Principal Lawyer

Position Type: 4-5 Days per week (full-time, ongoing) | Start Date: 1 February 2025 | Location: Melbourne (2 days in the office, 3 days working from home) | Salary: $95,000-$105,000 (pro-rata) + super + NFP salary packaging

Join Anika’s executive team and lead the expansion of an innovative community legal practice pioneering a technology-enabled service model.

Become a part of an entrepreneurial, compassionate team motivated by its vision of a world where everyone can access justice, and working towards empowering all renters to thrive in safe homes.

Play an integral role in the advancement of innovation and data-driven driven systemic advocacy in access to justice.

At Anika Legal, we believe everyone deserves a safe and secure home.

Imagine living in a home that made you sick, having to choose between paying rent or eating, or living in constant fear of becoming homeless. That is the reality for most of the 7 million renters in Australia who are denied a safe home.

Anika Legal is a free, non-profit legal service for renters that empowers renters to thrive in safe homes.

Through casework, innovation and systemic advocacy, we support our clients and fight for a fair housing system so that every renter can live in a safe, secure, affordable home that supports their quality of life.

Anika Legal is committed to building a team that is as diverse as the community we serve.

Our team is better with people from diverse backgrounds and lived experiences who work together to impactfully create access to justice. We believe in fostering an inclusive and equitable workplace for people of all gender identities, sexual orientations, cultural and linguistic backgrounds and abilities. We strongly encourage Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people, people who are culturally and linguistically diverse, people who are LGBTQIA+, disabled people and people of mature age to apply.

Learn more about how Anika works and the four reasons people want to work at Anika.

You are a driven self-starter who’s eager for adventure, responsibility and likes challenging the way things are done. You’ll also have a strong sense of social justice, the essential qualifications and some of the advantageous qualities.

The Principal Lawyer will join Anika’s Executive Team, and lead Anika’s Legal Services team.

• Managing Anika’s legal practice as Principal Lawyer and ensuring its compliance with legislative/case developments.
• Act as Responsible Person for all legal services delivered by the practice.
• Managing, including expansion of, the Legal Services team, currently staffed by:
  • 1 other Anika lawyer
  • 10 - 15 volunteer/secondee lawyers
  • Up to 50 volunteer paralegals
• Leading the service expansion strategy, process mapping & optimisation, developing the client and student-facing service materials.
• Working with the Tech team as legal operations subject matter expert to continually develop our digital tools, including our bespoke in-house case management system.
• Ensuring Anika’s advocacy goals in systemic reforms are embedded within Anika’s service design and driven by casework data
• Leading stakeholder engagement with project funders, university partners, government and CLC sector partners.
• Working with the Executive Team to create and implement organisational strategy, and champion Anika’s culture
• Doing whatever the organisation requires - important, unforeseeable jobs pop up often in a startup! Like all employees you must be willing to step out of your role to best support the team.

• Have/are able to obtain a principal lawyer practicing certificate in Victoria (if you don’t already have one, Anika will pay for your practice management course)
• 5+ years of experience working as a lawyer (3 years for exceptional candidates)

• A courageous, growth mindset - you enjoy stepping out of your comfort zone and learning to do challenging things you’ve never done before
• Knowledge of the CLC or legal assistance sector
• Entrepreneurial and innovative - you embrace doing this differently, and can take off the ‘lawyer hat’ to challenge the way legal services are traditionally provided
• An interest in fostering a mentoring culture and a more socially responsible legal profession
• An aptitude for exploring digital ways of working
• Startup-ready - you are pragmatic, determined, and like getting things done
• You have an interest in developing the following skills:
  • Leadership
  • Management
  • Legal operations
  • Process mapping and UX/service design
  • Cross-functional and Agile ways of working
• Experience practising tenancy law

Send us your CV and a little bit about yourself

To apply for this role, fill out this form which will ask you to upload your CV and answer a few questions about yourself. Do not submit your application by email - these will not be considered.

If you have further queries about the role, contact Noel Lim at [email protected]. To receive notifications about new positions and updates on what's happening at Anika, you can sign up for our mailing list here.