Work Type/s: Permanent: full time, 0.8 considered; flexibility available (please specify your preference when applying)
Salary: $110,000-135,000 + super depending on experience [pro rata if part time]
Sector/s: Not For Profit (NFP)
Location: any Australian location, working from home, or from Sydney, Melbourne or Canberra office. For an exceptional candidate, the UK will be considered.
Job posted on: 11 July 2025
Applications close: 9am AEST on 1 August 2025
* Likely interview period: 11 August 2025 – 29 August 2025
Role: This new position reflects the expected growth in the use of legal strategies by ACCR as we seek to accelerate fossil fuels phase out. Reporting to ACCR’s General Counsel, the role will provide internal legal advice and training on a wide range of issues to assist in managing legal risk arising from ACCR’s strategic work and the current operating environment, ensuring legal and regulatory compliance (e.g. in filing shareholder actions), keeping abreast of the latest relevant legal developments, and exploring opportunities for using legal tools towards ACCR’s objectives. The role will help to develop and embed internal systems and processes for how legal risks are to be managed across ACCR. While the role will work across the whole organisation, it will not be required to manage ACCR’s internal operational legal and compliance obligations (e.g. employment law, charity law).
ACCR has staff in Australia and Europe so the role will require regular evening work from Australia (a later start or flexible hours are available to accommodate this), on average 2 evenings/week with calls in the 5-8pm AEDT period, especially during the Australian summer months. A base in the UK may be considered for an exceptional candidate – in that case, regular work from 6am would be required instead.
You’ll love this job if:
* You have the confidence, good judgment and experience to give legal advice on a range of areas and are able to make strategic calls in real time. You like strategically applying the law to find practical solutions to real world issues. In-house legal experience would be an asset, as would experience advising listed companies, board directors or fund managers, shareholders, general regulatory and corporate law experience, and risk management.
* You enjoy variety and can pivot quickly, adjusting course and coping well with change. You proactively identify issues and can lead on resolving them. You can manage an individual concern, while also having an eye to an approach that might avoid those concerns repeatedly arising.
* You are excited by the prospect of working as a lawyer in an international team of experts in many disciplines. You are adept at communicating with colleagues working in different time zones. You are proactive and not above getting stuck in and doing what’s needed in a small team to meet deadlines across multiple time zones.
* You want to use your skills and experience to catalyse global change towards fossil fuels phase out. It would be a bonus if you have any experience with the use of legal strategies and tools in relation to climate change.
* You are interested in multi-jurisdictional work. Being qualified as a lawyer in Australia is required; a dual qualification (e.g. in the UK) would be an advantage.
Responsibilities
The role will include the following types of tasks, working with the General Counsel:
* Providing legal advice, building legal strategy, managing legal risk, and supporting organisational objectives through regulatory compliance, and strategic litigation if necessary
* Working on legal aspects of ACCR’s advocacy work and other strategic legal processes, including:
* considering legal issues and compliance
* research on relevant case law and legal developments
* engaging and training ACCR staff on legal and regulatory requirements
* managing strategic litigation if necessary
* assisting with any legal processes impacting ACCR
* reviewing documents to ensure legal compliance and filing requirements are met
* Advising on legal risks for ACCR’s internal operations and processes within the current risk environment, and developing internal frameworks, guidance and systems to enable risk mitigation to be undertaken efficiently without losing rigour
* Instructing external legal counsel in a number of jurisdictions to advise on issues relating to ACCR’s work, including shareholder resolutions, risk management, corporate governance, company engagement and legal strategy
* Collaborating extensively with colleagues from different disciplines in the implementation of legal risk management and the development of legal strategies
Criteria
We’re looking for someone with these types of skills and experience:
* Australian legal qualifications, admitted to practice with at least three years’ (and ideally at least five years’) post-admission experience, with ability to hold a current practising certificate an advantage
* Experience in corporate, governance, shareholder rights, and/or financial services law, and an interest and aptitude to pick up new areas and explore new angles
* Ability to provide practical real-time advice
* Excellent legal management and interpersonal skills
* Commitment to ACCR’s mission and values
It would be a bonus if you have:
* Experience using the law for strategic purposes
* Experience with climate-related legal work and/or with companies in the oil & gas, mining and metals, or utilities sectors
* Exposure to corporate law (ideally shareholder rights-related law) in other jurisdictions (preferably the UK, Europe or Japan)
We also need someone with:
* Ability to join meetings outside usual business hours (evenings if based in Australia, early mornings if in the UK) and to travel occasionally to meet with colleagues
* Unless working from one of ACCR’s offices, comfort working in a remote virtual context – connected to colleagues elsewhere, possibly with another 1-2 colleagues within the same region depending on location, but working substantially from home, and thus having an ability to operate fairly autonomously
If you don’t meet every point above, please still apply if you can see your skills well used in this role.
Accountable to: General Counsel
Key Relationships: Chief Operations Officer, Communications team, Strategy Leads
Background: ACCR is a non-profit shareholder advocacy and research organisation founded in 2012. We use shareholder strategy to enable investors to escalate engagements with heavy-emitting companies in their portfolios, and provide research and analysis for institutional capital seeking long term value in a zero-emissions economy. Thanks to a heightened awareness of the importance of our work, and the urgency to act on climate change, we are growing rapidly. More information about our latest work can be found in our FY24 Annual Review. In 2023, ACCR won ESG engagement initiative of the year - Asia at Environmental Finance’s Sustainable Investment Awards.
ACCR has a dynamic team of almost 40 driven and experienced staff, based in Australia and Europe. Our growing team has a wide range of relevant expertise - climate science, communications, engineering, law, equities analysis, finance, investor relations, IT and more.
What we offer:
* We enjoy flexible work hours and supportive home-based working.
* Personal leave is double the statutory requirement, plus additional paid leave from Christmas to New Year. Option to purchase additional leave.
* We value peer learning and each of us has a professional development budget.
* Our Employee Assistance Program includes a discount for friends and family.
* ACCR offices are accessible and further detail can be provided.
Application Guidelines
We use Applied as our recruitment platform, helping us reduce the risk of unconscious bias in our hiring process.
We will ask you to answer 3 questions designed to test your ability to do the job. Please give it your best effort, your scores on these questions will be the primary consideration in whether you are invited for an interview. To avoid bias, we do not look at CVs until later in the process.
Once started, you can save and return to your application before submitting. For example;
* Tell us about a context where you’ve been asked to provide practical legal advice on the spot, ideally in a context similar to that required in this role. How did you handle the situation? What have you learned about how to meet the needs of the client’s urgency and ensure the advice is accurate? [word limit 250]
Please note, for this role, ACCR is only able to employ those who have the pre-existing legal right to work in the location of their employment.
We value diversity, equity and inclusion in our workplace. ACCR encourages applications from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and people of all cultures, abilities, sex and genders.
ACCR is committed to improving accessibility to enable the full participation of a diverse workforce. If there are any alterations to this recruitment process that would assist you in applying, please let us know.
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