Employee benefits and conditions

Flexible work arrangements and family friendly policies

We recognise the need to balance your work and personal life, and our policies provide flexible working arrangements and a range of family-friendly benefits and practices. These include options to:

purchase additional annual leave (up to eight weeks per year)
work flexible hours
job share
work from different locations under our hybrid work policy.

Generous leave provisions

Our Enterprise Agreement (EA) sets out our allowances, benefits and leave entitlements. These include:

paid parental leave (including primary and secondary caregiver, prenatal, pre-adoption and parental bereavement leave)
paid foster and kinship care leave
paid seasonal leave (three days between the Boxing Day and New Year's Day public holidays)
gender affirmation leave (up to four weeks paid leave for essential and necessary gender affirmation procedures; and up to 48 weeks of unpaid leave)
paid blood donation leave
cultural and ceremonial leave
paid compassionate leave (three days per occasion)
paid reproductive leave (five days per calendar year)
paid fertility treatment leave (five days per calendar year)
paid family and domestic violence leave (20 days per year)
ability to cash out annual leave.

Professional development

We have many opportunities for professional development, including:

formal learning and training programs
Law Institute of Victoria Membership paid by Victoria Legal Aid (sign up here)
Disability Council of Australia membership
paid study leave and fee reimbursement for further education and study
formal mentoring program
mentoring and support from Professional Support Lawyers and other senior leaders
on-the-job development opportunities.

Our Professional Legal Education program helps lawyers keep their legal knowledge up-to-date and satisfy continuing professional development obligations. We also run organised study groups and presentations by our in-house team of expert lawyers.

Salary packaging

Salary packaging (through Remunerator) allows you to reduce the amount of tax you pay, increasing your net salary and helping you make the most of your income.

You can nominate to package up to $15,900 of General Expenses (e.g. mortgage, rent, credit card), up to $2,650 of Meals & Entertainment, and Novated Leasing options.

Salary increases & allowances

All employees receive an annual 3 per cent salary increase under our current EA.

Employees eligible for progression pay will also receive an additional salary increase of:

5 per cent per annum for VLA2 to VLA3 staff
2 per cent per annum for VLA4 to VLA7 staff.

Employees also receive an annual $1,100 mobility payment (adjusted pro rata), increasing by a further 3 per cent per year

We also offer the following allowances for eligible employees:

language (interpreter) allowance
first aid allowance
stand-by allowance
travelling and expenses allowances
higher duties allowance.

Health and wellbeing

All employees can access no-cost counselling and other wellbeing resources through Converge International, including career coaching, financial counselling, nutrition and lifestyle, family counselling and other areas.

Other benefits include

discounted health insurance
subsidised eyewear
annual flu vaccination.

Commuter club

The Myki Commuter Club enables you to purchase a yearly public transport card, saving 10 per cent off the cost of a yearly ticket. Myki can now be used on most of the V/Line network to Victoria’s regions.

Other benefits

Some of our other employee benefits include:

recognition of prior service that meets specific criteria.

Each of our offices has local benefits that may include end-of-trip facilities, discounts at local cafes etc. Our Melbourne CBD office even has a free gym and access to umbrellas and a pool car through the building’s 'Charli' app.