Practical Legal Training Student - Access Program

You’ve finished your degree, and you’re nearly ready to start your legal career, but there’s a final step: practical legal training.  

With Justice Connect, you can do your training and make a real difference in people’s lives. Sharpen your skills while working to help people facing disadvantage and contribute to a cause you’re passionate about — access to justice.  

It’s also a great way to meet new people, gain practical experiences, and develop career-related professional skills and networks with a respected and established legal charity.  

Justice Connect’s Access Program are currently recruiting one part-time Practical Legal Training student (full time or part time), for a minimum of 50 days total, in our Sydney office.

Our Practical Legal Training (PLT) placements will provide you with practical and procedural legal experience and skills across practice areas. You will work alongside experienced lawyers and be exposed to embedded digital platforms in our legal practices. This will support you in gaining valuable skills and experience in your quest to complete your legal studies. 

Important role information

The position reports to the PLT Supervisor.

Placement is full-time; 35 hours per week, or part-time; 21 hours per week, and successful candidates must commit to a minimum of 50 days. 

This position is unpaid. 

The role will be based at our Sydney CBD office and Courts office with hybrid working arrangements.  

Rolling recruitment to 5th June 2023. 

Key Responsibilities

As a PLT student with this Service, you will develop practical and procedural legal experience and skills across various practice areas. Some of the tasks that the Access Program’s PLTs undertake may include: 

• Taking instructions from potential clients who are vulnerable  
• Engaging with other legal professionals 
• Managing intake of new online enquiries via Justice Connect’s online intake  
• File management, including maintaining accurate client information  
• Providing supervised legal information to clients  
• Involvement in current and potential Access Program projects, which may include researching issues or preparing fact sheets 
• Legal research, analysis and problem solving 
• Participating in making referrals which may include liaising with barristers and lawyers, preparing referral memos, drafting counsel briefs and delivering briefs to counsel chambers 
• Contributing to the improvement of our various digital platforms for legal service delivery. 
• Contributing to Justice Connect’s Reconciliation Action Plan activities. 

Direct client contact will only be available when working alongside Access Program staff in the Sydney office and Courts office. The Justice Connect Sydney office is in the Sydney CBD.

 To find success in this role, you should be able to demonstrate the following capabilities: 

• Be willing to develop and apply new skills 
• Be a supportive and cooperative team member 
• Ensure clients, stakeholders, and colleagues are kept informed of progress and issues 
• Develop positive relationships with clients based on empathy, respect and fairness 
• Work responsibly within the limits of your own role and capabilities 
• Perform work in accordance with set guidelines and procedures  
• Seek feedback from clients, stakeholders and colleagues in order to reflect and improve on your work 

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 Federal and Circuit courts. 

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

How to Apply

To be eligible for this position, you must: 

• Have completed your law degree 
• Be currently completing your Graduate Diploma of Legal Practice (through College of law or an equivalent institution) 
• Undertake a minimum of 50 days of practical legal training at Justice Connect 
• Lawyers will not be considered 

*Please note that PLT positions are unpaid* 

Please upload your resume and a cover letter via Livehire. Please ensure your cover letter includes your available start date, your preferred days, how many days placement you can commit to and the details of your GDLP provider. 

Applications will be assessed based on demonstrated interest in and commitment to not-for-profit organisations and the community sector. 

We know our team and our organisation is stronger with a diversity of backgrounds and experience, including lived experience of the issues we work on. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, people of colour, people from culturally and linguistically diverse and refugee backgrounds, people with diverse religious beliefs, gender diverse people, LGBTIQA+ people and people living with a disability are strongly encouraged to apply. 

Rolling recruitment to 5th June 2023. 

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