Paralegal - Access Program

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 of 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. We have 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. 

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. We also operate weekly pro bono clinics for help seekers involved in litigation in Victorian courts, Federal courts and VCAT. 

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. In all our work, we centre client experience and our commitment to impact. 

Our ideal candidate

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

• Effective communication skills,
• Good administrative skills,
• Highly developed attention to detail,
• Ability to multi-task and prioritise, and
• Ability to work collaboratively with other team members

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 will

• Be exposed to broad range of legal issues and needs in the community;
• Gain experience dealing with legal matters and prioritising tasks;
• Gain legal administrative experience in managing help seekers' information and entering details into client management systems; and
• Get opportunities to collaborate with broader team to address new and emerging areas of legal need.

A week in this role

If you were here last week, you would have:

• Reviewed applications made online by people seeking legal help, and discussed any issues in the requests with a lawyer in the team.
• Arranged appointments with our law firm partners for a Court clinic to assist self-represented litigants seek legal advice for their matter.
• Called a help seeker to speak with them, to understand their legal problem and explain our referral services and obtain more information, in order to then make an entry in our client management system to progress the person’s request for help.
• Attended a weekly team meeting with other paralegals and lawyers, and supervisors in Access Program.
• Reviewed self-help resources or attended a catch-up for a particular strategic project, focussing on a new/emerging issue in our disaster response work, or in relation to employment or financial rights.
• Had a regular catch-up meeting with your supervising lawyer or manager.

Important role information

The position reports to a lawyer in the Access Program.

Employment is full time (37.5 hours per week) fixed term for six months. Part-time will be considered for the right candidate.

The salary for this role is $64,684.75 per annum (pro rata) (plus 10.5% superannuation) with annual leave loading and generous salary packaging options.  

This role will be based at our Sydney office on level 5, 175 Liverpool Street, Sydney NSW 2000 with hybrid working arrangements.  (Justice Connect's hybrid working model: 40% time spent in the office across the month).

How to Apply

Please upload your resume and a cover letter which outlines your skills and experience that will help you achieve success in this role.  

For further information contact Georgina Molloy, Manager and Principal Lawyer – Services on (03) 8638 4442. 

Applications close 11:59pm on Sunday 22 January 2023.  

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