Attachment 1 - Statement of Work.pdf

STATEMENT OF WORK

FOR LEGAL SUPPORT SERVICES

1.0 BACKGROUND

Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) is an independent agency of the Federal Government responsible for preventing or minimizing work stoppages by assisting labor and management to settle their disputes through mediation, promoting the development of sound and stable labor-management relationships, and advocating collective bargaining, mediation, and voluntary arbitration as the preferred process for settling issues between employers and representatives of employees. In addition, the FMCS mission includes developing the art, science, and practice of conflict resolution, and fostering the establishment and maintenance of constructive joint processes to improve labor-management relationships, employment security and organizational effectiveness.

2.0 PURPOSE

The purpose of this requirement is to obtain legal support services for FMCS’ Office of General Counsel (OGC). Areas of support will include, but are not limited to, conducting legal analysis and research, reviewing agreements and documents, assisting lead attorneys in case preparation, and providing assistance with programs and policies regarding Federal Ethics, Labor and Employment Law, Administrative Law, FOIA, Privacy Act, FIFRA arbitration, the Inspector General Act, and the Procurement Integrity Act.

It is expressly agreed and understood that this is a non-personal services contract as defined in Federal Acquisition Regulation 37.101, under which the services performed by the contractor are rendered in its capacity as an independent contractor. The Government will evaluate the quality of the service provided but retains no control over the contractor’s employees or agents. The contractor is solely liable for, and expressly agrees to indemnify the Government with respect to any liability producing acts or omissions by it or by its employees or agents.

3.0 OBJECTIVE

The objective of this requirement is to obtain one (1) attorney to provide support services to FMCS’ Office of General Counsel.

4.0 PERSONNEL REQUIREMENTS

4.1 The contractor shall have a Juris Doctor from an accredited school of law.

4.2 The contractor shall be actively licensed to practice law and a member of good standing.

4.3 The contractor shall have working knowledge of one of more of the applicable laws (e.g., Privacy Act, FISMA, federal ethics, FOIA, other equal employment opportunity, civil liberties and privacy laws, etc.), Executive Orders, Presidential Directives, executive branch guidelines, and/or administrative/criminal legal guidelines and procedures.

4.4 The contractor shall have experience supporting compliance activities with agency ethics program requirements.

4.5 The contractor shall have experience in employment litigation including assisting attorneys in preparing for hearings and depositions.

4.6 The contractor shall have experience providing legal advice, conducting legal research, and writing opinions and memoranda on a wide range of legal matters.

5.0 TASKS

The contractor shall be responsible for providing a technically qualified individual who meets the requirements of Section 4.0 to perform privacy support services to include the following tasks:

5.1 Provide legal advice, conduct legal analysis, research, and drafts opinions and memoranda, on issues impacting the Agency and its employees in the general performance of their duties.

5.2 Review contracts, agreements, releases, and other agency documents.

5.3 Assist lead attorneys in preparing cases before federal agencies such as

MSPB, NLRB, and EEOC and appeals in U.S. Federal district and appellate courts such as drafting litigation holds, preparing discovery, drafting motions, memoranda, briefs, and other pleadings stating facts, analyzing the legal issues, identifying concerns, and making recommendations for justifying legal action.

5.4 Assist OGC in implementing and administering Agency programs and policies regarding FOIA, Privacy Act, and the Inspector General Act. Conduct legal research regarding requirements of these areas, making sure that the intent of the law is upheld by the Agency.

5.5 Support the Agency ethics program, draft ethics advice, review financial disclosure reports for completeness, review conference attendance requests, and outside activity requests, conduct ethics briefings, and recommend discipline for violations of ethics law, regulations, and directives.

5.6 Conduct research on provide legal advice on personnel management issues, particularly those involving employee discipline and adverse action proposals, workforce policies, and other personnel-related matters. This includes advice on the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Pregnancy Discrimination Act, Equal Pay Act, Americans with Disabilities Act, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Occupational Health and Safety Act, the Rehabilitation Act, the Genetic Nondiscrimination in Employment Act, Whistleblower Protection Act, among other authorities.

5.7 Draft rules, regulations, notices, information collection requests, paperwork reduction act clearances, and other documents relating to the operation of FMCS.

5.8 Draft, review, and assist with trainings pertaining to ethics, FOIA, privacy, and other trainings. Work alongside agency staff to provide legal sufficiency review of trainings and co-training, when requested.

5.9 Monitor the OGC inbox and provide legal advice, as appropriate.

5.10 Other duties as assigned.

6.0 DELIVERABLES

Bi-weekly status reports on progress of assigned tasks and activities performed under the task order are due to the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR), showing the status of all active tasks. Additional deliverables may be requested in writing to the contractor by the Contracting Officer or COR, as appropriate.

7.0 PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE

The Period of Performance (PoP) shall include a 12-month Base and four (4) 3-month Option Periods.

