Start Your Career in Client-Focused, Feminist Legal Practice

Start your legal career where it matters. Use your legal knowledge to support women seeking legal assistance. Join our Intake & Triage team to build skills and connect women to the right support at the right time, in the right way.

The role

The Intake and Triage Team Paralegal position is designed for final-year law students, and students approaching their final year, who want meaningful, hands-on legal experience in a best-practice feminist legal environment.

These 12-month part-time contract roles (minimum 3 x 4 hour shifts a week) are structured to fit around your study commitments and allow you to apply the legal reasoning, issue-spotting, interviewing skills and ethical judgment you have developed through your law degree.

In this role, you will be the first point of contact for women seeking legal assistance in matters relating to domestic, family violence, sexual violence, family law, employment, and discrimination.

You will work closely with our legal team to ensure every woman is connected to the right support, at the right time, in the right way. This is real legal work, done with care, skill, and purpose.

We offer a supportive and flexible workplace, opportunities for professional growth, and the chance to use your legal skills for meaningful social change.

This role is also a potential pathway to your Practical Legal Training (PLT) placement and into our NextGen Graduate Solicitor Program. We grow our own solicitors- feminist, thoughtful, and skilled in trauma-informed client work.

You already bring:

• Legal knowledge and analytical skills
• The ability to identify issues and ask well-judged questions
• Strong communication and active listening skills with the ability to manage sensitive conversations with care, clarity and respect
• A genuine commitment to women’s safety, economic security and equity.

You will learn how to translate your knowledge and skills into practice to work with women who may be navigating trauma, crisis, or uncertainty.

What You Will Learn

• How to translate your legal knowledge into client practice
• How to recognise the core legal issues in complex client stories
• How to assess urgency, risk, and safety considerations
• Trauma-informed and strengths-based communication skills
• Culturally safe and intersectional practice principles
• How to navigate legal service systems and referral pathways
• When and how to make warm, facilitated referrals

What You Will Do

• Be the first, supportive point of contact for women seeking legal help (phone and online)
• Identify legal issues and understand their broader context
• Assess urgency and risk, and prioritise client needs
• Provide initial legal information
• Make warm facilitated referrals where other services are more appropriate
• Book appointments directly with our team of solicitors

Other opportunities (after 6 months in the role)

• Support solicitors with advice preparation, casework and litigation tasks
• Contribute to legal information resources (e.g., client information sheets)
• Uphold trauma-informed, culturally safe, client-centred practice in every interaction

This is your first step into becoming a solicitor who works with skill, care, and integrity, in a workplace that values reflection, learning, and shared purpose.

Experience in Community Legal Centres, LawAccess, or other legal settings is welcome. We also value experience gained in customer service and community roles where you have listened, supported people, and communicated with care.

What matters most is your legal knowledge and understanding of gender-based violence, and your ability to listen with respect, think critically, and support women with compassion.

You will be part of a legal team that walks alongside women during some of the most challenging moments in their lives, combining technical skill with humanity, purpose, and a deep commitment to justice.

If you believe in the power of the law to create safer futures for women, we’d love to hear from you.

Why Join Women’s Legal Service NSW?

You'll be joining one of Australia's specialist women's legal services, that values lived experience, intersectional feminism, and strong relationships with community, where legal practice, research, advocacy and education work together to create lasting systemic change.

This role offers the opportunity to develop your legal skills while helping shape services that improve the safety, rights and economic security of women across NSW.

Working in a collaborative, feminist and values-driven organisation, you'll see your work translated into real-world outcomes - from assisting clients to influencing legislation and government policy to strengthening service systems and shifting public understanding of issues affecting women.

ABOUT US 

Women's Legal Service NSW advocates for an end to gender-based violence and for gender equity in Australia. As a state-wide specialist women’s legal service, we assist women and non-binary people across NSW to obtain legal advice and representation through our trauma informed, holistic legal practice to address women’s safety and economic security.

We use the knowledge and experience gained from supporting more than one hundred thousand women, together with our expertise in the feminist analysis of social issues and the law, to identify where we can make the most meaningful and lasting impact. We invest in specialist legal, policy and advocacy expertise to drive structural and systemic change through law reform, strategic policy development, systemic advocacy, and education and training. By ensuring women's experiences inform legislation, public policy, legal practice and community understanding, we work to improve women's safety, economic security and equity.

