A property law practice handles title searches, sale deeds, lease papers and registry visits for buyers, builders and lenders. Its work is document-heavy and date-bound, and it rests on clerks and juniors who handle the paper.
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Share your requirementsA property law practice checks titles, drafts and registers sale deeds, prepares lease and development agreements and acts for buyers, builders, landlords and lenders. A transaction moves through document collection, title review, drafting, stamping, registration and follow-up, across several offices and registries. Volume comes in waves, with builders' project launches and bank panel work bringing batches. Much of the work is repeatable, so quality depends on checklists and careful handling of original documents. Juniors and clerks do most of the legwork. The wider professional services hub covers firms in general, and the law firms hub compares the types.
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 property 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.
Title papers go between client, bank, registry and chambers, and a lost original becomes a serious problem for everyone.
A project launch brings dozens of files at once. The team is stretched for weeks, then waits for the next batch.
Senior juniors know what to verify for each type of deed, and new people learn by getting it wrong.
They submit documents, pay fees and collect registered papers, with little supervision or recognition.
Buyers and lenders want to know where a file stands, and juniors lose hours answering instead of working.
Errors in a deed are found at registration or later, so the cost of rework is high.
Someone who only does title searches for a bank panel never learns drafting or negotiation, and leaves to find broader work.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Onboarding and Probation. 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.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
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.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes, one for complaints, one for conduct, kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
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 property lawyers business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Every original in, out and with whom, signed on both sides, with a weekly check.
Every original in, out and with whom, signed on both sides, with a weekly check. The documentation process covers record habits.
One page each for sale deed, lease, mortgage and title search, owned by a senior and updated after errors.
One page each for sale deed, lease, mortgage and title search, owned by a senior and updated after errors.
Agree with builders and banks when possible on expected volume, and arrange extra hands or staggered handling.
Agree with builders and banks when possible on expected volume, and arrange extra hands or staggered handling. The recruitment process supports bench hiring.
A role with duties, reporting line, expense handling and a growth step, so they are seen as part of the team.
A role with duties, reporting line, expense handling and a growth step, so they are seen as part of the team.
A fixed time each day or week for status messages, so juniors can work without constant calls.
A fixed time each day or week for status messages, so juniors can work without constant calls. See communication skills.
A plan that moves juniors from title search to drafting to registration over their first two years.
A plan that moves juniors from title search to drafting to registration over their first two years.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. Work through the checks using a recent operating period. The time needed depends on the records you hold; note missing evidence and use the findings to choose a priority.
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.
Employee records, appointment papers and role notes kept tidy, in step with the firm's file discipline.
Pay steps for juniors, drafting assistants and runners set against nearby practices.
Short training on clear client updates and calm handling of anxious buyers and lenders.
A first-month plan for juniors and clerks that covers checklists and document handling.
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.
Why associates and managers leave consulting, accounting, legal and advisory firms, and how to ask about progression, workload and partners at exit.
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Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
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Simple variable pay structures for product and engineering teams: four options, why individual metrics backfire, a build plan and a one page outline to adapt.
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A first-week plan for bringing in an outside specialist: what access to give, how to protect client data, and the confidentiality steps to settle on day one.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Keep a movement register signed at each handover, limit who may take originals out and check the register weekly. A habit is more reliable than trust.
As staff, with a written role, grade and pay step. They carry real responsibility, and recognising it reduces errors and exits.
Ask for forecasts, plan extra hands in advance and divide the batch into stages with checks. Pushing the existing team harder spreads mistakes.
They cut repeat errors on routine deeds. A senior writes them from past mistakes, juniors use them, and each error found leads to an update.
Set a status routine, assign one person for updates per day and share a simple tracker. Clients accept fixed times when they know the pattern.
We would ask where the originals of your latest files are, which checklists juniors want, and how runners are graded. A movement register with a junior rotation plan is a natural first piece, and scope is written down for your sign-off.
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