Who We Are

At Empower Family Law, we understand how stressful and uncertain family law matters can feel. We listen carefully, provide clear advice tailored to your situation and guide you towards practical, achievable outcomes.

We also work closely with a trusted network of barristers, financial specialists, valuers, psychologists, family consultants and support professionals to ensure you receive the right advice at every stage.

From your first meeting, you’ll understand where you stand, what your options are and what to expect next.

Your first 30-minute consultation is free.

Book a consultation

How we charge

At Empower Family Law our mission is to give our clients control over their family law dispute by arming them with expert advice, strategy and representation. We aim to navigate our clients through their family separation with the utmost care and attention to detail.

Your initial appointment

At your initial appointment we will listen to your instructions and provide you with legal advice on your rights, entitlements and options for settlement. You will leave your appointment with a thorough understanding of your options, your estimated legal costs and what to expect from us.

Your first time with us

Our initial appointments usually run for 1 to 1.5 hours, and we offer the first 30 minutes of the appointment at no charge to you. The balance of the first appointment is charged at our lawyer’s hourly rate. If you would like more information about our first appointments, please call or email us.

Costs Agreement

After your first appointment, we will send you our Costs Agreement. This document sets out the terms of your engagement with us and gives you an estimate of your total legal costs.

Our services are billed at the lawyer’s hourly rate. This means you are charged only for the time the lawyers spend completing work on your file.

We will be transparent with you about costs and charges throughout your matter. We will send you a tax invoice at the end of each month, or upon the conclusion of a significant event or Court hearing. The tax invoice details the work we have undertaken on your behalf. If at any time during your matter you have concerns about costs, we welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you.

Flexible and remote consultation

We understand that between work commitments and managing a family, it can be difficult to get into Melbourne CBD for an appointment with a lawyer.

At Empower Family Law & Mediation we offer flexible and remote consultations to assist you to get advice as soon as possible. We can conduct most consultations via Microsoft Teams, including initial consultations.

Please contact our team on (03) 7020 6542 to discuss your matter.

Inclusive family law support

We take the right of LGBTIQA+ people to receive expert advice, practical strategy and representation seriously. We work with married and de facto couples, parents and carers across a wide range of family structures, and provide advice tailored to each client’s circumstances.

Meet the team

• Stephanie Reid — Director and Principal

• Renishka Naidoo-Weisse — Special Counsel

• Vicki Zrajko — Solicitor

• Stephanie Pearce — Practice Manager

• Ann Marie Elenius — Senior Legal Assistant

• Emily Waghorne — Finance Manager

Meet the full team

Speak with us

Call (03) 7020 6542, email info@empowerfamilylaw.com.au, or book a consultation.

How a family law matter usually unfolds

Most matters follow a recognisable shape, and knowing it makes the first conversation far more useful.

1. Advice first. You find out where you stand, what the realistic range of outcomes is, and what the next step should be. Nothing is committed to at this stage.
2. An attempt to resolve it between you. The Court expects parties to make every effort to resolve a dispute before starting litigation, where it is safe to do so. In parenting matters, family dispute resolution is mandatory before an application can be filed, unless an exemption is granted.
3. Formalising the agreement. An informal agreement binds nobody. Financial arrangements are documented either by consent orders or by a financial agreement; parenting arrangements by a parenting plan, which is not enforceable, or by parenting orders, which are.
4. Court, only where it is needed. If agreement cannot be reached, an application is filed. Even then, matters can and frequently do settle at any stage before the final hearing.

Most matters never reach step four. Where they do, the earlier steps are rarely wasted: the disclosure and narrowing of issues carries across.

What to have ready for a first appointment

You do not need to arrive with everything, and nothing below is a precondition to getting advice. But in financial matters the same documents come up every time, because both parties eventually have to set out their financial circumstances and verify them:

• recent taxation returns and notices of assessment
• payslips, or business and trust financial statements if you are self-employed
• bank and credit card statements, including any joint accounts
• superannuation member statements for every fund
• documents for property, loans and other liabilities
• a note of the date of separation, and how it was communicated

For parenting matters, a short chronology is usually more useful than a pile of documents: who the children live with now, the current routine, schooling and health arrangements, and anything affecting safety.

If you cannot access some of these, say so rather than delaying. There are formal processes for obtaining financial information, including a court process for obtaining a former partner's superannuation details from the Australian Taxation Office once proceedings are on foot.

You are not required to have a lawyer

It is worth stating plainly, because the Court does. You are not required to be represented, or even to seek legal advice, before entering into consent orders, applying to the Court, or responding to an application.

Family law is complex, and advice helps you understand your rights and obligations and whether the orders you are contemplating can actually be made. But the choice is yours, and free and low-cost options exist alongside private representation: the Family Relationship Advice Line on 1800 050 321 provides free information and limited legal advice, and Legal Aid commissions and community legal centres assist in many matters.

Knowing what the alternatives are tends to make the decision to engage a lawyer a more considered one.

Process information on this page reflects the published guidance of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia on family dispute resolution and formalising an agreement, as at 26 October 2026. It is general information only, not legal advice, and does not replace advice about your own circumstances.

How we work with other professionals

Family law matters frequently need expertise beyond the law, and the practice works with a network of barristers, financial specialists, valuers, psychologists, family consultants and other support professionals.

That matters practically because several things a matter turns on are not legal questions. The value of a business, a defined benefit superannuation interest or a disputed property is a valuation question. The structure of a trust or company, and what can be done with it, is frequently an accounting question. A child's developmental needs may require a report from a professional qualified to assess them. Identifying early which of these a matter needs tends to shorten it, because negotiations built on contested figures rarely settle.

What to expect on costs

Our services are billed at the lawyer's hourly rate, so you are charged for the time spent working on your file. After the first appointment we send our Costs Agreement, setting out the terms of your engagement and an estimate of your total legal costs, and a tax invoice follows at the end of each month or on the conclusion of a significant event or court hearing, detailing the work undertaken.

Two things are worth knowing about legal costs in family law generally. Costs are affected far more by whether a matter is contested than by its complexity: a matter resolved at mediation and formalised by consent orders costs a fraction of one that proceeds to a final hearing. And court fees are separate from legal fees, set by regulation, and payable at the time of filing — a divorce application was $1,170 as at 26 October 2026, with a reduced fee of $390 for those who qualify.

If at any point you have concerns about costs, raise them. That conversation is easier early than late.

Getting advice does not commit you to anything

People frequently delay a first appointment because they are not ready to make decisions, or because they are worried that taking advice means starting something.

It does not. An initial appointment is about understanding where you stand, what the realistic range of outcomes is, and what the next step would be. Many people leave with a clearer sense of what they want to do, and some decide to do nothing for the time being.

What delay does affect is your options. Several deadlines run from events rather than from readiness: 12 months from a divorce becoming final, two years from a de facto separation, and a disclosure look-back that reaches a year before separation. Knowing where you stand preserves choices that waiting can remove.

Court and fee information in this section reflects the published guidance of the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia, as at 27 October 2026. Court fees change. It is general information only, not legal advice.