Our solicitors advise and represent women in a range of practice areas including discrimination, employment, sexual harassment, family law, domestic, family and sexual violence, and compensation and victims support for victims of crime.

WORKPLACE OF CHOICE

Women's Legal promotes gender equity by creating a workplace of choice for women that is:

• Safe. We have clear and effective policies on sexism, discrimination, harassment, bullying and abuse.
• Diverse. We acknowledge, value and respect diversity, lived experience and different perspectives.
• Culturally safe. We recognise and respond to the need for cultural safety for First Nations staff and are committed to embedding First Nations voices throughout our work.
• Flexible. We support flexible work arrangements that accommodate caring responsibilities, disability or health needs, and study commitments.
• Supported. We practice trauma-informed care that recognises the impact of vicarious trauma. Staff have access to regular external professional supervision and debriefing.
• Focused on Career Growth, Leadership and Learning. We support staff to build careers in social justice through professional development, leadership opportunities, legal practice, research, advocacy, education and strategic organisational development.

Salary range 2025-2026 

Women’s Legal seeks to close the gender pay gap by providing job and economic security with an Enterprise Agreement that pays above Award, excellent working conditions and provides generous leave provisions. You have the option to salary package which can add up to $15,900 in tax-free pay annually.

Grade 2 Year 5 Paralegal

$76,070.23 (pro rata) p.a or ($41.68 an hour) with the Women's Legal Service NSW Enterprise Agreement, plus superannuation and salary packaging. Indexation to be applied for 2026-2027.

Must be available for at least three x 4 hour shifts a week (9.00am-1.00pm or 12.30-4.30pm)

The positions are based in our office at Lidcombe. This is not a work from home arrangement. You will gain the benefits of working with solicitors in real time.

Women’s Legal considers being a woman is a genuine occupational qualification for this position under s. 31 of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW).

INTAKE AND TRIAGE PARALEGAL selection criteria

Selection criteria must be addressed for you to be considered for an interview.

Essential criteria

• Commitment to Social Justice and Gender Equity. Demonstrated understanding of, and commitment to, social justice issues for women, particularly First Nations women, and women experiencing deep and persistent disadvantage (social, economic and cultural) and lack of access to legal services.
• Qualifications. Paralegal qualification or significant progress toward a law or relevant degree and/or demonstrated paralegal experience in a legal environment.
• Legal Ethics and Risk Management. Understanding of legal practice obligations under the Legal Profession Uniform Law.
• Client-Centred and Trauma-Informed Legal Practice. Ability to work with clients facing disadvantage, trauma and legal complexity across diverse client groups.
• Trauma-Informed and Ethical Client Engagement. Demonstrated ability to manage sensitive client information professionally and with empathy.
• Communication and Interpersonal Skills. Strong interpersonal, collaboration and written and verbal communication skills.
• Organisational, Time Management and Analytical Skills. Strong organisational, analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Technical Systems Proficiency. Competent in using Microsoft Office and able e to learn to use our case management system.

Additional criteria

• Pre-Employment Screening. Satisfactory Police Check and Working with Children Check (as applicable).
• Willingness to Travel. Ability to travel in line with work commitments.
• Professional Development. Commitment to undergoing organisational relevant training and education in line with role responsibilities.

Desirable criteria

• Sector Experience.
  • Experience in the legal assistance sector.
  • Understanding of trauma-informed and culturally safe practice.
  • Familiarity with Actionstep CMS.
• Knowledge. Knowledge of legal and social issues affecting women and gender-diverse people, particularly in the following areas: discrimination, employment, sexual harassment, family law, domestic/family and sexual violence, compensation and victims support for victims of crime.

Women’s Legal Service NSW considers being a woman a genuine occupational qualification for this position under s. 31 of the Anti-Discrimination Act 1977 (NSW).

Next Steps

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

Selection criteria must be addressed for your application to be considered to progress to interview. Please review how to address selection criteria. A resume will not suffice.

If you have any questions about the role, please contact us at [email protected] using the subject line: Intake & Triage Paralegal enquiry via EthicalJobs.

A position description is attached.