Farrar Gesini & Dunn

For a small firm, Farrar, Gesini & Dunn makes some rather large claims. The family law specialist says it is the first boutique firm in Canberra, the first to use “collaborative lawyering” – and one of the first workplaces to offer all staff a four-day working week.

Managing partner Jim Dunn says Canberra’s legal profession has gone through a substantial transformation since the firm opened for business in 1995.

After an influx of large international and national firms during the 1990s, who “gobbled up the mid-tier firms”, there were no strong local firms left, Dunn says.

But the emergence of boutique practices has changed all that.

Boutique firms were very new in Australia then, Dunn says. “Now, 95 per cent of [family law] work in Canberra would be done by boutique firms.”

As boutique firms became more common in the past decade, family lawyers and the courts became scapegoats for politicians troubled by the worsening state of family law litigation, Dunn says.

“Both the length of time to resolve, and cost, the blame was being laid at our feet, as well as the court’s feet,” he says. “There was a terrible relationship between the Family Court and the Howard government.”

But he says most family lawyers have their hearts in the right place. “The want clients to resolve the matter,” Dunn says. “They don’t want to go to court; they want to do it cheaply.”

Collaborative lawyering has emerged as one solution to spiralling costs and lengthy court cases. The firm used an expert form Canada to train staff in 2005, with an emphasis on interest-based negotiation.

Under the system, lawyers and their clients agree not to go to court. If a resolution fails to occur, those same lawyers cannot represent their clients if they wish to pursue litigation.

The rise of collaborative law has brought benefits not just for clients, but for lawyers as well.

In avoiding the adversarial nature of litigation, collaborative lawyers are more willing to trust each other and work towards mutually beneficial solution, Dunn says.

“In litigation, you get a letter from the other side, and it’s outrageous, you show your secretary, throw it down, get the dictaphone out and fire something back at them,” he says. “Some lawyers thrive on the more aggressive side. But we’ve seen the frustration over the years. Real people can’t afford litigation.”

The decision to implement a four-day working week came as a result of Dunn’s view “that we really ought to be able to work less”.

The short week applies to all staff: half take off Wednesday, the rest Friday, and the arrangement alternates week to week.

As a trade-off, staff are expected to be 10 per cent more productive, billing six hours a day.