Law Firms Back-Office Services
Back-office services for law firms. Legal Services Award payroll, industry-specific bookkeeping, BAS and compliance.
Applicable Award
Legal Services Award 2020
Law Firms have specific operational patterns and compliance requirements that generic bookkeeping services don't understand. You need back-office support from people who know your industry — the revenue models, the compliance landscape, the operational realities. Valont provides integrated finance, people, and technology operations built for professional services businesses like yours.
The Applicable Modern Award
Law Firms employees are typically covered by the Legal Services Award 2020.
Classification structure: Law Clerk Level 1–3, Legal Secretary, Para-Legal, Law Graduate, Articled Clerk. Note: Solicitors/partners typically not award-covered.
Ordinary hours: 38 hours/week. Extended hours common in litigation and transactional practices.
Penalty rates: Standard Legal Services Award penalties for weekend and evening work. Overtime provisions.
Key allowances: Professional development allowance, meal allowance for overtime
Getting award interpretation wrong creates systematic underpayment that compounds with every pay period. Our payroll specialists configure award-specific software to calculate every classification, penalty, and allowance correctly — and conduct quarterly audits to ensure ongoing compliance.
Back-Office Challenges for Law Firms
Running law firms means dealing with specific operational complexities that generic providers don't address:
- Trust accounting compliance — solicitors' trust accounts are regulated by state law societies with strict requirements for handling, reconciliation, and audit
- Time-based billing and WIP management — tracking billable hours, writing off unbilled time, and managing work in progress
- Matter-level profitability — understanding which clients, practice areas, and matter types generate the best returns
- Disbursement management — tracking outlays advanced on behalf of clients with correct GST treatment
- Professional indemnity insurance cost management — significant overhead driven by practice area risk
- Debtors management — law firms frequently carry significant aged receivables requiring active collection
- IOLTA/trust account interest allocation in jurisdictions where applicable
- Partnership distributions and tax planning for multi-partner firms
Industry Compliance
State law society trust accounting regulations (Legal Profession Uniform Law or state equivalent), mandatory external trust account audits, professional indemnity insurance, continuing professional development, practising certificate renewals, and AML/CTF obligations.
We maintain a compliance calendar that covers both your general business obligations (BAS, STP, super, payroll tax, workers compensation) and your industry-specific requirements, ensuring nothing falls through the gap between your financial compliance and your operational compliance.
How Valont Supports Law Firms
Finance Hub
Trust account management and reconciliation compliant with state law society requirements. Matter-level time billing and WIP reporting. Disbursement tracking with GST. Partnership distribution calculations. Practice area profitability analysis. Trust audit preparation support. Debtor management reporting.
People Hub
Legal Services Award-compliant payroll processing through KeyPay or Employment Hero with automated award interpretation. STP reporting with every pay run. Superannuation calculation and initiation on schedule. Ongoing payroll compliance audits. HR advisory covering employment contracts, workplace policies, onboarding, and termination processes specific to the professional services sector.
Operations Hub
Managed IT support with proactive monitoring and helpdesk. Essential Eight cybersecurity implementation. Cloud platform management (Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace). Integration management between your industry-specific systems and accounting/payroll platforms.
Pricing
For a law firm with 3–10 solicitors and 5–15 support staff: Finance + People Hub $2,500–$5,000/month. This replaces the combined cost of a separate bookkeeper, payroll provider, and the owner's time spent on admin — typically 10 to 15 hours per week for a business of this size.
Fixed-fee, month-to-month, no lock-in. We retain clients through service quality, not contractual obligation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you specialise in law firms?
Yes. Our team has direct experience with the Legal Services Award and the specific operational, financial, and compliance requirements of law firms. We configure our services around your industry's reality rather than forcing you into a generic template.
Which award applies to my law firm business?
Most law firms employees are covered by the Legal Services Award 2020. Law Clerk Level 1–3, Legal Secretary, Para-Legal, Law Graduate, Articled Clerk. Note: Solicitors/partners typically not award-covered. We determine the correct award and classification for each employee during onboarding and configure payroll accordingly.
Can you integrate with our existing systems?
Yes. We integrate with the POS, rostering, and industry-specific platforms that law firms use. The Operations Hub manages all integrations — configuration during onboarding, continuous monitoring, and issue resolution.
What if our current books are a mess?
Most law firms come to us with some level of backlog or disorganisation. We bring your books current during onboarding at no additional cost and establish the systems and processes that keep them current going forward.
Built for Law Firms, Not Adapted From Generic Templates
Book a Discovery ConversationOur Services
Integrated back-office for Law Firms businesses.
Finance Hub
People Hub
Operations Hub
Growth Hub
Ready to streamline your Law Firms back-office?
Get a free assessment of your current back-office operations and see how Valont can help.