in which your background matches the competencies required for this position. Your qualifications will be evaluated on the following competencies (knowledge, skills, abilities and other characteristics): Attention to Detail Customer Service Decision Making Flexibility Influencing/Negotiating Integrity/Honesty Interpersonal Skills Learning Reasoning Self-Management Stress Tolerance Teamwork Rule of Many: This announcement uses the cut score method under 5 CFR § 332.402. All applicants tied at the cut line will be referred. We will provide the selecting official with a sufficient number of names, when available, to consider at least three candidates per vacancy. If fewer than three eligible and available candidates per vacancy result, we will expand the group in accordance with our pre-announced supplement strategy and OPM policy. Referral: If you are among the top qualified candidates, your application may be referred to a selecting official for consideration. You may be required to participate in a selection interview. Veterans: Qualified veterans who have a compensable service-connected disability of at least 10% are listed in the best-qualified category, except when the position being filled is scientific or professional at the GS-09 grade level, or higher. This position is not considered scientific/professional. Other 10-point preference eligibles and veterans with 5-point preference who meet the eligibility and qualification requirements are placed above non-preference eligibles within the category in which they qualify. View information on www.fedshirevets.gov If you are determined qualified, you may be referred to the hiring manager for consideration and may be called for an interview. Preview the Application Questionnaire, click Other Information

Identification of promotion potential in this announcement does not constitute a commitment or an obligation of management to promote the employee selected at some future date. Additional selections may be made from this vacancy. VETERANS PREFERENCE: If claiming 5-point veteran preference you MUST submit copy number 4 of the DD-214. If you are claiming 10-point veteran preference you MUST submit an SF-15, Application for 10-point Veteran's Preference AND all other required documents in order to be granted the preference. All documents must be received by 11/05/2026. Additional information on veteran's preference is available at: http://www.fedshirevets.gov/job/veterans.aspx If you are selected for this Federal position, you will be required to complete a "Declaration of Federal Employment", (OF-306), prior to being appointed to determine your suitability for Federal employment and to authorize a background investigation. Failure to answer all questions truthfully and completely or providing false statements on the application may be grounds for not hiring you or dismissing you after you begin work, and may be punishable by fine or imprisonment (U.S. Code, Title 18, Section 1001). The application contains information subject the Privacy Act (P.L. 93-579, 5 U.S.C. 552a). The information issued will be used to determine qualifications for employment, and is authorized under Title 5 U.S.C. Section 3302 and 3361. Recruitment methods and selection procedures will based solely on merit after fair and open competition, and will be made without regard to political, religious, or labor organization affiliation or non-affiliation, marital status, race, color, sex, national origin, non-disqualifying disability, sexual-orientation or age. If you are unable to apply online please contact [email protected]. Applicants are strongly encouraged to apply online if at all possible. Applying online, through your USAJOBS account, will expedite the application process and allow you to check your application status as well as verify the documentation submitted with your application.

How this job compares

Set against the 2,151 open Attorney jobs on Olive Jobs, counted October 27, 2026.

Pay
  • This posting$122–187K/yr
  • Washington, D.C. median$122–197K/yr84 salary ranges
  • US median$112–184K/yr1,406 salary ranges

This range's midpoint, $154K, is 3% below the Washington, D.C. median midpoint ($159K) — in the middle half of Attorney salary ranges in Washington, D.C..

Openings
Olive Jobs lists 98 open Attorney jobs in Washington, D.C. and 2,151 across the US. 5% of them nationwide are listed as remote or flexible.
Hiring the most in Washington, D.C.
Experience
This posting asks for at least 1 year of experience — less than three in four Attorney postings that state a minimum ask for (median 4 years, across 1,435 postings).
Education
1,288 of the 2,151 open Attorney jobs (60%) ask for a bachelor's degree or higher.

Counted across the open, public US postings on Olive Jobs on October 27, 2026. Pay medians are the middle values of the low ends and of the high ends of postings that list both ends of a range in the same cadence (a yearly salary or an hourly rate); a range's midpoint is halfway between its ends. Pay and experience figures resting on fewer than 20 postings are left out.

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