For the full Position Description and details on how to apply, see the Out For Australia website.

Overview

OFA is volunteer run and funded by strategic corporate partners, so it is imperative that our legal and governance structures are rigorous, tightly managed and in compliance with all legislative obligations.

The General Counsel is responsible for managing OFA's legal, governance and compliance obligations, and overseeing our risk management framework. The General Counsel is also responsible for managing our relationship with our external legal service providers. The General Counsel reports directly to the CEO.

Responsibilities

Managing governance and compliance issues (60%)

• Ensuring OFA's reporting obligations to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits

• Commission (ACNC), the Australian Taxation Office and any relevant state and territory regulators (as required) are met.

• Providing advice on routine governance and company secretarial issues that arise in the day-to-day conduct of OFA’s work.

• Primary point of contact with OFA's pro bono legal services providers, work with other OFA volunteers to identify whether or not legal advice is required, and if so, provide instructions to our pro bono partners. The General Counsel may be asked to prepare briefs to our legal counsel on issues such as:

• Our reporting or other obligations as a charity or corporation;

• Our contracts with our corporate partners; and

• Our privacy and data obligations to do with our mentoring program.

• Working from a template contract provided by our pro bono partner, assist the partnerships team to populate a schedule to those contracts.

• Where legal advice is received from our pro bono partners, make sure the advice is delivered to and understood by the relevant team within OFA.

• Oversee the establishment and socialisation of OFA's internal policies (with legal questions referred to our pro bono external counsel).

• Report to the OFA Board and/or the National Executive on OFA’s reporting obligations and governance risk issues, and what the organisation is doing to appropriately manage those issues (with legal questions referred to our pro bono external counsel).

• Development, implementation, communication and maintenance of compliance policies, processes and procedures, including those relating to the Board.

Company Secretarial issues (30%)

• Maintaining the company's statutory registers and records.

• Updating the records held by the ACNC and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, including the filing of the company’s annual reports with the ACNC.

• Advising the Board of Directors on their legal and corporate responsibilities and matters of corporate governance, in line with the constitution. Organising the company's Board meetings (every six weeks) and the annual general meeting, including preparation of papers for meetings.

• Attending and minuting Board meetings - drafting and agreeing with the Chairperson before distribution wider. Any other services the Chairperson or the Board requires.

General volunteer expectations (10%)

• Participate in National Executive meetings (every six weeks).
• Undertake an OFA volunteer induction and role onboarding.
• Understand and implement OFA’s strategy, vision and mission.
• Uphold our volunteer code of conduct.
• Assist with initiatives as required.