• $168,512.00 per annum + 12% superannuation
• Full time, ongoing opportunity
• Melbourne CBD based role (hybrid – 3 days in office)

About the role

The Senior Legal Counsel/Senior Independent Review Officer is expected to undertake a high level of complex investigative and analytical work that has significant implications across WorkSafe Victoria operations while working within clear and established management systems, legislative/regulatory provisions and professional standards.

Key accountabilities

• Investigate and determine applications for review of disputed WorkSafe agent decisions and WorkSafe decisions in a fair, reasonable and timely manner.
• Supports Lead Counsel - WCIRS in sustainable decision-making relating to workers' compensation claims and entitlements.
• Engages and consults with relevant internal and external stakeholders in the operation of the independent review function, including the development of processes, precedents and training of relevant non-statutory independent review staff and associated internal stakeholders.
• Gather and analyse information relating to quality decision making frameworks, procedures, processes and policies which will facilitate the design and implementation of the non-statutory review function. 
• Build and maintain collaborative working relationships with internal stakeholders and provide support and learning opportunities relating to or arising out of a non-statutory review.
• Write clear and logical review findings setting out the basis for the findings including relevant findings of fact and the material on which those findings were based.

About you

You have demonstrated experience as a technical expert or a complex specialist as a legal advocate or policy specialist in the Victorian workers' compensation framework. Your written and verbal communication skills will be highly developed and you will have the ability to work independently with minimal supervision in an environment of internal and stakeholder pressure, and strict statutory deadlines.

More specifically you will have:

• Highly developed and demonstrated knowledge of the Workplace Injury Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2013 (Vic) and Accident Compensation Act 1985 (Vic), the Victorian workers' compensation statutory framework and relevant court decisions.
• Highly developed alternative dispute resolution, conflict resolution and facilitation skills.
• Demonstrated ability to provide solutions for defined functional objectives to improve current practices.
• Demonstrated capacity to deal with a wide range of stakeholders effectively, empathetically and tactfully in the review context, including workers, employers, decision-makers, the legal profession and other external stakeholder representatives.
• Demonstrated ability to assess competing and complex evidence and to reach logical and sustainable conclusions based on relevant material.
• Demonstrated ability to write sound logical and sustainable decisions capable of withstanding internal and external review, including scrutiny by Courts and Tribunals.    

Desirable Skills & Experience:

• Sound understanding of the principles of administrative review, and their application to the WorkSafe review context.
• Understanding of the principles of statutory interpretation and legal precedent.
• A tertiary undergraduate degree in law or equivalent.
• Post-legal admission experience of 7 years in Victorian workers' compensation litigation and/or administrative review.

Applications close 11pm Friday 13 November.