A guest piece with Samantha Boyce, accredited Specialist in family law, and Director of Boyce & Boyce.
Samantha Boyce is an Accredited Specialist in family law, working in a boutique practice with her husband. She is also Co-Founder and Co-CEO of the fintech startup Partways, which provides transparent and human legal fee funding solutions to people going through separation and divorce. In her legal practice, Samantha regularly takes on highly sensitive matters involving vulnerable women, occasionally on a pro bono or deferred-fee basis. These cases frequently involve intersecting challenges such as trauma, cross-cultural dynamics and significant power imbalances. Her work ensures that individuals who might otherwise fall through the cracks receive strong advocacy and a path to safer, more stable futures
The stated outcome for courts dealing with family law matters in Australia is to apply and uphold the rule of law for litigants through just, safe, efficient and timely resolution.
In its 2023/2024 reports, the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia dedicated an entire chapter to the topic of accessible and inclusive justice.
Initiatives include increasing support for indigenous and regional families, triaging and specialized case management for particular sorts of matters and dispute resolution.
The Court can only control so much when people come through its doors. It is up to individuals to represent themselves based on their needs, preferences and financial capacity.
The vast majority of my family law work is litigation. I did not set out to be a litigator, that’s just how my practice evolved. I also have lending business that gives loans to family law clients to pay their legal fees.
I am in a court list every other week.
Sometimes the list is populated by a who's who of experienced family solicitors and barristers, handing up agreed minutes or giving silky submissions.
Other times the list is a motley crew of self-represented litigants, male and female, addressing the judicial officer with varying levels of success.
Listening to their matters, I realise how often 'self-reps' are back for their second or third time. Usually due to non-compliance with some formality with the potential to result in procedural unfairness.
It's hardly surprising that self-reps struggle when it comes to mounting and sustaining a legal case.
The family law Rules are 325 pages long.
As an Accredited Specialist, I’m still sometimes blindsided by a rarely-used Rule.
Then there are Practice Directions and FCFCoA website resources. And I haven't even gotten to the Family Law Act!
One of the ways that victims of family violence, overwhelmingly women, are sought to be protected is through making section 102NA orders that prohibit a victim/survivor of family violence from having to cross-examine or be cross-examined by their abuser. A Legal Aid funded lawyer will be provided to any self-rep in those circumstances.
But that is for the limited number of cases that require cross-examination, almost exclusively at final hearing.
Throughout the vast majority of the case, an unrepresented victim/survivor has to deal with their abuser or abuser’s lawyer themselves.
Lawyers play an important role, not just one of legal knowledge and strategic skill.
Any family law litigator will tell you that a core component of their role is non-legal.
Lawyers are an important filter, a tangible barrier between the parties that helps restore power balance.
Lawyers provide critical moral, emotional and practical support. That’s not to say that properly qualified therapeutic support is not also required. But in the throws or immediate aftermath of a contested battle, good lawyers communicate clearly to a client what to expect and provide empathy and compassion at a critical time.
But how does a divorcing spouse find and pay for such a lawyer, with solicitors charging anywhere from $500-1000 per hour?
A household earning the median income must apply 50% of that income to service the average home loan taken out in 2024.
Renters pay 33% of their income to rent.
Securing Legal Aid assistance in property cases is notoriously difficult. Asset pools that qualify for legal aid are barely worth fighting over.
Last week I was chatting to the CEO of a community legal centre that is trying to fill the gap. They offer low-cost legal services to assist people, especially women, separating. He tells me they are trying to support the 'missing middle' you probably keep hearing about.
As a legal fee lender, I’m stunned at the lack of options and competition in this space. Some of the products out there are so complicated, as a lawyer I couldn’t work out how much a client would pay in interest, fees and charges over the life of the loan. How can we expect vulnerable clients to do the math?
Compounding the issue is that the median age of divorce is increasing with a boom in divorce amongst the boomers. Women in this cohort are especially vulnerable. They have lower incomes, lower super, nan and carer responsibilities, and in some cases have been entirely out of the workforce for decades.
I have personally experienced many, many cases where women return to work for the first time since the birth of their first child because they are getting divorced. They haven't invested in their career. They haven't been doing regular professional development, adding Linked In connections and schmoozing their networks. They were changing nappies, making lunches, doing exam prep, reviewing their husband's presentation notes, etc. They invested in a dream of a nuclear family unit that is now irreparably broken.
The 2025 State of Housing System Report says that the increase in home prices and rents increased from 2023 to 2024 at a faster rate than median household income, pushing further people into housing stress.
New housing delivery was around the lowest in a decade.
More than half of low-income renters were already in mortgage stress.
Due to the decrease in economic power that comes from separation, and increasingly unaffordable housing, lawyers get used to telling their female clients such delightful things as, 1) you need to get a job (or go from part-time to full-time), 2) you probably won’t be able to afford to own a home anymore, 3) your kids will have to share a room now, 4) you really need to see a financial planner, but you probably can’t afford the advice.
The Report found that the number of occupants per home increased from 2023 and 2024 due to an increase in the number of adults per household, possibly due to affordability issues.
Could we be seeing young couples moving in together sooner, before they’ve had a chance to properly suss each other out? If things don’t work out, will our girls have places they can return to?
A former client told me about his daughter who had been living with her boyfriend. The relationship had soured, but his daughter persisted in the relationship. She couldn’t afford rent on her own, and she didn’t want to go back to living with her parents who were by this stage going through their own tumultuous relationship breakdown.
I reflected on how lucky I was that my own parents always managed to have a warm bed available at the right time that I could rely upon if my living situation turned south (as it did on various occasions for various reasons). Not everyone is so fortunate.
We fail our adult daughters if we don’t give them a backup. But the responsibility can’t lie solely with parents, in their own housing stress.
The lack of secure housing in this country is a threat to our girls and women in so many ways, at so many stages.
60% of people who access homelessness services are women.
34% of people accessing homelessness assistance are in single-parent families and the majority of single-parent families have a female parent.
Persistent homelessness rose in 2024 for people experiencing family violence. Women experience physical violence from an intimate partner at a rate three times higher than men.
Access to justice and access to housing go hand in hand in helping our women who want to leave. Our women need and deserve both.
