Grad­u­ate Lawyer- 3 positions

About Swaab

We are a mul­ti-award win­ning, com­mer­cial law firm and have been a final­ist in the BRW Client Choice Awards for many years, includ­ing for Best Law Firm (rev under $50m) and Best NSW Firm at the BRW Client Choice Awards. Impor­tant­ly, we see the impor­tance of young lawyers to the future of our firm. We have sup­port­ed our staff to achieve indus­try com­men­da­tion includ­ing as Doyles Guide Ris­ing Stars in fam­i­ly law and plan­ning & envi­ron­ment law, and Lawyers Week­ly 30 Under 30 recog­ni­tion in cor­po­rate, com­mer­cial and intel­lec­tu­al property.

Estab­lished by Fred Swaab, in Syd­ney, in 1981 we have grown to become a haven for inno­va­tion, entre­pre­neur­ship, fam­i­ly busi­ness, SMEs, cor­po­rates, high-net-worth indi­vid­u­als and gov­ern­ment clients. We hold a unique posi­tion in the mar­ket place, as a firm with both full-ser­vice Com­mer­cial and Fam­i­ly law offer­ings. Our suc­cess has been a result of putting our peo­ple and clients first by liv­ing our val­ues of: Com­mit­ment, Integri­ty, Excel­lence, Gen­eros­i­ty of Spir­it, Uni­ty and Inno­va­tion. Our strong and endur­ing cul­ture has been the result of devel­op­ing and nur­tur­ing long-term client relationships.

Our key areas of prac­tice are fam­i­ly law, cor­po­rate, com­mer­cial, intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty and tech­nol­o­gy, employ­ment law, prop­er­ty, plan­ning, con­struc­tion, lit­i­ga­tion, insol­ven­cy and franchising.

We are a mem­ber of Mer­i­tas, a glob­al alliance of inde­pen­dent, full ser­vice law firms and are its only Syd­ney based mem­ber. This allows us to keep in touch glob­al­ly, pro­vide extend­ed ser­vices to our clients and gives us the expo­sure and oppor­tu­ni­ty to work with inter­na­tion­al businesses.

About the roles

We have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring on board three grad­u­ates with vary­ing focus­es. Two of the grad­u­ate posi­tions will have a gen­er­al focus and will com­plete two, nine-month rota­tions through a liti­gious and non-liti­gious area of law at the firm, before join­ing a prac­tice group. Liti­gious mat­ters could involve com­mer­cial lit­i­ga­tion, employ­ment law and fam­i­ly law, while the non-liti­gious rota­tion could include work in com­mer­cial, cor­po­rate, intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, and pri­vate client areas.

The third grad­u­ate posi­tion will specif­i­cal­ly be in our Prop­er­ty, Plan­ning and Projects (PPP) team. The suc­cess­ful can­di­date will get expo­sure to a range of areas includ­ing res­i­den­tial and com­mer­cial prop­er­ty trans­ac­tions, devel­op­ment, con­struc­tion and stra­ta mat­ters as well as plan­ning and envi­ron­men­tal mat­ters. You will be exposed to the trans­ac­tion­al and liti­gious areas of work. 

You will be allo­cat­ed a super­vis­ing part­ner in each rota­tion and also assigned a Senior Asso­ciate or Asso­ciate and a bud­dy to pro­vide you with sup­port and guid­ance through­out each rotation.

Your busi­ness skills and legal knowl­edge will be devel­oped by under­tak­ing research, draft­ing let­ters and legal doc­u­ments, liais­ing with clients and get­ting involved in gen­er­al day to day mat­ter man­age­ment. Expo­sure to clients and part­ners this ear­ly on in your career will enable you to devel­op your con­fi­dence, legal skills and pro­file at a more accel­er­at­ed pace. 

To make sure you get the best pos­si­ble start to your career, we also invest in your pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment through inter­nal and exter­nal­ly offered programs.

Why Us?

Our close-knit teams mean that you will have a high­er lev­el of engage­ment with part­ners and clients than you would get at a larg­er law firm. 

Our grad­u­ate pro­gram has been designed with flex­i­bil­i­ty to ensure each grad­u­ate gets the most out of their rota­tion. It is very much a hands on expe­ri­ence. We are large enough to offer you the pro­fes­sion­al chal­lenges you seek and small enough to pro­vide you with the per­son­al sup­port you need to meet them. We care for our peo­ple and you are very much inte­grat­ed in the wider Firm, not iso­lat­ed to a prac­tice area. 

Our work­place encour­ages a bal­ance of work and play, and we are proud of our fam­i­ly friend­ly cul­ture. We believe the gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it of our peo­ple, makes this a spe­cial place to work.

What are we look­ing for?

We are look­ing for pas­sion­ate and moti­vat­ed indi­vid­u­als with a sol­id aca­d­e­m­ic record and var­ied inter­ests out­side of aca­d­e­m­ic life because we val­ue the impor­tance of a bal­anced lifestyle for indi­vid­ual and organ­i­sa­tion­al health and well­be­ing. The suc­cess­ful appli­cants will need to be able to demon­strate their excel­lent rela­tion­ship man­age­ment skills, their enthu­si­as­tic and ded­i­cat­ed approach to their work and a will­ing­ness to com­mit to their careers and learn all they can. Appli­cants must have com­plet­ed their uni­ver­si­ty stud­ies to be eli­gi­ble for these grad­u­ate positions.

Grad­u­ate Appli­ca­tion Dates

Appli­ca­tions Open: 18 Feb­ru­ary 2021 

Appli­ca­tions Close: 18 March 2021

Roles will com­mence as soon as possible.

How to Apply

If you are inter­est­ed in a grad­u­ate posi­tion at Swaab, please attach a cov­er let­ter, CV and your aca­d­e­m­ic tran­script in an email to resumes@​swaab.​com.​au to the atten­tion of Angela Sharpe, Head of Peo­ple and Cul­ture. In your cov­er let­ter, please pro­vide short respons­es to the fol­low­ing questions:

• are you inter­est­ed in the gen­er­al grad­u­ate posi­tion or the PPP grad­u­ate position?
• have you com­menced or com­plet­ed your PLT studies?
• why are you inter­est­ed in a grad­u­ate posi­tion at Swaab?
• what qual­i­ties do you con­sid­er your strengths? 
• do you have any non-legal busi­ness expe­ri­ence that you can bring to the grad­u­ate role?
• which Swaab val­ue (Com­mit­ment, Integri­ty, Excel­lence, Gen­eros­i­ty of Spir­it, Uni­ty or Inno­va­tion) do you con­nect with most?