I’m currently in the Legal area, specialising in employment law. My team provide legal advice on employment law and industrial relations matters and manages employment and industrial relations litigation.
7.00 AM
Start the day with a run around Lake Burley Griffin with some fellow APS graduates.
8.45 AM
Each morning I read through new emails and review the list of priorities from the afternoon before. I also like to file my emails from the previous day and update our matter management database.
9.15 AM
I finish drafting a piece of advice I started yesterday, regarding public health orders and certain work health and safety considerations in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. As I send it for review, one of the Senior Government Lawyers asks me to urgently help with a briefing. I review my notes and send an email to them with the details I have.
10.00 AM
My team has a meeting each week in which we share key updates, brainstorm approaches and discuss everyone’s priority tasks. We also talk trivia tactics ahead of our Branch trivia each week.
11.00 AM
One of the Senior Government Lawyers calls me to discuss a request for advice on the correct interpretation of a particular clause in the agency’s Enterprise Agreement. They provide some initial thoughts on how we might approach this request and suggest some relevant legislative provisions I should look at, including those in the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). I conduct some further research and start drafting the advice.
12.30 PM
I head downstairs to meet up with some of the other graduates for lunch. We’re all based in different business areas, so I enjoy hearing about the interesting projects they’re working on.
1.00 PM
Back at my desk, I continue to work on the advice I started preparing before lunch.
3.00 PM
A lawyer from another legal team speaks to me about a matter we discussed yesterday. They let me know we can expect an email response from their team shortly. I give an update to our Deputy General Counsel. Once we receive the relevant email, I prepare a briefing email to our General Counsel for their review.
4.00 PM
Our Deputy General Counsel advises they’ve reviewed the advice I sent to them this morning. I incorporate their changes into the advice and send it to our client. Our Deputy General Counsel also lets me know they’ve reviewed the briefing email and have sent it to our General Counsel. Given the short turnaround on this task, it’s a satisfying way to end the day.
5.00 PM
After another exciting day in the Legal team, it’s time to head home!