Belong. Evolve. Create.

We under­stand our team have busy lives and respon­si­bil­i­ties out­side of work. At Swaab we offer flex­i­ble work arrange­ments that pro­mote a healthy work-life inte­gra­tion includ­ing remote work, flex­i­ble hours, and part-time options. We are active in our holis­tic sup­port of your phys­i­cal and men­tal health through ini­tia­tives such as salary con­tin­u­ance insur­ance, well­ness ini­tia­tives, and sub­si­dized fitness.

Flex­i­ble Work

At Swaab, we recog­nise that our team have inter­ests, com­mit­ments, and respon­si­bil­i­ties out­side of work. Life hap­pens between 9 – 5 and we look at ways to sup­port our employ­ees to achieve the bal­ance they require to be their best per­son­al­ly and pro­fes­sion­al­ly through remote work, flex­i­ble hours, and job design.

Holis­tic Support

We want to make sure indi­vid­u­als are cared for phys­i­cal­ly, men­tal­ly and finan­cial­ly and that’s why we auto­mat­i­cal­ly pro­vide salary con­tin­u­ance insur­ance for every­one. When life gets tough, we want to make sure the last thing you have to wor­ry about is how to pay the bills and we do this by ensur­ing your finan­cial security.

Well­ness @Swaab

Achiev­ing and main­tain­ing pos­i­tive well-being, results in hap­py, pro­duc­tive and healthy indi­vid­u­als. With Firm shared lunch­es, yoga pro­grams, well­ness sub­si­dies, cor­po­rate sports, stocked kitchens with fresh fruit, well­be­ing days, addi­tion­al leave ini­tia­tives, Fri­day night social events and EAP (employ­ee assis­tance pro­gram) form­ing part of the employ­ee expe­ri­ence, we strive to ensure well­be­ing is ​‘alive and well’ at Swaab.

As cus­to­di­ans of our firm, we are pas­sion­ate about cre­at­ing a future for every mem­ber of our team. Our struc­tured career paths for legal and sup­port roles cre­ate the oppor­tu­ni­ty to progress through the firm at your pace. Through access to men­tors, lead­er­ship and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment pro­grams and stretch oppor­tu­ni­ties we cre­ate an envi­ron­ment for accel­er­at­ed growth and pro­fes­sion­al development.

Our His­to­ry

The founder of Swaab, Fredrick Swaab was known for his gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it and inno­v­a­tive ways. His lega­cy lives on through our cur­rent lead­ers and team. Fred’s vision for the future includ­ed an expec­ta­tion that part­ners act as cus­to­di­ans of Swaab and con­tin­ue to pro­vide for future gen­er­a­tions of lawyers. We invest in the careers of our lawyers by pro­vid­ing them with gen­uine oppor­tu­ni­ties and path­ways, with the hope that one day they will take the lead­er­ship reins and car­ry on Fred’s legacy.

Your Future

We have struc­tured career paths that are out­lined with clear expec­ta­tions on what indi­vid­u­als need to achieve to progress in their careers. Work­ing close­ly with Part­ners, senior lawyers and super­vi­sors, employ­ees are exposed to mul­ti­ple avenues of learn­ing and devel­op­ment through men­tor­ing, on the job learn­ing and pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment. We work close­ly with you to iden­ti­fy what your career goals are and look at ways we can help you achieve these by imple­ment­ing a struc­tured and well thought out plan. We have seen many careers accel­er­ate under the guid­ance of our lead­ers which have result­ed in the growth of grad­u­ates, lawyers and sup­port staff. Fur­ther­more, our mean­ing­ful rela­tion­ships with clients and firms with­in the Mer­i­tas alliance pro­vide for sec­ond­ment place­ments and lawyer exchange programs.

We recog­nise and reward the con­tri­bu­tion of our team mem­bers with a com­pet­i­tive salary pack­age includ­ing the abil­i­ty to earn above mar­ket for high per­form­ers. We offer a range of non- finan­cial rewards includ­ing access to indus­try lead­ers and events, recog­ni­tion pro­grams, exchange pro­grams and learn­ing opportunities.

Let’s face it, we all have finan­cial respon­si­bil­i­ty and in a com­pet­i­tive employ­ment mar­ket, we under­stand the need to recog­nise skills and expe­ri­ence and com­pen­sate indi­vid­u­als fair­ly. Using com­pre­hen­sive legal mar­ket salary data, we reg­u­lar­ly under­take reviews of what the mar­ket is doing and we com­pen­sate over and above mar­ket expectations. 

