Legal Counsel

Legal
- Lawyer - Inhouse
- Sydney
- Permanent / Full Time
- Recognised in the AFR BOSS Magazine's Best Places to Work 2025
- Join a modern, market-leading law firm that puts its people first
- Be part of a collegiate and supportive team

Are you a strategic legal professional ready to make an impact across governance, compliance, and risk management? This is a rare opportunity to work at the heart of a leading legal services firm, where your expertise will shape internal operations and uphold the highest professional standards.

**About the role**

**Partnership Affairs & Corporate Secretarial**
- Support governance and partnership matters
- Corporate secretarial duties for Gadens entities

**Litigation & Production Notices**
- Manage firm-related litigation
- Respond to subpoenas, FoI requests, and other production notices

**Insurance & Risk**
- Oversee firm-wide insurance programs
- Liaise with brokers and insurers on coverage and claims

**Contracts & Tenders**
- Draft and negotiate third-party contracts
- Provide legal support for tenders and procurement

**Ethics & Conduct**
- Advise on Solicitors Conduct Rules and trust account compliance
- Provide ethical guidance across the firm

**Regulatory Liaison & Reporting**
- Interface with regulators and manage reporting obligations
- Lead compliance in Privacy, AML, and Modern Slavery

**Investigations & Complex Advice**
- Conduct internal investigations
- Provide legal advice on complex and sensitive matters

**Training & Education**
- Develop and deliver legal and compliance training programs

**Audits & Compliance Reviews**
- Coordinate regulatory audits and file reviews
- Ensure trust account compliance

**Data Governance & Emerging Tech**
- Advise on privacy, AI governance, and data protection
- Monitor legal developments in tech and digital law

**About you**
- Admitted legal practitioner in Australia
- 5+ years post-admission experience
- Strong background in corporate, regulatory, and legal practice management
- Excellent communication, analytical, and problem-solving skills
- Experience in privacy, AML, and ethical compliance highly regarded

**About Us**

Gadens is the only law firm to be recognised in AFR BOSS Magazine’s Best Places to Work 2024, which ranks Australia and New Zealand’s best workplaces across nine different industries. We are a leading, independent Australian law firm, with a clear vision and strategy for the future. We help people achieve their purpose in a complex world, by leading by example, inspiring others, innovating and building something we are all proud of. We have an aggressive growth strategy and as part of our evolution and journey, we are creating a modern law firm and will present to the market a new, exciting offering that will rival Australia’s top tier firms. At Gadens, we:

- develop and inspire our people
- do the right thing and make an impact
- work with quality clients in our chosen markets
- solve problems with people and technology working seamlessly together
- are a widely recognised and respected brand.

We offer:

- A friendly, down-to-earth, and supportive team environment.
- Truly flexible work practices.
- Progressive and market-leading Parental Leave support including:

- 30 weeks' Paid Parental Leave
- Superannuation contributions while on Parental Leave, for up to 52 weeks (based on 5 days/week, regardless of your working days)
- An external coach to support our people through the various stages of the parental leave journey (Launch, Leave and Landing)
- A supported and staggered return
- Budget relief for fee earners upon landing/return
- Support and paid leave for Surrogacy and IVF treatment
- Ongoing professional development opportunities.
- Health and wellbeing initiatives.
- And much more

At Gadens, we engage with all of our people to create a work environment that encourages and promotes inclusion and diversity, while instilling pride in the firm and our values of excellence, collaboration, stewardship, positivity, responsibility and integrity. Our values and culture assist us in creating a cohesive environment in which we are committed equally to professionalism and personal fulfilment. We strive to create a culture where the principles of sustainability and corporate social responsibility are embraced and lived by our people every day. This includes respecting and connecting with First Nations people and providing access to justice to those in need through our pro bono practice. This is what makes Gadens a great place to work.