A family law practice handles wills, succession, custody, maintenance and property within families. Files run long, feelings run high and the practice often serves the same families across generations.
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Share your requirementsA family law practice covers wills, probate and succession, partition of family property, guardianship, custody, maintenance and related disputes. The team is a principal advocate, junior advocates, clerks, a drafting assistant for wills and settlement deeds, and a front desk for walk-in families. Matters can run for years, and old files return when a relative dies or a dispute reopens. Papers include originals such as wills, deeds and family trees, which must be kept safely. Clients may be elderly, grieving or in conflict with relatives who also call the office. Staff must keep neutral and keep secrets. Juniors learn the field slowly, and a lost date or paper can hurt a family badly. See also HR for professional services.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in family lawyers. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
A reopened succession dispute needs a file from long ago, and if the clerk who knew it has left, no one can find the papers.
Valuable originals sit in cupboards with no register, and a loss would harm the family and the practice.
Staff receive calls from family members on opposite sides and may say too much, causing complaints.
They need longer meetings, repeats and visits, and staff are pushed for time without guidance on how to treat them.
Cases are slow, so juniors do not get to see a matter through, and some leave to find faster growth.
A trusted assistant drafts all wills and deeds in their own way, and quality drops when they are away.
Long gaps between dates mean they are forgotten, or recorded in different places.
Matters conclude after years, so income is uneven and staff pay feels uncertain.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Career and Succession Management; Policies, Compliance and Governance. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a family lawyers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Each matter with a number, parties, status, storage place and the advocate responsible, stored in the office rather than a personal device.
Each matter with a number, parties, status, storage place and the advocate responsible, stored in the office rather than a personal device.
Every will, deed and certificate logged in, with a signed record when it is taken out.
Every will, deed and certificate logged in, with a signed record when it is taken out. Document staff duties through the HR documentation process.
What staff may say to relatives, who is the client and when to refer the caller to the advocate.
What staff may say to relatives, who is the client and when to refer the caller to the advocate.
Longer slots, a quiet seat, a plain explanation of steps and travel help.
Longer slots, a quiet seat, a plain explanation of steps and travel help. Use workplace health, safety and wellbeing thinking for the office layout.
Small matters of their own, a share in long files and regular feedback.
Small matters of their own, a share in long files and regular feedback. The performance management process can organise it.
Checklists and templates reviewed by an advocate, with a second assistant trained.
Checklists and templates reviewed by an advocate, with a second assistant trained. See the learning and development process.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
Confidentiality and custody terms for staff who handle original papers.
Regular feedback for juniors on matters that run for years.
A second drafter and a junior learning path.
A welcoming, accessible office for elderly and distressed clients.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
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Keep an index with matter number, parties, storage and responsible advocate, and update it whenever a file moves. Do not rely on a clerk's memory.
In a locked place with a register and a signed record whenever they leave. Ask a qualified professional about any specific safe-custody duties.
Decide beforehand: confirm only what the client permits, take a message and refer to the advocate. Staff need the rule in writing.
Give them small matters of their own, a share in long files and feedback after each hearing. Without that, they leave to find pace.
Create checklists and templates, have an advocate review and train a second person on the same work.
File indexing, custody of originals, rules for family callers and junior growth are typical starting points. We begin by hearing how files are found and kept. Scope, timing and fees are agreed in writing.
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