Fur­ther­more, we have trans­par­ent finan­cial incen­tive schemes in place to reward indi­vid­u­als going over and above . Uni­ty is impor­tant and we are com­mit­ted to ensur­ing there is an incen­tive scheme in place for everyone.

At Swaab, we are com­mit­ted to mak­ing a pos­i­tive impact on our clients, the legal pro­fes­sion, and the com­mu­ni­ty at large. We are proud of our long- stand­ing client rela­tion­ships which enable our team to see the impact of our work. Our team have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to work on high val­ue, mean­ing­ful projects with­in and beyond the scope of their roles includ­ing lever­ag­ing our inter­na­tion­al net­work, client exchange pro­gram and mak­ing a dif­fer­ence through char­i­ta­ble initiatives.

Mer­i­tas

Swaab has been a mem­ber of Mer­i­tas since 2009. Mer­i­tas is an estab­lished glob­al alliance of inde­pen­dent, full-ser­vice law firms. Since it was found­ed in 1990, Mer­i­tas has been dis­tin­guished by its qual­i­ty stan­dards. Over the years, Mer­i­tas has care­ful­ly vet­ted and invit­ed select, like-mind­ed firms to join the non-prof­it alliance for their mutu­al ben­e­fit. Today, there are 182 Mer­i­tas law firms world­wide, in over 91 coun­tries. Firms become mem­bers through invitation.

Our Com­mu­ni­ty Links

A big part of our fab­ric is our gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it. We are big sup­port­ers of var­i­ous char­i­ties, and not for prof­it organ­i­sa­tions and aim to make a dif­fer­ence through finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions, recog­ni­tion and aware­ness. Whether it be bak­ing for the Biggest Morn­ing Tea, or shav­ing and colour­ing our hair for the World’s Great­est Shave or sit­ting on the Minds Count Board to enhance and pro­mote psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty with­in the pro­fes­sion (just to name a few), Swaab is active in the com­mu­ni­ty, intent on pro­vid­ing a pos­i­tive and mean­ing­ful impact on others.

Swaab Brand of Service

We don’t just pro­vide legal advice to our clients; we pro­vide busi­ness solu­tions. Our down to earth approach and under­stand­ing of our client’s indi­vid­ual needs, means we can pro­vide bespoke advice to get them the best pos­si­ble results. Swaab is com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing qual­i­ty ser­vices, val­ue for mon­ey and devel­op­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive Part­ner­ships with clients. The firm has devel­oped a set of mod­el client qual­i­ties and client ser­vice stan­dards as part of the Swaab Brand of Ser­vice and has devel­oped meth­ods to mon­i­tor the imple­men­ta­tion of the client ser­vice stan­dards by all its people.

Swaab Brand of Ser­vice (SBoS) stories: 

• “In our team, every­one pitch­es in and has each oth­er’s backs, no mat­ter what chaos the day throws at us. Some­times that means the juniors swoop in like tech-savvy super­heroes to save the senior lawyers from the mys­te­ri­ous world of PDFs. Oth­er times, it’s the senior lawyers guid­ing us through com­plex legal issues and always being there to help. Take last Fri­day for exam­ple at about 4:50pm (yes, ten min­utes before the sacred 5pm week­end exo­dus and planned depar­ture for my week­end away), a lawyer in my team mes­saged me in what can only be described as a dig­i­tal cry for help. She need­ed to split a large PDF bun­dle into many small­er doc­u­ments so it could be served on the oth­er par­ty via email that night. Was it the task I dreamed of tack­ling as I had men­tal­ly packed for the week­end? Absolute­ly not. Did I do it any­way? Of course, because I know this team mem­ber and any­one else on our team would 100% do the same for me. That’s just how we roll, help­ing each oth­er out, get­ting things done, and deliv­er­ing ser­vice with­out delay!”

• “With late notice, I arranged for park­ing in the office park­ing garage (with Dale’s assis­tance), for a wit­ness in our clien­t’s mat­ter, to come in and sign his affi­davit; in time for us to file and serve as ordered by the courts. This avoid­ed pay­ing for exter­nal park­ing and ensured a smooth process, which he was thank­ful for, ser­vice with­out delay.”

