Head of Practice - Family Law

The Organisation
  
The Women’s Legal Centre ACT (WLC) is an innovative, specialist community legal centre providing crucial legal and social support services to women in Canberra, to keep them safe, strong and in control of their lives.

Family law is one of the Centre’s primary legal practice areas, delivering holistic and wrap around services to clients within a trauma-informed practice model and with a focus on early intervention, early resolution and the facilitation of women’s financial independence and safety.

  
Benefits & Culture

• Attractive remuneration, generous salary packaging, 5 weeks paid leave
• Annual health and wellbeing allowance, paid cultural and reproductive health leave
• Genuine commitment to a flexible working environment
• Permanent role within a stable team and well established, sector leading service

The Role
  
You will work in close collaboration with the executive leadership team to develop and deliver on strategy, whilst leading and driving the family law practice area’s delivery of services, partnerships and trauma informed legal services.
  
You’ll supervise and guide a team of solicitors to provide expert legal advice and achieve high impact outcomes for clients, including support of a First Nations led team to meet the legal needs of First Nations women with a focus on cultural safety.  Additionally you will:
  

• Mentor and facilitate professional development opportunities for your team
• Ensure the practice actively contributes to law reform initiatives, public interest and advocacy work
• Develop partnership opportunities and manage stakeholder relationships
• Manage complex casework as required, including representation in ACT and Commonwealth courts
• Represent the Centre in local and national law reform forums

Skills Required
  
You are collaborative, ambitious and creative and bring a blend of management and mentoring experience, together with significant family law practice and technical knowledge. You’re passionate about gender inequality and have a genuine interest, vision and ability to lead and grow a program, as well as mentor and nurture the professional development of your team.
  
Your background may be from community legal or justice related roles, or you have relevant experience from working in a law firm or private practice. With demonstrated commitment to social justice issues for women and a focus on exemplary legal practice, you also bring: 

• Eligibility to hold an ACT Unrestricted Practicing Certificate
• Experience supervising legal practitioners and overseeing complex casework
• High level partnership development, community and stakeholder relations skills
• Commitment to trauma-informed practice, reflection and self-care practices

Please note being a woman is a genuine occupational qualification under s34 of the Discrimination Act 1991 (ACT). Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women, women with disabilities, and women from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds are strongly encouraged to apply for this position.  

If you’re motivated to apply your leadership and legal skills to guide and mentor a dedicated team of family lawyers working to improve women’s safety and financial independence, please send your resume together with a cover letter responding to the skills required section. Alternatively, please call (02) 8243 0570 or email debbie.jardine@ngorecruitment.com with any specific questions.

As there is no formal closing date for this role, if you are interested, we would encourage you to apply as soon as possible.

NGO Recruitment values equitable recruitment practices and is committed to representing candidates reflective of the diverse organisations and communities we work with. We welcome and encourage applications from all backgrounds, ages, and identities, and are happy to adjust our recruitment process to support accessibility needs. If you are interested in this position and have most of the skills or experience we are looking for, please go ahead and apply.