Principal Lawyer

Victorian Government; Melbourne; On-site; AUD 143,000 - 191,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Flexible working

Health checks and wellbeing programs

Gym memberships via Fitness Passport

Wellbeing platform Thrive Gateway

Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

Salary progression and annual leave

Job summary

VIDA Roads in Melbourne is seeking a Principal Lawyer to lead complex construction and infrastructure matters within the North East Link PPP package. You will provide pragmatic legal advice, guide procurement processes, and coordinate with external advisors to support project delivery.

The role requires a strong background in construction law, project delivery, and government procurement, with flexibility to spend time at site offices as needed.

Qualifications

• A relevant tertiary qualification in law and admitted, or eligible to be admitted, as a legal practitioner to the Supreme Court of Victoria is mandatory.
• Significant post admission experience in construction and infrastructure law, including project delivery or PPP experience, highly regarded.

Responsibilities

• Provide high quality legal advice across project delivery, construction contracting, legislation, interfaces, probity, land planning and environment, compliance and regulatory issues.
• Manage and coordinate legal aspects of procurement, delivery or organisational-wide activities.
• Engage with external legal and probity advisors and collaborate with other teams to ensure consistent approaches.
• Establish and maintain trusted relationships with internal and external stakeholders to enable efficient provision of legal services.
• Report to the Managing Principal Lawyer and support VIDA Roads projects, focusing on the North East Link PPP package.

Skills

Construction law

Contract interpretation

Legal project management

Stakeholder engagement

Education

Tertiary law degree, admitted in Victoria

Tools

Government procurement processes

Job description

Location: Melbourne - CBD and Inner Metro suburbs

Reference: 12812

VIDA Roads

VPS 6 Principal Lawyer

• Projects / construction specialist wanted
• 3 years fixed term,VPS 6 $142,790 - $191,084+ super & benefits, in a team that truly values flexibility.
• Contribute to Melbourne's biggest ever investment in the North East!

Join us in building better connections for Victoria by:

• Providing high quality and pragmatic legal advice across a broad range of legal areas, including matters relating to project delivery, construction contracting, legislation, interfaces, probity, land planning and environment, compliance and regulatory issues.
• Managing and coordinating certain legal aspects of procurement, delivery or organisational-wide activities.
• Managing and engaging with external legal and probity advisors and collaborate with other teams and external advisors as required, to ensure issues are considered efficiently and a consistent and agreed approach is taken to support VIDA Roads and project expectations.
• Proactively establishing and maintaining trusted relationships with relevant internal and external stakeholders to enable the efficient and appropriate provision of legal services and to ensure VIDA Road's and project objectives are met.
• Reporting directly to a Managing Principal Lawyer, the Principal Lawyer is responsible for providing legal advice and project support to VIDA Roads project teams and broader business. This role will be primarily focussed on the delivery of North East Link, in particular its central PPP package for the tunnels, noting that the role will require interfacing with the major alliance packages.

About You

• A relevant tertiary qualification in law and admitted, or eligible to be admitted, as a legal practitioner to the Supreme Court of Victoria is mandatory.
• Significant post admission experience as a legal practitioner (either in private practice, Government or in-house), with specialist experience in front or back-end construction and infrastructure law, including project delivery or PPP experience, being highly regarded.
• Demonstrated experience in complex contractual interpretation, particularly in relation to a major project, and the ability to provide accurate, concise and relevant advice on legal, regulatory and contractual issues to a wide range of stakeholders.
• Demonstrated experience or ability to rapidly gain experience in legal project management including tracking and management of: legal workflows, memoranda, briefs, publications and contract timeframes.
• Demonstrated practical knowledge of Government procurement or delivery or other Government legal processes.

Whilst the role is primarily located in Melbourne CBD, it will be a requirement to occasionally spend time at one or all our site offices.

We are committed to creating a workplace that inspires and engages you – we want you to be a powerful contributor to this wonderfully diverse and dynamic organisation. Our offering continues to grow but here
is what we already have in store for you:

• VIDA Roads welcomes flexible working arrangements.
• Access to annual health checks, including skins checks and flu shots.
• Access low-cost gym memberships for yourself and family at over 200 facilities via Fitness Passport.
• Access to Thrive Gateway, our employee benefits platform is your once stop shop for wellbeing as well as savings and discounts at hundreds of retailers.
• We're committed to supporting our team members and their families in improving mental health and wellbeing. Our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) provides confidential counselling and advice for our team members and their families for work and personal issues.
• Annual salary increases and incremental performance-based payments over the course of your employment.
• Leave loading of 17.5% payment on top of your base salary when you take annual leave and ability to purchase additional leave.

VIDA Road's commitment to Gender Equality

• As part of VIDA Road's commitment to diversity and inclusion, we are making gender equality a key priority at VIDA Roads.
• We are actively looking to attract and promote women into non- traditional roles and putting support structures in place to help them succeed,
• As part of part of our commitment to diversity and inclusion, VIDA Roads has launched a Gender Equality Action Plan - a blueprint for improvement and our progress will be tracked annually. Watch Dian , one of our talented Senior Project Managers share her thoughts on why diversity is important and what involvement she has had in the VIDA Roads Gender Equality Action plan!

Applications close Thursday 29 October 2026 at 11.59pm