• “One of my clients, a very ner­vous lady, received cor­re­spon­dence after 5PM on a Mon­day, and she was pro­vid­ed with a time­frame until Wednes­day 9AM to respond to sig­nif­i­cant and lengthy alle­ga­tions. I had car­riage of this mat­ter, and my part­ner did not have capac­i­ty to assist. I emailed the client as soon as I reached home on Mon­day night and told her I would call her on Tues­day while my baby napped and go through the let­ter with her. When I spoke with her on Tues­day, she was ever grate­ful for me call­ing on my day off to help her meet her arbi­trary dead­lines, putting you in con­trol & ser­vice with­out delay”

• “The aspect of our SBOS demon­strat­ed was our ​‘ser­vice with­out delay’. We received instruc­tions for a new lease from a long-term client late on 1 Octo­ber 2025. With this client, we have an agree­ment where­by draft doc­u­ments must be issued with­in 14 days of instruc­tions. I issued draft lease doc­u­ments to the client on Mon­day, 6 Octo­ber 2025. That is, 3 Busi­ness Days lat­er. The client was stoked with this turn­around time. The only prob­lem is, he has now decid­ed this should be our new stan­dard for turn­ing around draft documents!”

• “Sur­prise vis­i­tor Inci­dent and a quick team response. One morn­ing, an unknown per­son exit­ed the lift with Swaab staff and entered our Lev­el 2 area. As our train­ing has high­light­ed, this could have been a risky and poten­tial­ly dan­ger­ous sit­u­a­tion. Our team quick­ly and calm­ly act­ed to ensure safe­ty. Through non-ver­bal com­mu­ni­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion, we con­firmed the vis­i­tor was at the wrong address and polite­ly guid­ed him back to the lob­by. The sit­u­a­tion was han­dled pro­fes­sion­al­ly, with­out alarm, reflect­ing our strong cul­ture of trust and team­work, putting our col­leagues in con­trol & com­mu­ni­ca­tion.”

We take pride in our inclu­sive and peo­ple first cul­ture that allows team mem­bers to reach their pro­fes­sion­al poten­tial while bal­anc­ing reg­u­lar social and indus­try engage­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties. Our gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it ensures a per­son­al­ized expe­ri­ence where­by every­one has a voice, role clar­i­ty and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to grow, devel­op and con­tribute in a fun, high­ly sup­port­ive, col­lab­o­ra­tive environment.

Our Val­ues

Com­mit­ment, Integri­ty, Excel­lence, Gen­eros­i­ty of Spir­it, Uni­ty and Inno­va­tion Our val­ues are our guid­ing prin­ci­ples that dri­ve the cul­ture of the firm. Gen­eros­i­ty of spir­it is at the fore­front of every­thing we do when deal­ing with our clients and with each oth­er. We think out­side the box with our approach to han­dling the big and not so big issues. We are com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing our clients with an excel­lent ser­vice and ded­i­cat­ed to ensur­ing the employ­ee expe­ri­ence is one of the best yet, meet­ing the psy­cho­log­i­cal, emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal needs of each and every one of our team. While we all per­form dif­fer­ent roles and our respon­si­bil­i­ties vary, we tend not to be hier­ar­chi­cal in our approach to the deliv­ery of work and with­in our culture.

Behind the Scenes

Our inclu­sive and peo­ple first cul­ture is cul­ti­vat­ed through the day to day oppor­tu­ni­ties on offer. We look after our peo­ple, pro­fes­sion­al­ly, psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly and social­ly. Every­one has a voice, they know what is required of them and they are encour­aged to flour­ish. We know how to have fun, with­in our teams and across the firm. We are seri­ous about the impor­tant stuff but our down to earth cul­ture means we don’t take our­selves too seri­ous­ly. We aren’t afraid to seek feed­back and act on it, after all, this leads to enhanced expe­ri­ences for our staff and our clients which is what we want! Staff and client sat­is­fac­tion lev­els are high and we will always work hard to keep it this way.

Meet the team at Swaab and dis­cov­er their unique jour­neys into the legal pro­fes­sion. Learn about their moti­va­tions for becom­ing lawyers and why they chose to be a part of Swaab.

Grad­u­ate Inter­view Series | Olivia Hobill Cole

Swaab 2022 Lawyer Inter­view Series | Car­ly Lennan

Swaab 2022 Lawyer Inter­view Series | Tony D’Agostino