Senior Legal Administrator (Full-time or 0.8 Part-time)

The Organisation 

Westjustice is a rights-based Community Legal Centre servicing Melbourne’s West on the lands of the Bunurong and Wurundjeri peoples and including the LGAs of Wyndham, Maribyrnong, Hobsons Bay, Melton and Brimbank, a population of over a million people.

Melbourne’s Western Suburbs are the thriving backbone of the state, and home to Australia’s most diverse and fastest-growing population. Westjustice’s purpose is to deliver targeted services and drive meaningful change to achieve fairness, safety and justice for Melbourne’s West.  We work to uphold peoples’ rights by providing free legal, social work, financial counselling services, community engagement, and advocacy for systemic reform across the five impact areas of Workers’ Rights, Children and Young People’s Rights, Women and Gender Diverse people’s Rights, Economic and Housing Rights, and Our Team.

We provide place-based, multi-disciplinary programs, and partner with values-aligned organisations to focus on servicing those most impacted by these issues, and to ensure people have access to the services they need where they need them. Through our work, we consistently see complex legal issues and the cyclical impact they have on longer term justice, economic, health, and life outcomes. This is why our services and programs focus on prevention and early intervention in the cycle of economic precarity, criminalisation, violence and housing insecurity. It is also why we advocate for legal, social and policy reform to ensure the people of Melbourne’s West have access to services and the best version of justice.  

Benefits & Culture

• Be a part of an organisation that 98% of our employees are proud to work for 
• We pay 3% above the SCHADs award  
• Not for profit salary packaging up to $15,900 per annum 
• Flexible working conditions 
• 17.5% annual leave loading 
• Passionate, professional and dedicated team 
• Gifted additional paid leave over the Christmas holiday period 
•  Strong focus on collaboration, wellbeing, inclusion and diversity  

The Role 

Westjustice is seeking an experienced Legal Administrator to provide high quality administrative and legal support as well as providing guidance and coordination to the teams other Legal Administrators. This role is a 12-month fixed term contract (with potential for a longer-term contract depending on availability of funding) in our Women and Gender Diverse People’s Rights Program.  This is an excellent opportunity for someone with 3-5 years’ experience in a Legal Assistant or similar Legal Support role who is ready to take on the next step in their career and use their experience to support both our lawyers and the wider Legal Administration team.   

Role Requirements:

1. Provide a wide range of legal administrative support services including but not limited to conducting legal intake with clients, court clerking, word processing, data entry, generating and preparing legal correspondence/court documents/briefs to counsel, calendar management, processing applications for grants of legal assistance, preparing powerpoint presentations, booking interpreters, data reporting, file management and where required, reception services. 
2. Lead the day to day administrative functions including the practice including training, induction and orientation of new administrative staff. 
3. Lead other legal administrators and providing development support to grow their expertise.  
4. Lead the development and implementation of procedures to enhance the legal and administrative work practices of the team. 
5. Triage client inquiries, record outcomes and provide internal or external referrals as appropriate. 
6. Provide information and referrals to the public, lawyers and community agencies about Westjustice (WJ) and external services. 
7. Update and maintain Westjustice’s client database and case management system in accordance with policies, procedures and practice standards considering local operating requirements. 

Skills and experience required:

• A minimum of 3-5 years’ experienced as a Legal Assistant 
• Experience leading the administrative functions of a busy legal practice  
• Excellent organisational and time management skills 
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills 
• High attention to detail and the ability to manage competing priorities 
• A proactive and team-focused approach  

(Please note, Westjustice employs a number of Legal Administrators who are current law students seeking experience to position themselves for a career in law. This particular role is specifically seeking an experienced career legal assistant, to provide guidance to those more junior legal administrators. Therefore, we will not be considering law students who are seeking a career as a lawyer in the medium to long term for this position.)   

The role is primarily based at our Sunshine office but will be required to work at our other offices, including relevant courts and other outreach locations, as the need arises. 

Remuneration: 

Salary – $95,046pa (dependent on experience) employer funded superannuation in accordance with Superannuation Guarantee (Administration) Act 1992 (Cth), salary packaging and meals and entertainment benefits.  

For more information about Westjustice, please visit our website (www.westjustice.org.au) 

If this sounds like the role for you, please promptly apply. The position will be closed as soon as a sufficient number of qualified applicants are received.  

The successful candidate will require a current Working with Children’s Check and a Police Check or be prepared to apply for both. Applicants must possess the right to work in Australia. 

Westjustice is committed to building a diverse workforce. We strongly encourage applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people living with a disability, people from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, mature age workers and LGBTIQA+ identifying people. People with lived experience of the justice system are encouraged to apply. A police check result does not automatically disqualify an application which in each case will be individually assessed for the relevant role.   

Please ensure that you let us know, in advance, of any reasonable adjustment you may require during any part of the recruitment process including application and interview by contacting Theresa via theresa@Westjustice.org.au.  Any information disclosed will be held in the strictest of confidence.