Legal Counsel

About US

Are you looking for a high-performing, award-winning team to join? Look no further than UniSuper. Our focus on creating great retirement outcomes for our members has earned us recognition for our excellence and high performance. Come be a part of our inclusive, passionate team and make a difference with UniSuper.

You will be empowered to grow your career and contribute from day one in an organisation that supports your mental, physical, and financial wellbeing. 

The purpose of Risk & Legal is to provide expert legal and risk advice that enables good decision making and safeguards outcomes for UniSuper's members.

The Legal team comprises three teams: Legal Advisory, Legal Negotiations and Investments Legal. All teams support the General Counsel.

The opportunity

This 12 month contract (parental leave) role ensures that we know how to provide retirement solutions and services to our members which comply with the law and our trust deed, ensuring that members enjoy the privileges of membership and that we can innovate our products in response to changes in superannuation law. Your role helps us provide balanced, independent and commercial advice in relation to a wide range of legal issues across all areas of our business, excluding investment, contract-negotiation and litigation issues.

On daily basis you will be ensuring that UniSuper is always in the best possible legal position by:

• Being available, connected, and easy to deal with
• Getting to the heart of the issue and finding commercial solutions, not problems
• Contributing to and promoting a collegiate and cooperative relationship between Legal and the rest of the business

You’ll also ensure delivery of a range of legal services, including:

• Researching and providing legal advice in connection with superannuation law and financial services law (including in particular, Chapter 7 of the Corporations Act), AML-CTF and privacy law issues
• Reviewing marketing materials from a legal perspective, as well as product disclosure statements, financial services guides, target market determinations and other disclosure documents from a legal perspective
• Legal advice and assistance in connection with any regulatory enquiries or investigations, including any internal investigations concerning incidents and breaches, breach reports to the regulators and remediations
• Maintaining current knowledge of changes in relevant legislation and case law
• Reviewing and updating internal policies and procedures from a legal perspective

You will achieve this by:

• Conducting thorough research to identify relevant sources of law from legislation, case law, prudential standards and the UniSuper trust deed
• Correctly interpreting the law and apply it to the facts of your situation
• Having good judgment as to when your advice is complete and correct and enjoy autonomy in those contexts, and good judgment as to when complex, contentious or high-risk matters should be escalated for consultation
• Identifying legal issues and propose solutions for consideration
• Having a reputation internally as an approachable, commercial, pragmatic problem solver and lawyer who is a subject matter expert in their field

To be successful in this role you will have:

• Strong written and verbal communication skills
• Legal research skills
• Knowledge of the SIS Act, Chapter 7 of the Corporations Act, trust law, privacy law, AML-CTF regulation
• General knowledge of how superannuation works
• Strong interpersonal skills and an ability to work both independently and to provide responsive assistance to colleagues
• Legal qualifications and a current Victorian legal practising certificate
• At least two years’ experience in a law firm environment or in-house legal function
• A strong understanding of business concepts and operational aspects in superannuation fund administration firms

We're passionate about knowledge and sharing it amongst our members and our employees, therefore we believe that a balance of working from home and time in office is the best way to collaborate and build relationships with your colleagues. We ask you to be able to commit to 60% of your time in office.

Think Great. Create Great.