Job Description
Employment Lawyer | 2–4 yrs PQE | Accredited Specialist team | Brisbane
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Most employment law ads promise complex, high-quality work. Then you spend eighteen months on unfair dismissal responses while the compelling matters go upstairs. This is not that role.
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Who you'd be joining:
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A national employment and workplace relations firm advising Australian businesses for 30+ years - top-ranked in Legal 500 Asia Pacific, Chambers Asia Pacific and Doyle's Guide. It sits inside Australia's leading specialist group in workplace compliance, currently in a growth phase. Clients span aged care, retail, hospitality, sports and leisure, recruitment, construction and manufacturing, and the work covers the full employee life cycle - not one sector on repeat, not one narrow slice of law.
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Who you'd work with:
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You'd report to one Partner but have access to all of them, plus three Accredited Specialists in Workplace Relations - an accreditation rare anywhere in Australia and rarer in Queensland. The credential isn't the point; how they practice is. They're commercially minded (they answer what the client actually asked - what should we do - rather than listing risks and leaving the decision on the table). They're thought leaders who publish, present and get the call when a matter turns unusual. And they'd rather you were in front of a client at three years with support behind you than shielded until seven.
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What you'd actually be doing:
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Advising on unfair dismissal, general protections, discrimination, restraint of trade, wrongful termination and industrial disputes
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Enterprise bargaining,



restructuring, independent contracting, statutory compliance, WHS, and managing ill and injured workers
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Drafting contracts, policies, enterprise agreements and advice clients can act on
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Running your own matters - work plans, client expectations, costs agreements - and stepping into problem-solving mode when your SA or Partner is unavailable
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Delegating to, training and mentoring junior staff, against a billable target set to client budgets
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Building your profile is part of the job, not an extra.
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Business development here is structured and supported: drafting case studies and hosting client seminar roundtables, writing articles for publication, running fortnightly technical sessions, and contributing to new business pitches. At 2-4 years PAE most firms offer none of this. Here it's expected - which is how you build a practice of your own by the time you're a Senior Associate.
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What we're looking for:
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2-4 years PAE in employment and IR law. Law firm experience preferred, though strong in-house candidates considered
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Autonomous matter management and the judgement to know when to escalate
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Commercially minded, with strong, detailed drafting that never loses the practical outcome




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Self-starting - willing to grow your own workload - and aiming at a more senior position
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Admitted to practice in Australia with full, unrestricted working rights
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The part that decides whether this works
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Technical skill gets you the interview; shared values decide the next five years. The firm's own people wrote them:
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Exceed expectations - own what you do; be driven by discontent at today.
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Inspired and innovative - see obstacles as opportunities; question the conventional.
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Relationships matter - be open and transparent; earn trust and act with integrity.
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We're better together - one team, support each other, and don't take yourself too seriously.
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If you recognised how you already work, the rest of the conversation is easy. If they read like wall art, this probably isn't your firm - worth knowing now.
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This might not be for you if you want to stay purely technical (client contact, mentoring and BD start early), want a settled unchanging practice (this one's growing, and the pace shows it), or want a firm with no billable target (there is one).
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The package, and the honest version of the hours:
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$130,000 + super
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Hybrid working from contemporary Brisbane offices
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Standard hours Mon-Fri, 8am-6pm. It's a busy commercial practice and some weeks ask more - better said here than at your second interview
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Up to 16 weeks paid parental leave, a volunteer day, and your birthday off
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Recognised Employer of Choice, nine years running

📌 Employment Lawyer | 2-4 Yrs Pqe | Accredited Specialist Team | Brisbane
🏢 Nameless
📍 Brisbane