FAQs
What do we look for in our staff?
We seek to recruit people with talent, energy and a commitment to excellence. Client and team focus are important attributes for all staff. Our people come from diverse backgrounds and we value both professional and “life” experience.
Working in a partnership essentially means providing service to multiple stakeholders and clients. This makes our work environment demanding, but also challenging and interesting.
What are the benefits of working at Mallesons?
Mallesons Stephen Jaques is a constantly evolving firm with a dynamic and diverse culture. Our work environment promotes open communication and excellence, and while our staff are expected to deliver a high level of knowledge, advice and service to both external and internal clients, they can expect that same level in return.
We offer significant career development opportunities to our staff by providing them with challenging work within an environment that recognises and rewards excellence. Our Learning & Career Development team provides a range of training programs which focus on developing practice and matter management skills, and we encourage and support continuing education. For more information about Mallesons Learning and Career Development offerings, please click here.
Our offices are modern and well resourced, and our technology and support infrastructure is highly advanced. Our structures and technologies allow us to work as a national firm and share knowledge and expertise across centres. Our technology platform allows us to communicate effectively and easily, to share documents and work, and to offer support and experience on a firm-wide basis.
The firm offers a range of other benefits including an established Health & Well-Being program, gym memberships, social and sporting clubs, discount on legal fees and salary packaging options.
How would you describe The Vibe at Mallesons?
Our fourth survey achieved a firmwide response rate of 89%, having steadily risen each year from 76% in 2004. This outstanding reponse gives us great confidence that the Vibe results represent the views of our people across all centres and practice teams. The Vibe continues to be a valuable source of data about how our people feel about the firm, our areas of strength and how we can further improve Mallesons as a place of work.
The results of the survey indicated that our major strengths are training opportunities, our commitment to quality and excellence, collaboration and knowledge sharing, strategic leadership, job satisfaction, and pride in the firm.
The survey has allowed us to understand how our staff feel about the firm and has helped us to guide our planning to improve the performance of our business and become an even better place to work.
How well do you remunerate your people?
In remunerating our legal staff, our philosophy is to pay market competitive rates (linked to performance), commensurate with our position in the market as one of the major law firms in Australia. Mallesons also offers a bonus scheme for high performance, this rewards both financial and non-financial contributions.
As well as financial remuneration, the firm offers a range of benefits as well as a reward and recognition program for outstanding efforts. Benefits include:
- Study Assistance
- Legal advice & conveyancing
- Flexible working policies
- External career development
- Paid parental leave
- Social Clubs
- Gym memberships
- Health initiatives (yoga classes, regular health seminars)
- Friday night drinks
- Salary continuance insurance
What sort of feedback can I expect to receive on my performance?
Whilst your supervising partner or manager will give you feedback on your work on an ongoing basis, the firm also conducts an annual performance review where the performance of all employees is measured against the firm’s attributes framework. In addition to this, development goals for the coming year are set.
We encourage our staff to seek feedback on their performance, and we believe that effective feedback is crucial to achieve the best from our people.
What support networks exist in the firm?
While the firm encourages a culture of open communication between managers and staff, team members and throughout the firm, and support is therefore at your fingertips, one of the initiatives implemented as a result of our recent climate survey is the Mallesons Mentoring Program.
This program is a support system designed for all staff which creates an opportunity for ongoing informal performance feedback, advice and career guidance.
What is the firm's policy on further study?
We encourage further study in law and other practice-related fields, and many of our solicitors go on to do postgraduate studies in Australia and overseas. The firm has a generous study and external career development policy, and assistance is offered where studies are relevant to employment with the firm.
What flexible working arrangements are in place?
We want to strike a balance between our business requirements of servicing our clients and providing a flexible work environment to accommodate family commitments and important events in people’s lives.
Where possible, Mallesons is flexible in its approach to work practices. Our technology and support infrastructure is such that staff can work from home or enjoy a degree of flexibility with their hours if work schedules permit.
We encourage firm meetings to be held between 9am and 5pm, our family events policy provides the opportunity for our staff to attend family events which occur during business hours, all staff have access to an emergency childcare service, and it is possible to swap pay for leave.
What opportunities exist to work in other offices?
As part of a fully integrated firm, our people work together across national and international boundaries. This often involves people spending periods of time working in a different office. The strength of our client relationships also provides many opportunities for secondment. All opportunities are advertised internally and, depending on business needs, we encourage our staff to apply.
Does Mallesons recruit all year round or only at specific times?
We are constantly recruiting lawyers to our firm, and encourage anyone interested in a role with Mallesons to apply via our online application system. All current vacancies can be found in our Opportunities section.
If you have any other recruitment-related questions, please feel free to contact the Resourcing Consultant/ Centre Manager in the relevant office.