Senior Practice Leader / Practice Leader (Work and Road)
Slater and Gordon Lawyers are a leading personal injury and class actions law firm where every member of our team has a shared passion for our clients: we are people caring for people.
Our commitment to our people includes offering genuine work-life balance, with a hybrid work environment allowing them to split their time between home and the office. We recognise and reward high performance and have outstanding employee benefits including an extra week of annual leave, 18 weeks paid parental leave, extra-long service leave together with various ongoing learning and professional development opportunities.
We are also pleased to let you know that Slater and Gordon were ranked in the Top 25 Attraction Firms in the annual Lawyers Weekly Legal Firm of Choice Survey for 2023-24.
Acknowledgement of Country Slater and Gordon acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all First Nations peoples today.
Diversity + Inclusion Slater and Gordon is committed to creating an inclusive workplace that values diversity and ensures equal opportunities for all. S+G is an equal opportunity employer, and does not discriminate on the basis of race, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, or other legally protected attributes. We understand that everyone has different needs. If you require reasonable adjustments throughout the recruitment process please let us know in your application.
What are we looking for?
An exciting opportunity is now available for a Practice Leader to join our well-established Work + Road team in Brisbane. We are now seeking a specialised Personal Injury Lawyer (8+ PAE) on a full time permanent basis.
The role of Practice Leader at Slater and Gordon is responsible for supporting their Head of Practice to jointly achieve business-unit strategy and deliver their group’s operational, financial, client and people targets. Together with responsibility for consistently and effectively supervising and managing a team and/or office group, supporting the growth of their practice group through the pursuit of sustainable business development opportunities and managing a complex file-load.

The primary focus of the role is supporting strategic thinking, delivering strong financial and operational performance, leading and building a high performing team, including by ensuring compliance with Slater and Gordon’s Supervision Model and driving employee engagement, and assisting with complex files and client management issues. This includes developing in others strong leadership capability, legal expertise, case management skills and client conversion and other learning and development initiatives as required.

As a senior leader you will be responsible for the following:

Overview

• Role model, promote and ensure team behaviours align with firm values
• An active contributor of your practice group and support to your Head of Practice through highly effective and engaging people management and playing a key role to develop legal expertise and client care within your team; whilst effectively managing a file load of client matters, including achieving consistently high client conversion results, strong velocity/case progression and high financial and operational targets.

People Leadership
Role model:

• Enterprise leadership and be an active contributor in practice group forums and initiatives
• Positive and effective leadership with your direct reports
• Mentor, coach and support managers and others in the practice group to develop leadership and technical capability and manage underperformance
• Provide clear leadership on initiatives, actions and activities within your practice group with key focus on retention, developmental growth and improved engagement
• Monitoring and ensuring wellbeing and safety of staff (including managing leave entitlements)

Support to Head of Practice:

• With local engagement initiatives and contribute to a high performing, effective and collegiate working environment
• Active support in driving the successful delivery of the performance cycle (set, grow, review) including identifying developments needs within your remit
• Develop active involvement in recruitment, including building external networks.

Mastering Legal Expertise, Client Experience & Supervision

• Demonstrate a high level of expert and specialist knowledge within your defined practice area
• Support your practice group to provide high quality legal advice and ensure consistent delivery of quality client outcomes and care
• Ensure understanding across your practice group and work with your Head of Practice around understanding and compliance of working methods, firm governance and national practice standards

Running our Business
In alignment with your Head of Practice, effectively manage the operation of your practice group, including budget delivery, revenue forecasts, file management strategies:

• Oversee labour costs and effective workforce planning
• Reporting on and forecast ongoing staff performance with your Head of Practice
• Work collaboratively with others to identify process efficiencies and practice management improvements
• Support Head of Practice with change management initiatives when required

Growing our Business

• Support ongoing business development plans and growth of your practice group
• Demonstrate strong client conversion to maintain high file loads and sustainable pipelines of work
• Provide feedback to Head of Practice about the quality and efficacy of new client triage and suggestions on how to improve
• Inform Head of Practice of any industry or practice group trends/opportunities or competitor activity to influence marketing and BD strategy
• Develop strong and trusted relationships with both internal and external key stakeholders, including regulators, law societies, the Courts, insurers/defendants, government, counsel, medical and allied health professionals.

Other

• All other duties as directed.

What will you bring?
It is imperative that as a Practice Leader with our firm, you will be required to make regular complex decisions that will impact directly on your matters, but in consultation with your direct manager and wider practice managers, will assist in the development of the practice group. You will also bring the following skills and attributes:

• Post admission experience (8+ PAE) as a Personal Injury Lawyer (preferably in Work and Road)
• Sound legal technical experience
• An ability to build strong relationships with all levels of staff
• Prior experience leading and motivating legal professionals
• Taking a systematic and structured approach to work
• Ability to show initiative
• Superior communication skills
• Sound technical and functional skills to support others
• A team player

What next?
If you are interested in this opportunity, please apply directly to Slater and Gordon. We prefer to talk with you personally and are not accepting applications from recruitment agencies.