Organisation : Justice Connect
Work type : Contract/Temporary
Sector : Law, Justice & Human Rights
Salary type : Annual Package
Application closing date : 9 Nov, 2021
About the organisation
An exciting opportunity has arisen to join one of Australia’s most successful public interest and social justice organisations. 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.
We are committed to taking an impact-focused approach, applying research and design principles to develop our products and services to ensure they make a tangible difference for our clients and sector peers.
We deliver services that assist both people and community organisations. Those we assist often struggle to navigate the law, are unable to use the law in their daily lives and experience the impacts of harsh and unjust laws. We aim to prevent and to solve legal problems so that we can prevent the negative impacts on people’s lives and organisations and empower the community to use the law as a force for good.
Given the scale of the challenges we address, we use digital innovation to extend our reach and impact, supporting us to be more efficient and accessible, while helping us capture and use data to better understand legal need and underlying systemic issues.
We harness the extraordinary pro bono contributions of over 50 member firms and the barristers we work with across the country. We channel pro bono effort through our innovative service models to ensure that pro bono hours deliver real impact for the community.
We develop strategic interventions to help address the system-level drivers of legal problems and barriers people face when engaging with the legal system. By addressing root causes of flawed or unfair laws and poorly designed systems, we prevent the long-term challenges that people and organisations continue to face.
Our creative and passionate staff drive us forward with a commitment to evaluation and iteration that ensures our impact increases year on year.
The Access Program at Justice Connect works to increase access to legal assistance and progress social justice by 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 over 10,000 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.
About the role
Role purpose:
The Principal Lawyer – Innovation plays a leading role in the delivery of the Access Program’s strategy, which is focused on reaching more help seekers, strengthening the team’s capabilities in responding to emerging legal issues, and delivering assistance with a focus on financial stress and employment. The role is particularly focussed on new approaches to legal service delivery with the use of digital products, including Justice Connect Answers, and the further development of Justice Connect’s disaster response practice as part of Justice Connect’s multi-channel and multi-intensity approach to improving access to justice.
This role is part of the Access Program leadership team. The Principal Lawyer – Innovation will take a data driven and evidence-based approach to developing new approaches to providing services in response to emerging legal issues, and working closely with the Innovation Manager on our strategy to scale the assistance provided by Justice Connect. The Principal lawyer – Innovation works closely with service delivery focused roles in the team to ensure that innovation initiatives are informed by the Access Program’s legal practice experience and to support successful adoption of new approaches.
Key responsibilities:
A Principal Lawyer – Innovation is responsible for:
- With the Manager – Innovation, leading innovation projects, including project and people management
- Management of Lawyer – Products and Online
- Management of Project, Data and Engagement Lead
- Supervise legal practice of Justice Connect Answers and Justice Connect’s disaster response
- Together with other managers and Heads encourage staff service delivery and behaviours that align with Justice Connect’s strategy and values.
- Together with other Managers and Heads, help to ensure that Justice Connect promotes staff wellbeing, diversity, cultural competency and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island Peoples’ right to self-determination.
- Project management for the scaling of Justice Connect Answers, including (with Head and Innovation Manager) leading engagement with participating pro bono firms and training them.
- Working closely with the Innovation & Engagement team and/or external agencies on technical development and monitoring necessary to sustain and improve the Justice Connect Answers platform
- Engaging with service research and data to identify other new opportunities for service improvement or new projects
- With the Manager – Innovation, participating in creating a pipeline of innovation projects
- Stakeholder engagement with key external funders, pro bono firms and service delivery partners
- Participating in evaluating innovation projects
- Collaborating with the Justice Connect innovation team
- Contributing to the service delivery work of the team as required (including supervise and provide legal advice, legal information and secondary consultations)
- Contributing to organisational activities and projects as required, including representing Access Program on the Practice Management Group
- Contributing to Justice Connect’s Reconciliation Action Plan activities.
Selection criteria:
- Please view attached PDF for 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.
How to apply
Applications not allowed for this job listing.
Please quote in application: Principal Lawyer – Innovation, Access Program via Pro Bono Australia.
Sector: #Law_Justice_and_Human_Rights