8.0 PLACE OF PERFORMANCE AND HOURS OF OPERATION

8.1 The contractor shall provide between thirty (30) to forty (40) hours per week of remote support to the Office of General Counsel, who is located at the FMCS Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

8.2 The contractor may set his or her own hours between the times 0600 to 1900

EDT, Monday through Friday, so long as it does not exceed 8 hours per day.

8.3 The Contractor is not required to provide service on the following U.S. Federal holidays: New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, President’s Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas day.

8.4 When the Government grants administrative leave to Government employees as a result of inclement weather, potentially hazardous conditions, or other special circumstances, contractor personnel may work at a preapproved alternate location or be dismissed.

8.5 Work performed on holidays and other non-work time is not billable unless it is specifically requested by the COR or the Contracting Officer and approved in advance.

9.0 GOVERNMENT FURNISHED PROPERTY/EQUIPMENT/FACILITIES

FMCS will provide the contractor personnel with a computer, cell phone, software, and network access necessary to perform the work requirements.

All materials provided by the Government during the course of this task order will remain the property of the Government and will be returned on completion of the task order. The contractor or their designated representative shall sign the required Government tracking document for the necessary supplied equipment.

10.0 ACCESS TO INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS

All contractors and contractor personnel shall be subject to the same Federal laws, regulations, standards and FMCS policies as FMCS, and FMCS personnel, regarding information and information systems security. Contractors must follow policies and procedures outlined in FMCS IT Security Program to ensure appropriate security controls are in place.

A contractor shall request logical (technical) and/or physical access to FMCS information and FMCS information systems for employees, subcontractors, and affiliates only to the extent necessary: (1) to perform the services specified in the task order, (2) to perform necessary maintenance functions for electronic storage or transmission media necessary for performance of the task order, and (3) individuals must satisfy the same conditions, requirements and restrictions comparable to FMCS employees in order to access the same type of FMCS information.

11.0 FMCS INFORMATION CUSTODIAL REQUIREMENTS

Information made available to the contractor by FMCS for the performance or administration of this contract or information developed by the contractor in performance or administration of the contract shall be used only for those purposes and shall not be used in any other way without the prior written agreement of the Contracting Officer.

FMCS information shall not be co-mingled with any other data on the contractor’s/ subcontractor’s information systems/media storage systems in order to ensure FMCS requirements related to data protection and media sanitization can be met. FMCS also reserves the right to conduct IT resource inspections to ensure data separation and on-site inspection of information destruction/media sanitization or disposal procedures to ensure they are in compliance with FMCS policy requirements.

Prior to termination or completion of this contract, the contractor shall not destroy information received from FMCS or gathered or created by the contractor in the course of performing this contract without prior written approval by the FMCS Contracting Officer. Any data destruction done on behalf of FMCS by a contractor must be done in accordance with National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) requirements.

The contractor shall receive, gather, store, back-up, maintain, use, disclose and dispose of FMCS information only in compliance with the terms of the contract and applicable Federal and FMCS information confidentiality and security laws, regulations and policies. Applicable Federal information security regulations include all Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) and Special Publications (SP) issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

If Federal or FMCS information confidentiality and security laws, regulations and policies become applicable to the FMCS information or information systems after execution of this contract, the parties agree to negotiate in good faith to implement the information confidentiality and security laws, regulations and policies, including FIPS or SP, in the contract.

The contractor shall not make copies of FMCS information except as necessary to perform the terms of the agreement or to preserve electronic information stored on contractor electronic storage media for restoration in case any electronic equipment or data used by the contractor needs to be restored to an operating state.

If FMCS determines that the contractor has violated any of the information confidentiality, privacy, and security provisions of the contract, it shall be sufficient grounds for FMCS to terminate the contract for default or terminate for cause under Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 12.

12.0 SECURITY AND CONFIDENTIALITY

The contractor must have a completed background investigation at the Tier 2 moderate risk level (formerly MBI), or higher, with a favorable adjudication. FMCS will verify this information prior to start of the contract.

13.0 NON-DISCLOSURE AGREEMENT

Due to the sensitive nature of the data and information being worked with on a daily basis, the contractor shall provide a signed and completed NDA for each contractor personnel, to include the contractor’s subcontractors, having access to FMCS information to ensure information that is considered sensitive or proprietary is not compromised.

14.0 PERSONNEL CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

The term "personal conflict of interest" means that a contractor employee assigned to the task order has interests which (i) may diminish his/her capacity to give impartial, technically sound, objective assistance and advice in performing this task order, (ii) may otherwise result in a biased work product under this task order, or (iii) may result in an unfair competitive advantage.

A contractor employee shall not participate (i.e., recommend, influence, or decide) in any particular matters that:

• will have a direct and predictable effect on the financial interests of that employee, his/her spouse or minor child, or organization in which he/she serves as officer, director, trustee, general partner, or employee,

• will have a direct and predictable effect on the financial interests of or any person or organization with whom he/she is negotiating or has an arrangement concerning prospective employment, or

• may otherwise cause a reasonable person to question his/her impartiality.