Family lawyers, compared city by city
Shortlists of family law firms in 12 Australian cities. For each firm you can see who you'd be dealing with, what kinds of matters they handle and which of their lawyers hold specialist accreditation.
Shortlists by city
- Sydney NSW CBD, Parramatta and greater Sydney
- Melbourne VIC CBD, Dandenong and greater Melbourne
- Brisbane QLD CBD, Ipswich, Logan, Moreton Bay and Redlands
- Perth WA CBD and greater Perth
- Adelaide SA CBD and greater Adelaide
- Gold Coast QLD Coomera to Coolangatta
- Canberra ACT Canberra and Queanbeyan
- Newcastle NSW Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and Maitland
- Sunshine Coast QLD Caloundra to Noosa
- Central Coast NSW Gosford, Erina, Wyong and Woy Woy
- Hobart TAS Hobart and southern Tasmania
- Darwin NT Darwin and Palmerston
How the shortlists are put together
- We start wide. For each city we record every family law firm we can find with a local office, 431 firms across the 12 cities so far.
- We read what firms publish. Team pages, services, how they work and how they charge, and we keep the link for every fact we use.
- We check credentials against official lists. A lawyer is only shown as an accredited family law specialist if they appear on the law society's specialist list.
- Nobody pays to be listed. There are no paid listings or sponsored placements on this site.
Things worth knowing before you call a firm
Accredited specialist means something. It's a formal title a lawyer earns through an assessment run by a law society, and the law society lists who holds it. A firm describing itself as "specialising in family law" is a different thing.
Ask who will run your matter. Many firms have a senior lawyer on the website and a junior lawyer on the file. It's a fair question to ask at the first meeting.
Court is usually not the first step. For most parenting disputes, separated parents are expected to try family dispute resolution before applying to court, unless an exception such as family violence applies.
Free help exists. Legal Aid and community legal services operate in every city we cover. Each city page lists the local offices.
Top10 Family Lawyers is an information and comparison site published by Steven Piper. We aren't a law firm, we don't give legal advice, and a firm's place on a shortlist isn't a recommendation for your particular situation. More about the site.