Job Summary
- Applications close:
- Job posted on: 16th Jul 2021
Scale the social impact of a not-for-profit legal practice by leading its Legal Services Team and building out its offering for vulnerable Australians through a unique service delivery model.
There is an unmet need for legal assistance
Each year, over 600,000 Australians cannot access the legal assistance they need. And even those who are able to access legal assistance can struggle, with legal services commonly delivered in ways that can be difficult for regular people to understand.
We provide free, online legal assistance to people who can’t access it
We are a registered charity and social enterprise that envisions a world where everyone can access justice. We work towards our vision by providing free legal assistance to the community through an online platform, which is powered by law students seeking practical legal opportunities through paid university programs.
Learn more about our team, how Anika works, and our organisation.
The Principal Lawyer & Service Designer will join Anika’s Leadership Team, lead Anika’s Legal Services team, and expand its service offering.
You are a driven self-starter who’s eager for adventure, responsibility, and likes challenging the way things are done. You’ll also have a strong sense of social justice, the essential qualifications and some of the advantageous qualities.
Essential qualifications:
Advantageous qualities:
Send us your CV and a little bit about yourself
To apply for this role, click "Apply Now" and fill out the form, which will ask you to upload your CV and answer a few questions about yourself.
Do not submit your application by email - these will not be considered.
If you have further queries about the role, contact Noel Lim (CEO) at [email protected] using the subject line: Principal Lawyer & Legal Service Designer enquiry via EthicalJobs.
Anika Legal is a legal-tech startup at the beginning of its journey to change the way legal assistance is delivered.
The problem
Every year, 600,000 Australians don’t get the legal help they need. And each year, more and more of these people who slip through the cracks of the legal system look for online services to provide ongoing assistance and solve their legal problems. Anika’s service delivery model provides legal assistance differently, helping these people access the justice they’d otherwise be denied.
The solution
Anika is changing the way legal assistance is delivered by offering clients free, online legal advice and casework for the most common legal problems. In our first two years we have launched three services that help renters get repairs performed in their homes, to negotiate rent reductions for those financially impacted by COVID-19, and to stay in safe, secure homes if they were being evicted for rent arrears. We helped our clients by providing them with legal advice, negotiating with their landlord on their behalf, and helping them prepare to self-represent at VCAT (though it rarely ever gets that far).
How are we different?
According to the 200+ clients Anika assisted in the last 12 months, the best things about the service were the personalised support from a real human talking them through each step, and our fast turnaround times. Providing our services to this many clients is possible with a single lawyer because of the online platform and the practical legal education programs for law students that we have developed, which greatly increases the capacity of our principal lawyer.
How do we do it?
Our practical legal education programs ensure that law students are well-equipped with our proprietary resources to communicate with clients and draft legal letters to clients and the other side with minimal errors. The high accuracy of student work means the Principal Lawyer can review their work with confidence and service large amounts of clients hyper-efficiently to maximise Anika’s impact.
The online platform streamlines the experience for clients, students, and the Principal Lawyer, allowing all three stakeholders to contribute to this process with minimal friction. All three stakeholders can do what they need to do anywhere, any time, with the ‘busy work’ automated.
Together, the practical legal education programs and online platform are the ‘product’ that, released one at a time, enables Anika to reach the growing cohort of clients who need online, ongoing assistance, and service them at scale.
Looking forward
Currently all of our services are in the tenancy space, but our vision doesn't stop there. The next steps of our journey involve expanding beyond tenancy and continuing to help resolve the most common legal problems experienced by vulnerable Australians. To do that, we’ll need to develop more innovative services and build out our Legal Services team to meet the needs of those 600,000 Australians.
This role is about more than providing high quality legal assistance. It’s about leading the development of innovative products, a unique service delivery model, and a team to operate it, so that we can change the way legal assistance is delivered and accelerate us towards a world where everyone can access justice.