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Manager and Principal Lawyer - Services - Access Program

Justice Connect

Our Team

In the face of rising levels of unmet legal need, Justice Connect designs and delivers high impact interventions to increase access to legal support and progress social justice.

Justice Connect’s Access Program is a multidisciplinary team with in-house legal, data, project, and service design expertise. We collaborate to increase access to legal assistance and progress social justice by responding quickly to a wide range of legal problems with a particular focus on disaster response, financial rights and employment law problems.

Our legal services use a range of approaches including specialist advice, pro bono referrals (leveraging our network of over 10,000 pro bono lawyers) and online resources to help people experiencing legal problems.

Our strategy commits us to identifying ways to scale legal help with digital solutions, including our in-house developed digital platform, Justice Connect Answers (JCA). We seek to identify and respond quickly to emerging legal need in the community.

Our ideal candidate

The Manager and Principal Lawyer – Services leads a team of staff that provide high quality legal assistance to help seekers, responds to emerging legal need, and takes a strategic approach to responding to unmet legal need. The role works closely with the Manager – Innovation to identify, develop and implement continuous improvement to ensure we are providing impactful and responsive services.

You’ll bring to the team experience in the following areas:

  • A minimum of 5 years unsupervised practice (hold a principal practising certificate)
  • Leading a legal practice that effectively provides intake, triage and provision of legal assistance to vulnerable and disadvantaged members of the community
  • Planning, monitoring and evaluating service delivery and associated budgets informed by service research and data analysis
  • Managing and leading a team, including building the culture and mindset of a team
  • Complex stakeholder engagement with key partners in relation to legal services, government and philanthropic funders
  • Policy and strategic work focused on addressing system-level issues and improving the justice sector

Expertise that you may have that would support our team:

  • Post admission experience in relevant areas of civil law, including credit and debt, judicial reviews and appeals and/or general contractual and commercial disputes
  • Experience in running services and projects to time, within budget and with multiple stakeholders
  • Leading continuous improvement of a legal service and supporting change in the team
  • Skills in working with data, analytics and reporting tools

Candidates will need to demonstrate commitment to Justice Connect's vision, strategy and values.

What you will achieve in the role

In this role, you’ll work to:

  • Lead a strong legal practice to execute the Access Program strategy priorities of assisting more help seekers, strengthening capabilities in responding to emerging legal issues, and consolidating the program’s focus on employment, financial rights and disaster preparedness and response
  • Build strong stakeholder relationships to maintain confidence in our legal services, to implement innovative approaches and to underpin service delivery collaboration
  • Manage funding for service delivery and identify and pursue new projects and funding opportunities
  • Identify and respond to risks and issues impacting stakeholder relationships, service delivery and projects
  • Contribute to organisational activities and projects including Justice Connect’s Reconciliation Action Plan activities
  • Embed Justice Connect’s values in the work of the team

Together with other Managers and Heads, help ensure that Justice Connect promotes staff wellbeing, diversity, cultural competency and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Peoples’ right to self-determination.

A week in this role

If you were here last week, you would have:

  • Participated in a meeting with key stakeholders on Justice Connect’s services for self-represented litigants and sought stakeholder input into service planning for 2022
  • Provided legal service delivery insights at an internal working group discussing our service model
  • Met with the Access Program leadership team to review fortnightly service data and staff insights to support decision making on how to further improve our intake and triage processes
  • Identified opportunities to engage with pro bono firms on unmet legal need and new referral opportunities
  • Held weekly catch ups with staff reporting to the role and supported induction of a new lawyer in the team

Important information

The position reports to the Head of Access Program and is full time (37.5 hours per week) ongoing. Part time arrangements will be considered.

The salary for this role is $117325.79 per annum (pro rata) (plus 10.5% superannuation) with annual leave loading and generous salary packaging options.

This role can be based at our Melbourne or Sydney office with hybrid working arrangements.

How to Apply

To be considered, please upload your resume and a cover letter answering the following questions:

  1. Tell us about a legal service or project you have effectively led a team to deliver. What was the service or project and what was its impact?
  2. Tell us about a difficult stakeholder problem you’ve solved. What did you do to manage the situation effectively? What would you do differently next time and why?
  3. Tell us about a time you have identified a necessary change (e.g. service improvement) – what was the evidence for the change and how did you support staff (and/or peers) to adopt the change successfully?
  4. Tell us about two key areas of expertise you would bring to this role to support Justice Connect's aims?

For further information please contact Amy Schwebel, Co-Head Access Program on 03 8636 4453.

How to apply

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