Family lawyers work in a unique area of law. Much like the practices of wills and estates and criminal law, family lawyers provide support on highly personal matters — their advice can often have direct and long-lasting impacts on a client and their family. 

Due to the nature of the work, family lawyers are advised to follow best practice guidelines, which consist of aiming for conciliatory and constructive resolutions, minimising risk to the separated couple and/or children, aiming for timely resolutions, and avoiding unreasonable costs. 

Herein lies the conflict, Ms Lee told Lawyers Weekly. 

In the business of family law, she said, a longer family dispute results in more fees generated, meaning there is an incentive for lawyers to lengthen the duration of their consultations. 

Legal practices, whether structured as a company, partnership or sole practice, function under the same business model that holds the purpose of maximising profits.

For most employed solicitors doing family law work in private commercial businesses, the sole aim of business is to maximise profits and solicitor’s fees — this is tied to the time or length of the separated couple’s dispute, explained Ms Lee. 

“The most common KPIs used to measure a solicitor’s performance is billable hours spent per day and fees generated per annum, which likely leads to career progression and promotions, including salary increases,” explained Ms Lee. 

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“This shifts the focus of the family law work to create an incentive for an employed solicitor to bill more hours to their clients every day.”

Ms Lee continued: “My view is that it is in direct conflict with the best practice guidelines and the purpose of family law.”

In 2017, Justice Robert Benjamin handed down a scathing decision in the then Family Court of Australia about a separated couple who had spent in excess of $860,000 on their solicitors during the case. 

His Honour said in his judgment (as reported by Guardian Australia): “In the Sydney registry of the family court I have observed what seems to be a culture of bitter, adversarial, and highly aggressive family law litigation.

“Whether this win at all costs, concede little or nothing, chase every rabbit down every hole and hang the consequences approach to family law litigation is a reflection of a Sydney-based culture by some or many litigants or whether it is an approach by some legal practitioners or a combination of both, I do not know.

“Whichever is the cause, the consequences of obscenely high legal costs are destructive of the emotional, social and financial wellbeing of the parties and their children. It must stop.”

Ms Lee has seen the family law industry firsthand, having been in it for the past 20 years, first as a paralegal/law graduate, then as an employed solicitor in a number of private law firms of varying sizes, and then now as a principal solicitor of a not-for-profit legal practice. 

“I have sadly observed that there is often no ‘constructive and conciliatory approach’ amongst the majority of family lawyers I have dealt with, nor adherence to ‘timely resolution of disputes’.

“In fact, there is a disproportionate spending on legal fees, especially where a family law dispute is litigated in the courts.

“The adversarial nature of litigation is not suited to family law practice,” Ms Lee maintained.

“Adversarial practice directly generates more billable work (for the solicitor) and delay resolution (for the parties) and indirectly creates more conflict for the separated couple.”

“[And] for the solicitors working in such a high-conflict stressful environment, there is a high turnover of staff and many experience burnout along with stress-related health issues.”

Not-for-profit family firms provide a solution

“Fortunately, there is a small group of family lawyers like myself wanting to change the business systems within which we work,” stated Ms Lee.

I relate. Collaborative Family Law is a social enterprise and is a subsidiary of parent company, Interrelate — which is a not-for-profit company. 

“I believe that a social enterprise, which is a business ‘for good’ and ‘not-for-profit’, provides a solution for family lawyers,” explained Ms Lee

“It dramatically changes the focus of our legal practice — away from the sole purpose of generating profits, which really only benefits the owners of the business.”

The business charges a fee for service in order to remunerate staff appropriately, to continue professional development and to cover office expenses. However, they charge lower-than-market rates for the same comparable service.

“The key is what we do with the fees we collect and the profits earned,” Ms Lee continued. 

“Instead of lining the pockets of the partners or shareholders, so to speak, all our profits are channelled back to our parent company, Interrelate. 

“Our profits help fund new or existing relationship services and programs provided by Interrelate, which is aimed at helping individuals and families build better relationships.”

“We also work differently,” she said. “Our goal is to help separated couples efficiently resolve disputes outside of the courts.

“This means we are working towards finishing the case, and we do not ‘over service’ our clients.

“We do not represent clients in contested cases in court, and we are ‘settlement focused’ in our day-to-day practice.

“This means we are not working towards the goal of extending the life of the case to generate more billable hours to meet our profit targets.” 

As a result of this system, clients pay less fees overall and are more satisfied with the quick and efficient resolution of this case, explained Ms Lee. 

“Solicitors working in this space are rewarded not only by the feedback from satisfied clients but also knowing that their work is ‘for good’ at the end of the day, and not just the pay packet,” she said. 

The model is good for business, as happy clients naturally bring more work, and happy employees grow the business, she noted. “Our clients overwhelmingly report high satisfaction after using our service and are satisfied knowing their fees are used ‘for good’.

“Now is time for change, and it is up to every single-family lawyer to take that step, however small or big, towards working ‘for good’. It can be done,” stated Ms Lee.