Quality introductions, considered and researched.

Whether you're a boutique practice protecting your culture or a national firm looking to strengthen a practice group, we understand that the wrong hire costs far more than a vacancy.

Private-practice recruitment remains a core part of Prima Facie, from lawyer and associate through to senior associate, special counsel and partner. We don't work in volume. Every candidate we present is considered for technical capability, practice-area fit and cultural alignment before your time is spent.

We work primarily with mid-tier, national and boutique firms across Australia, and we take the time to understand your firm before we begin — because a placement that lasts is worth more to both of us than one that doesn't.

Australia remains our primary market. Where a brief calls for it, we can also search selectively across the United Kingdom, Singapore and New Zealand — including lawyers relocating to Australia, returning home, or bringing international experience relevant to an Australian practice. We also take selected mandates within those markets where there is a genuine fit with our candidate network.

Finding the right in-house counsel is a different challenge entirely. You're not hiring for a practice group — you're hiring for your business. The lawyer needs to understand commercial reality, not just legal theory, and they need to integrate into a team that isn't built around law.

Prima Facie recruits permanent in-house counsel from first standalone legal hires through to General Counsel, alongside selected company secretarial, corporate governance, legal operations and legal business-services appointments. We take the time to understand the organisation, not just the position description.

For businesses with international operations, we can also search for lawyers with regional, cross-border or international experience, including Australian lawyers returning from overseas and internationally qualified lawyers suited to the role. We also take selected in-house mandates in the United Kingdom, Singapore and New Zealand where there is a genuine fit.

We also work selectively with professional and advisory organisations whose legal, regulatory, governance or legal-business functions support external clients. The focus remains specialist legal-market recruitment rather than broad generalist recruitment.

If a full-time hire isn't the right fit for where your business is at, we also partner with a specialist legal services network that provides embedded and fractional legal counsel — giving you executive-level legal oversight without the cost or commitment of a permanent appointment. We'll help you work out which approach actually suits your business.