Director- Corporate Legal Services

Director- Corporate Legal Services

• Executive remuneration package
• Full time, 5 year executive contract
• Geelong based role (hybrid work from home – 3 days a week in office)

About the role

Housed within the Legal & Governance Business Unit, WorkSafe’s Corporate Legal Division is a cross-functional team of highly specialised legal and non-legal practitioners that is primarily responsible for ensuring WorkSafe’s effective Corporate Governance, the delivery of timely and high quality legal advice and core statutory functions and obligations and the oversight and management of complex and high-risk litigation.

The Director of the Division is primarily accountable for leading a number of legal and statutory functions that provide specialist legal and governance advice and support to all business areas across the enterprise spanning a diverse range of practice areas, including: contract, procurement and commercial law advice and litigation, administrative review litigation in superior courts, workers' compensation and advice relating to entitlement, scheme design and practise, privacy governance, freedom of information, industrial and employee relations and litigation and costs, and common law actions recovery and litigation.

Key accountabilities

• Responsible for overseeing and leading the strategic and operational delivery of all the Corporate Legal Division’s legal and statutory services across four major functional service delivery streams - Corporate and Commercial, Insurance and Workers’ Compensation Claims, Freedom of Information and Privacy and Industrial and Employer relations.
• Provide timely, proactive and high-quality legal advice and support to the Board, Chief Executive Officer, General Counsel and Executive Business Units of WorkSafe in the areas of corporate governance and responsibility, risk management and mitigation, integrity and statutory powers and authorisation.
• Oversee the successful delivery of high quality, practical, timely and client-focused strategic corporate and commercial legal advice, including in the area of tenders, contracts, Memoranda of Understanding (MOU), funding agreements, trade practices, intellectual property, debt recovery and other business law issues (including on WorkSafe/TAC joint collaborations).
• Oversee the management of WorkSafe’s information sharing (including Freedom of Information), privacy, data security and health records obligations, and provide advice on effective risk management strategies and approaches.
• Oversee the provision of Industrial & Employer Relations (IR/ER) legal advice and support to the People and Culture Division and WorkSafe’s Senior Leadership, including the management of dispute resolution processes and litigation commenced against WorkSafe in respect of state or federal equal opportunity, discrimination and industrial relations laws.
• Responsible for proactively building and managing external stakeholder partnerships relationships relative to the delivery of legal services, including with the Whole of Victorian Government (WoVG) panel law firms, Department of Justice and Community Safety (DJCS), Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner (OVIC), Integrity Bodies, WorkSafe Agents and barristers. This is critical to ensuring a proactive and balanced approach to legal risk mitigation.
• Lead, oversee and manage complex, high-risk and high-cost litigation (excluding personal injury litigation and criminal prosecutions).

Please ensure you review the Position Description here for additional information on accountabilities for this role.

About you

You are a passionate leader with demonstrated experience in providing strategic legal advice in a regulatory environment, and a proven track record of achieving positive outcomes. You foster an inclusive working environment that encourages collaboration, innovation and career development opportunities to enable your staff to reach their potential. Your technical expertise and strong stakeholder management skills allow you to build and maintain trusting relationships with various stakeholders.

Additionally, you will possess the following skills and experience:

• High level strategic, analytical and critical legal and litigation decision making capabilities
• Significant experience in interpreting complex legislation and drafting/amending/analysing legal documentation, in particular the legislation administered by WorkSafe
• Demonstrated ability to manage and oversee complex, high risk, high cost litigation
• Demonstrated ability to recommend strategic legislative and/or policy amendments, as appropriate
• High level judgement in identifying and managing the resolution of issues of strategic impact and importance
• Ability to analyse data, identify trends and develop strategies to respond to trends and reduce legal risk
• Capability to apply legal skills and expertise to design and drive strategic and structural changes that deliver efficient and cost-effective outcomes
• Capability to drive and implement change and to develop strategies to manage financial, operational, legal and reputational risk
• Significant experience managing internal legal teams, budgets and resources and external legal firms, barristers and external legal budgets

Qualifications

• Professional legal qualifications (LL.B, LL.M or equivalent) and admission to practice as an Australian Legal Practitioner entitled to practice law in Victoria and hold a full practicing certificate is mandatory.
• 7+ years post legal admission experience in relevant discipline

Working with Us

At WorkSafe, we aspire for every employee to feel connected, safe and valued in their team, for teams to feel valued in the workplace, and for WorkSafe to be valued in the community.

We believe that a diverse workforce is the key to delivering the best outcomes for the Victorian community and strongly encourage applications from all people, including First Nations people and people with disability, diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds, sexualities and genders. 

What’s next?

Applications close 11:00pm on Thursday 7 November 2024. Click the link to apply, and join us in making a difference to Victorian lives.

You will be required to satisfactorily complete a National Police Check and/or other checks as required for the position as part of the recruitment process.

To apply for the position, you will be an Australian or New Zealand citizen or a permanent resident. If you hold a visa that allows you to work and you have applied for an ongoing position, you can only be considered for a fixed term period of employment that does not surpass your current visa term. 

Candidate screening may take place prior to the advertisement closing, so get your application in.

For further enquiries please contact Bianca Stojanovski via email bianca_stojanovski@worksafe.vic.gov.au

About us

WorkSafe's Strategy has our core purpose front of mind – reducing workplace harm and improving outcomes for injured workers. We don’t shy away from the importance of our purpose to the Victorian community, that’s why we have a stated ambition to be world leading.

We want Victoria to be the safest place to work in Australia and one of the safest in the world; and we aspire to be a world leader in return to work after a workplace injury.

WorkSafe are striving to build a diverse workforce that reflects the Victorian community we serve.