Full-time 18-month contract $140k - $147k per annum (subject to skills) plus super and above-Award conditions. Sydney-based preferred with flexibility to work 50% from home, however remote applicants considered.

About Community Legal Centres Australia

Community Legal Centres Australia (CLCA) is the national peak organisation for over 160 community legal centres (CLCs) across Australia. CLCs provide free legal and related services to people and communities experiencing financial hardship or other barriers to justice.

About the role

CLCA is leading a national pilot to explore how AI tools can be safely and ethically integrated into community legal centre service delivery in ways that expand access to justice for the communities the sector serves. Over 18 months and across 6–8 CLCs, the project will identify opportunities for AI adoption to enhance the efficiency of legal services, establish the governance foundations to support adoption, procure and deploy AI tools within participating centres, and deliver structured training. Its findings will form the evidence base and build the sector-wide capability needed to guide how CLCs adopt AI responsibly in the future.

This is a unique, high-impact leadership opportunity that sits at the intersection of responsible AI adoption, legal practice, and access to justice. As Manager, you will own the end-to-end delivery of the pilot, operating with a high degree of independence, serving as the trusted point of contact for participating centres, and being the individual accountable for keeping an ambitious, multi-site program on track, on budget, and aligned with the sector's values.

Key responsibilities

The Manager will lead the pilot under the oversight of the CLCA CEO and Project Steering Committee. You will:

1. Lead & project manage the pilot independently, taking full ownership of project delivery, budget, and timeframes while reporting to the CLCA CEO and Project Steering Committee.
2. Identify opportunities for AI adoption to enhance the efficiency of legal services through an evidence-based approach, engaging participating CLCs to find the most repeatable tasks where AI can add the most value and shape the sector's AI roadmap.
3. Coordinate the development of a CLC-specific AI governance and ethics framework in collaboration with governance experts and the sector, noting the sector’s values.
4. Run a procurement process to assess and select legal AI tools for the pilot that meet the sector's governance, ethics, safety, security, privacy, and confidentiality standards.
5. Support adoption and measure value, developing and executing the AI adoption strategy and tracking any evidence of return on investment.
6. Coordinate training and support culture change, supporting tiered AI training and producing the guidance and communications that build AI literacy and confidence across the sector.
7. Establish and manage the AI Champions Network, equipping champions across participating centres to build assets, drive adoption, and feed real-time insight back into the roadmap.
8. Manage the full range of stakeholder relationships, including participating CLCs and their staff/volunteers, legal AI vendors, and pro bono partners.
9. Coordinate evaluation of the pilot & help build sector AI assets, coordinating the evaluation and translating its findings into scalable resources that help CLCs adopt AI safely, including an AI Readiness Playbook and best-practice guides.
10. Contribute to thought leadership on technology and access to justice, representing the pilot in the national conversation on responsible AI in the legal assistance sector.

About you

You're someone who sees how technology could change legal service delivery for the better, and you want to put that to work expanding access to justice. You're practical, curious, and good at turning complex ideas into things people can actually use. You're comfortable with ambiguity, resilient, and genuinely committed to the work of the community legal sector.

This is a new kind of role in a developing field, so we are not looking for someone who ticks every box below. We're looking for the right mix of capability, judgment, and motivation. You might bring strengths in some of these areas and be ready to grow into others. There is capacity with the project budget to contract expertise from other people. Our ideal candidate will have:

• AI fluency, a working grasp of AI concepts, including frontier model capabilities and how AI software products are built on them. Application of AI in a legal context would be especially helpful.
• Experience with AI or technology implementation, with hands-on experience implementing or managing AI or technology tools, ideally as part of a transformation project.
• Change management or transformation experience, with insight into what drives genuine uptake of new ways of working.
• Familiarity with legal service delivery and the ability to translate practitioner needs into practical solutions. An understanding of legal practice in not-for-profit environments would be very helpful.
• Awareness of the ethical dimensions of AI, including data privacy, confidentiality, and the responsible use of AI, including in relation to clients experiencing disadvantage.
• Ability to build credibility and trust with sector stakeholders, explaining the value of AI in terms that make sense to CLC employees.

Please read the position description attached.

Next Steps

To submit your application please click 'Apply Now' by COB on the closing date.

More information from Charlotte Maung [email protected] using the subject line: Manager - National Community Legal Centres AI Pilot Program enquiry via EthicalJobs.