Head of Legal – Real Estate

Are you a strategic real estate legal leader who thrives on complexity, influence and impact? This is your opportunity to shape the legal backbone of one of Australia’s most significant real estate portfolios — partnering closely with asset, corporate and executive teams to deliver outcomes that create shared value for clients, communities and QIC’s future.

Reporting to the GM, Business Operations Support – Real Estate, you will lead a high-performing legal function critical to QIC Real Estate’s operations, transformation and long-term success.

About the Role

As the Head of Legal – Real Estate, you will serve as the trusted strategic advisor enabling QIC Real Estate’s asset, development and operational teams to thrive.

You will lead a team of specialist legal professionals (supported by external providers for high-volume matters) to provide expert, commercially driven legal advice across QIC’s national retail, office and industrial asset portfolio. You’ll act as the primary senior legal contact for QIC Real Estate’s operational business — shaping legal frameworks, resolving complex legal issues, and ensuring QIC navigates major projects, operational matters and transactions with confidence.

This role is uniquely positioned at the intersection of strategy, operations, and innovation. With major work underway to stabilise the QIC Real Estate legal function, enhance efficiency, uplift systems, and embed automation and AI, you will help cement the backbone of a modern, future-ready legal capability.

You will also play a key role in the broader QIC Legal community — collaborating closely with the Executive General Counsel and the QIC Corporate Legal Team - strengthening connectivity, driving consistency of advice, and uplifting governance, standards, and collaboration across the organisation.

About You

You are a commercially astute legal leader with deep real estate expertise and a passion for partnering with the business. You thrive on balancing strategic influence with hands-on delivery, and you’re energised by improving systems, processes, and ways of working.

You bring strong judgement, exceptional stakeholder management capability, and the ability to simplify complexity for senior audiences. You lead with authenticity, encourage diversity and flexibility, and create a high-performance culture built on collaboration, clarity and trust.

AI literacy, interest in modernising legal workflows, and a mindset geared towards innovation will set you apart.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Leadership & Advisory

• Serve as the senior legal advisor for QIC Real Estate, providing expert guidance across asset operations, leasing, development, construction and property management.
• Shape and manage the legal frameworks supporting QIC Real Estate’s asset portfolio and major projects.
• Lead legal input into complex transactions, including national and portfolio wide deals and precedent documentation.
• Advise on legislative developments, risk, compliance and emerging issues.
  

Team & Functional Leadership

• Lead, coach and mentor a team of specialised legal professionals, building a high performance, collaborative culture.
• Oversee allocation, supervision and review of work to ensure commercial, timely, quality outcomes.
• Strengthen integration with QIC Corporate Legal to ensure consistency and uplift across the legal function.
• Engage in workforce planning, capability uplift and succession management.
  

Legal Risk, Compliance & Dispute Management

• Identify, assess and manage legal risks across the real estate portfolio.
• Oversee resolution of disputes involving tenants, contractors and third parties.
• Coordinate external legal service providers (within the QIC panel) effectively and cost efficiently.

Business Integration & Continuous Improvement

• Work closely with asset, corporate and external stakeholders to support major strategic initiatives.
• Drive improvements to legal processes, workflows and systems — leveraging automation and AI tools to increase efficiency and consistency.
• Deliver training to asset teams to promote self-service in lower-risk areas.

Key Criteria (Essential)

You will bring:

• Extensive real estate legal experience (retail, office, industrial).
• Broad legal knowledge across leasing, development, construction and property law.
• An unrestricted practising certificate and senior-level legal expertise.
• Strong commercial problem-solving capability and judgement.
• Proven negotiation skills and ability to understand and balance complex stakeholder interests.
• Demonstrated leadership of senior legal professionals, including managing budget and resourcing.
• A collaborative mindset and ability to work seamlessly across multi-disciplinary teams.

Desired Criteria

• Experience modernising legal functions (automation, workflows, AI tools like Harvey).
• Demonstrated experience supporting both stabilisation and transformation phases of a legal function.
• Capability to operate at a strategic level while remaining willing to “roll up sleeves” when needed.
• Exposure to real estate transactions, acquisitions, divestments and major developments.

Why Join QIC Real Estate

This is a rare opportunity to step into a highly visible, business critical leadership role where no two days are the same. You’ll join a team focussed on connection, collaboration, high performance and innovation — with access to industry-leading talent, meaningful work and the chance to shape a function undergoing evolution and uplift.

You’ll be working in an organisation that values shared prosperity, invests deeply in its people, and is committed to delivering outcomes that positively impact clients and communities.

***We are not partnering with recruitment agencies for this appointment. Unsolicited agency CVs will not be accepted. Candidates should submit applications directly to QIC. If you require additional information, please contact Cassandra Eshman.***

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