Associate - Professional Conduct

About Avant

Avant is Australia’s leading medical defence organisation with a proud heritage of protecting Australian medical professionals for over 125 years.

Avant now represents 80,000 health practitioners and medical students across every state and territory, delivering market leading products and services to meet their professional, personal and practice needs. Building on this heritage, our vision is to be the most trusted professional partner in supporting doctors throughout their lives and careers.

As a mutual organisation, owned by members and run purely for their benefit, our members are at the centre of all we do. As well as providing products and services to our member, we play a broader community role by advocating for improvements in the healthcare system and in quality, safety and professionalism in medicine, through delivering education and research activities.

The Avant Law professional conduct team is expanding to meet the increasing need to defend medical practitioners against claims made against them. We are seeking an Associate (PQE 2+ years) to join our Melbourne team for a permanent, full-time role. If you are passionate about collaboration, advocacy and making a difference for Avant’s members we want to hear from you.

**The key responsibilities include**:

- This role will see you deliver high quality, timely legal advice and services in respect of Professional Conduct matters to Avant Insurance claims managers and Avant’s members.
- Provide professional, thorough and effective legal service to achieve the best outcome for Avant’s members.
- Provide oral and written legal advice to members and Avant Insurance claims managers concerning professional conduct matters including Medical Board investigations, Coronial inquests, Medicare reviews/Committees, HCCC claims and preparing hearings for VCAT.
- Providing general medico-legal advice to Avant members and Claims Managers.
- Represent members in legal proceedings, attend court, tribunals or inquiries and through clear and persuasive advocacy achieve the best outcome for the member.
- Participate in a roster for providing telephone medico-legal advice to Avant members including occasional after-hours availability

**To be successful in this role you will have**:

- Relevant tertiary legal qualifications.
- Eligible to hold an supervised practising certificate as a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria and the High Court of Australia.
- Demonstrated post admission experience (ideally over two years) in medical negligence, professional conduct related litigation and criminal law experience is preferred.
- Previous experience in conducting some phases of professional conduct cases.
- The ability to express ideas effectively with proven excellent written and verbal communication skills.
- High level of prioritisation, time management and self-management skills.
- Good computer literacy and competency to work in an electronic document management environment.

Why work at Avant?

At Avant, our people are the centre of everything we do for our members. We offer a range of benefits and opportunities to enable you to make a difference, learn, and grow in your career.

We value our people by offering an inclusive workplace with a diverse range of benefits, flexible working options, career development, and internal mobility opportunities. Our flexible working arrangements are designed to enable genuine work-life balance.

Your development is our priority and we have a variety of learning and development programs that will support you in your career.

We offer support to our people via Employee Assistance Program (EAP), Health and Wellbeing programs, Tertiary Education Sponsorship and Support.

We have a diverse and connected work environment where your contribution and ideas will be valued and respected and make a real difference to the lives of others.

**Please note**: Avant Mutual is a vaccinated employer. Prior to the commencement of your employment by Avant, you are required to be fully vaccinated against the Covid-19 virus or have a medical certificate stating that you cannot receive a Covid-19 vaccination for valid medical reasons.