Lawyer – Advice

Role purpose: 

The Public Interest Law and Court Programs team works to increase access to legal support and progress social justice. It achieves this through three key focuses: providing legal support at scale through digital strategies, rapid responses to community need including disaster response work, and focused work on priority areas of financial and employment law problems.

The team uses a range of approaches including specialist advice, pro bono referrals and online resources. We leverage innovative technology and our network of over10,000 pro bono lawyers that assist in delivering our legal services. We help across a wide range of areas of law and at all stages of legal issues. We have particular expertise in dealing with issues that have escalated to court proceedings with a long history of running court-based services across a range of jurisdictions.

By identifying and responding quickly to emerging legal trends and using a multi-intensity, multi-channel approach, we strategically tackle legal need in the community. In all our work, we centre client experience and our aspiration to maximise the impact of our interventions.

The Lawyer – Advice role is focused on delivery of our strategy to provide one-to-one assistance through our multi-channel and multi-intensity approach to service delivery. It also works with the Manager – Innovation, Senior Lawyer – Innovation and Lawyer – Products and Online on identifying trends in service delivery data to ensure our service delivery informs the development of new approaches.  

Key responsibilities: 

• Support the operational requirements of the team, including:
  • Supervision and support to Paralegals to undertake intake and triage assessment of help seeker requests for assistance
  • Where necessary, considering requests for assistance and making decisions about the nature of assistance to be provided (where escalated)
  • Identifying and where necessary, researching the legal issues involved in help seeker enquiries, settling briefs or referral materials to go to pro bono lawyers, and providing direct legal advice to clients.
  • Supporting pro bono lawyers in their provision of advice to clients of the team.
  • Assisting the Managers and Senior Lawyers to develop and conduct training for volunteer lawyers
  • Assisting the Managers and Senior Lawyers to develop and maintain legal resources and self-help tools for help-seekers.
• Taking a lead with Managers and Senior Lawyers in development and delivery of consumer outreach strategy for the team (in partnership with Lawyer – Products and Online), working closely with the Data Insights and Responsiveness Planning Lead and Innovation & Engagement Team.
• Providing mentoring and support to the Lawyer – Level 1 roles including providing support with casework queries.
• Working with the Manager – Innovation, Senior Lawyer – Innovation and Lawyer – Products and Online to identify and understand trends in service delivery, and to develop and test new approaches to meeting identified emerging legal need including development of digital and other innovation resources.
• Work collaboratively with the Head, Managers and Senior Lawyers to maintain strong relationships with key external stakeholders, including our pro bono partners.
• Support the leadership team of the program to implement the team and organisational strategy. This may involve work to improve how the team identifies and responds help seekers with multiple issues, the way in which the team collaborates to respond to need, and how it identifies efficiencies and opportunities for impact.
• Participate in relevant networks, roundtables, communities of practice etc to represent Justice Connect and the team.
• Manage Paralegals.
• Escalate risk and legal practice management issues to the Principal Lawyer or Manager.
• Contributing to Justice Connect’s Reconciliation Action Plan activities.

Selection criteria: 

• Please view the attached PDF for further information regarding the selection criteria. 

Employee benefits: 

Justice Connect offers employment benefits including salary packaging (making part of your salary tax-free), flexible working arrangements, above award annual leave provisions and opportunities for professional development. Justice Connect is an organisation that strives to show leadership, operate sustainably and demonstrate our effectiveness. You will be rewarded with a workplace culture that is professional, committed, collaborative and creative and where you can make a real difference through your work.