I feel that what I do at WorkSafe Victoria helps contribute to making workplaces safer and improving outcomes for injured workers, which is incredibly rewarding. It’s easy to feel motivated working for an agency with such clear and important goals.
Before joining the public sector, I worked at a national law firm, where I advised on a range of matters and worked for public and private sector clients as a litigator. Before becoming a lawyer I had a career in educational publishing, where I commissioned textbooks and e-learning resources.
Most people would be surprised by how much commercial legal work government agencies undertake. Like businesses, agencies have to purchase property and lease office space, enter into contracts for equipment and services, employ staff, engage contractors and the like. There’s therefore a need for sound commercial legal advice, as well as advice involving, for example, administrative and public law. The breadth of work makes for an interesting job. In fact it was one of the things that drew me to the public sector, along with the opportunity to make a positive contribution.
My days are quite varied. I might be advising on privacy or information-sharing provisions in legislation, reviewing submissions to regulatory bodies, meeting with stakeholders or catching up with team members. Because of the focus of my role, I most regularly deal with questions involving privacy and data protection, information sharing, and the Freedom of Information Act. There’s so much important and fascinating legal work to be done in the public sector, and you get to see, up close, how government responds to different challenges.
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