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Is family law captured as providing a designated service?

Family law dispute resolution itself is out of scope, but adjacent property, brokering or trust and company structuring work performed by family law practices is captured.

Family law work itself is largely out of scope - but family law practices often provide adjacent services that are very much in scope such as work that crosses into property advising, brokering, or trust/company structuring - which would be a designated service.

Legal dispute resolution services will generally not fall under the scope of table 6, as they'll often not constitute assistance to the client that directly advances a relevant transaction, and only relate to determining legal questions on matters that have already occurred, not matters that are in progress or will occur in the future.

AUSTRAC also gives a specific worked example: a lawyer, following mediation between the parties, drafts a consent order to settle the ongoing litigation. This includes provisions related to the transfer of real estate to their client following the dissolution of the marriage. This is not a designated service under item 1 of table 6 - it only influences a possible future conveyancing process by determining the legal rights of the parties to the real estate.

And on binding financial agreements: If the family lawyer provides work in drafting and executing the binding financial agreement, this wouldn't be regulated, as this is not performed in connection to a transaction nor would be any conveyancing work to transfer property pursuant to the agreeement. However if the family lawyer provides conveyancing services to directly advance the transfer of the property outside of the agreement, then this would be regulated under item 1 of table 6.

So pure family law work - advice, mediation, drafting consent orders, drafting BFAs, dispute resolution - sits outside the regime.

https://www.austrac.gov.au/new-austrac/designated-services-newly-regulated-entities/professional-designated-services#Key%20terms%20and%20principles

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