Working at a community legal centre offers rare opportunities for transforming the lives of individuals experiencing disadvantage, while driving meaningful change for communities across the state and country.
Using the law to provide legal solutions to complex problems, community lawyers work alongside other social and community service professionals to create meaningful, positive outcomes for the people we work with.
This means there are incredible careers for a range of professionals in workplaces that are making a real difference!
There are 21 place-based community legal centres in Victoria, offering a broad range of services in their local community; and 29 specialist centres, including two Aboriginal Legal Services, offering services in specific areas of law (such as employment, tenancy, family violence, discrimination and disability law) or for different groups of people (such as young people, older people, LGBTIQA+ communities, women and refugees).
For more than 50 years, the Victorian community legal sector has grown from a handful of progressive lawyers offering legal advice free of charge in their communities, to become a powerful national movement for social justice. Community legal centres have rallied behind hundreds of campaigns, spearheading a number of significant legislative reforms that continue to benefit communities to this day.
Community Legal Centres campaigned for the right to same sex marriage, better wage rights for people living with disabilities, banning the sale of native timbers and logging in Victoria’s old growth forests, and more recently, waiving the fines issued to young people during the COVID-19 pandemic. Seizing on injustices, community legal centres push for what is right. They are some of the best places to work if you want to use your policy skills for meaningful change.
To support the smooth delivery of critical wraparound services, Community Legal Centres need staff with broad expertise in legal and other areas, including:
- Legal practice
- Social work
- Financial counselling
- Youth work
- Tenancy advocacy
- Management
- Policy and advocacy
- Community engagement
- Communications and marketing
- Data analysis
- Operations
- People and Culture
- Administration
- And many more...
The Victorian community legal sector is made up of people from all walks of life and backgrounds, who offer a fantastically diverse and complementary range of skill sets. But there is one thing that unites all community legal sector staff – a passion for social justice.
Sound like you? It could be.
Watch: Life as a community lawyer
Watch: Debunking myths about careers in community law
Vacancies in the Victorian community legal sector
See here for current vacancies in the Victorian community legal sector.
Where can I learn more about what it's like to work in the Victorian community legal sector?
Download the Victorian community legal sector's workforce survey here, to gain insight into what staff at community legal centres think of their sector.
Internship opportunities
If you're a law student at University of Melbourne or La Trobe University, you can apply for an internship at the Federation.
