Lisa Aitken on the gamble of starting a law firm catering to employers

Earlier this week, Lisa Aitken discussed the heralded comeback of Aitken Legal’s charity golf day with Australasian Lawyer. In the second part of this interview, Aitken tells us why she wants to focus on employment law for employers, and the firm’s end-of-year activities. 

What led you to focus on employment law?  

When I decided to become a lawyer, I had a very keen interest in criminal law – something that is probably pretty common with young people – aspiring to make the world a better place! Towards the end of my studies, I lost interest in criminal law but was not really sure what area of law I wanted to practice. I had no interest in employment law until my graduate year when I did a rotation in the HR&IR group at Minter Ellison Morris Fletcher (now MinterEllison) in Sydney.  

There I worked with some brilliant employment lawyers – Julian Small, John Oakes, Bruce Heddle, Jim Fox and others. I never left the HR&IR group to rotate to other areas and I was there 11 years, the last 2 years in their Brisbane office with Dan Williams after relocating to the Sunshine Coast in 2004.  

What inspired you to start your own firm? 

My young family was the reason behind starting my own firm. My plan was to work from home until our children were all in school at least (at the time I opened Aitken Legal, our children were 5, 3 and 8 months old). While working in the Brisbane office of Minters and living on the Sunshine Coast, I found myself spending 2.5 hours each way travelling to and from work. Losing 5 hours of my day with a young family was just not something I wanted to do.  

So my husband and I decided to take a huge gamble and start the firm from a home office, which we opened in January 2006. I was very lucky to find a niche in the market on the Sunshine Coast – practicing employment law only for employers – and the firm attracted wonderful clients from the outset. After 3 months, I had to move out of the home office and have never looked back. In 2011, we opened the Gold Coast office and in 2021, Melbourne.  

What in your opinion has been the biggest challenge the firm has faced since its inception?  

The biggest challenge is finding specialist employment lawyers who have worked purely with employers. Our practice is to only work with employers. The type of work, and the client relationship, is very different to where a lawyer practices employment law with employees. In our experience, the gap between the two is vast and generally very difficult to close. We are all for developing junior lawyers, and do this, but sometimes you just need a good experienced lawyer who can do the work from the get-go with minimal supervision.  

At the moment, we would very much like another senior specialist employment lawyer in our Gold Coast office – either special counsel or experienced senior associate level.  

What for you has been the highlight of heading up Aitken Legal?  

Probably two things I see as the main highlights: firstly, our team and the culture we have built over the years. We are a boutique firm and whilst we have offices on the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast and Melbourne, we are a small team of usually 10. Of that team, our senior lawyers (including me) have been with the firm 18, 16, 13 and 12 years; our accounts manager has been with us for 17 years and our client relationship and marketing manager, 5 years out of the 18 years we have been open.  

Our workplace is collaborative across all levels. There are no egos in our team and no competition amongst professionals. You don’t see this level of loyalty/tenure unless the workplace culture is exceptional and the work is challenging/interesting, which with employment law it always is.  

The second highlight is the wonderful philanthropy work we do. In the last 16 years, we have raised more than $750,000 (net of costs) for local charities. We might be a small business, but we have a huge heart.  

With the end of the year looming, what are your plans for the holidays? 

Resting! We always close for 2 weeks over Christmas and New Year so that the team can spend time with family and friends, refresh, and be ready for the new year. It’s been a very busy year for the firm, and everyone looks forward to this break. Usually, we will end the year by closing the offices at lunch time on the last day and all staff will come together for a long lunch with partners joining us a little later in the afternoon. We all enjoy each other’s company which allows for this to be a very nice way to end our year.