The Team

FGD Group: legal services in the 21st Century

B2B, Canberra

Farrar Gesini and Dunn Family Lawyers was formed in 1995 with three partners, Ann Northcote and three support staff. Today the FGD Group has two companies, four specialty business units and 50 staff .

Olivia Gesini, Denis Farrar and I seized on an opportunity in the mid ‘90s to build a boutique law-practice specialising in family law and we have never looked back,” FGD Group CEO Jim Dunn said. The opportunity presented itself when Ms Gesini and Mr Dunn were practising family law with a big local general law firm that wanted to go national – they got together with another local family law specialist Denis Farrar and set up their own local firm specialising in family law.

“The idea of specialising in family law hit the spot with the Canberra community. Because family law is complex, people need a specialist when they are separating or divorcing,” Mr Dunn said. The FGD Group currently comprises four business units – Farrar Gesini and Dunn Family Lawyers (traditional family law practice), Consensus Family Law (out of court solutions), Certus Law (estate planning and superannuation) and SuperSpliting (advises legal practitioners on how to split superannuation on family breakdowns). “Basically there are two law practices Farrar Gesini and Dunn and Certus Law and underneath each of these are Consensus and SuperSpliting respectively,” Mr Dunn said.

Mr Dunn says they have structured the FGD Group like this so the two practices can each specialise in their particular area. “Four businesses provides the benefit of specialisation through things such as: unique procedures; training and personnel – each business has a separate and specialised culture but are a critical part of the group,”Mr Dunn said. According to Mr Dunn the FGD Group has been successful because they have been able to attract and retain excellent staff. “My view is that to be the best in whatever business you are in, you have to have passionate and happy people working with you,” Mr Dunn said.

The FGD Group works very hard at ensuring their staff have a good work-life-balance. “Four years ago we instituted a four day week for all staff with no reduction of salary. This equates to 45 extra days off per year or nine extra weeks leave,” Mr Dunn said. The FGD Group also provides fresh fruit, lunches, Pro-Fit and Yoga classes and other substantial rewards and celebrations for group successes. The FGD Group also takes advantage of IT solutions that enable staff to work more flexibly.

“All of the directors are linked in and can work from home. Many of our support staff can work from home and many do this to juggle work, home and family duties,” Mr Dunn said. The FGD Group has attracted some of Canberra’s best lawyers to join them in recent years. “In 2006 we amalgamated with Stephen Bourke –who now heads Certus Law – Stephen had a long history of working in the Attorney General’s Department and wrote the legislation that enabled superannuation to be split on the breakdown of marriage,” Mr Dunn said, “In 2007 we also amalgamated with Chris Crowley, one of pre-eminent family lawyers in the Canberra region.” The separation rate in Canberra is relatively high – at about 50 per cent for first marriages and higher for second and subsequent relationships. “We believe that successive governments have tried to make family law more accessible, less complex and cheaper for clients and realised we needed to diversify as a firm,” Mr Dunn said. Mr Dunn says they amalgamated with Stephen Bourke to take advantage of the superannuation, estate planning and wealth transfer between generations i.e. the needs of baby boomers,” Mr Dunn said, “Certus Law has been very popular and the work is ‘booming’.” The FGD Group’s second response, to the need to diversify, was to look at practising family law differently. “We established Consensus Family Lawyers so that one part of our business could focus on out-of-court solutions and another on traditional family law processes,” Mr Dunn said. Mr Dunn said that splitting to two family law practices has invigorated all of the family lawyers in the FGD Group. “When we were one business unit, our lawyers had to focus both on court and out of court skills. Now there are two distinct pathways for our professionals to focus on and for our clients to choose from,” Mr Dunn said. Even CEO Jim Dunn’s position is not that of a traditional managing partner in a law firm.

Mr Dunn says that the role of a managing partner in a traditional firm was to ‘hire and fire’ and ‘make sure everything was ticking along’. “I believe my role as CEO of the FGD Group is to provide ideas, talk to our people and keep them inspired and impassioned. I need to anticipate the needs of both clients and staff,” Mr Dunn said. The future is certainly bright for the FGD Group. “I believe that our future lies in bringing more businesses into the FGD Group – letting them keep their own identity and specialisation but become part of the FGD Group from a cultural view point,” Mr Dunn said.

Click here for original article featured in B2B in Canberra