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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
From an Eagle Street commercial partnership to a tax practice in Chermside or Springfield: priced on the fee base that stays when a partner leaves, not on a rule of thumb about gross fees.
To value a law firm or accounting practice in Brisbane, a valuer first pays every partner a market salary for the role they fill, then capitalises the profit that remains. How durable the fees are sets the rate: the share that recurs each year through tax, compliance, conveyancing or estates work, how long clients stay, reliance on a handful of large clients, and whether clients are loyal to the firm or to one partner.
Most instructions begin with a change in the partnership. A founding partner of a Toowong tax practice wants to retire and the continuing partners need a buy-out figure. Two firms, one in Carindale and one in the Redlands, are talking about a merger and need their contributions measured on a common footing. A commercial partner is leaving an Eagle Street firm and the exit clause in the partnership deed produces a figure nobody trusts. A partner's interest has to be valued at a fixed date for a property settlement in the Brisbane registry of the Federal Circuit and Family Court. Or the firm is incorporating, and the ATO will expect a market value behind the transfer.
Valuations without a transaction are common too. Exit formulas written into deeds years ago tend to rely on book value or a set multiple of fees, and neither moves with what the firm actually earns today. A current market value gives the partners evidence to negotiate from, in place of an argument about what a clause was once meant to achieve.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Income Approach leads. An incoming partner or an acquiring firm is buying fees that come back year after year, so the valuation rests on the earnings that fee base will reliably produce once every partner's work is paid for at market rates.
In most engagements we capitalise future maintainable earnings. Three to five years of results are normalised, and the capitalisation rate is then loaded for risks particular to the firm, chiefly how much of the fee income sits with a few clients and how much would leave with a single partner.
Where the firm will look materially different within a few years, we use a discounted cash flow instead: a merger still being bedded down, an anchor client already on notice, a planned move from compliance into advisory, or a partner retirement expected to take clients along. One capitalised year cannot capture change that unfolds over that kind of period.
Prices paid for firms of comparable size and work mix show whether the income result is in a sensible place. Rules of thumb quoted around the profession, such as a set multiple of recurring fees, serve only as a sense check, since they price a low-margin practice that leans on one large client exactly like a profitable firm with a wide base.
Rarely the lead approach. Restating debtors, unbilled work, the fit-out and the lease to what they would realise gives a floor, and a practice with a dependable fee base will usually be valued well clear of it.
Most disagreement between valuers arises at the normalisation step, which is why every adjustment is set out in the report with its reasoning. The ones that recur in Brisbane accounting, advisory and law firms are:
Location tells you a lot about the risk in a Brisbane firm's fees. The CBD and the Eagle Street precinct hold the larger commercial law firms and mid-tier accountants, competing for corporate, resources and government clients who put work out to tender and may follow a partner who moves. Litigation and insolvency practices appearing in the Supreme Court and District Court of Queensland earn by the matter rather than by the year. Practices in Milton, Toowong, Chermside, Mount Gravatt, Carindale, Springfield, Ipswich, Logan and Moreton Bay mostly act for owner-managed businesses, families and estates, where clients return each year and the fee base is easier to project.
A law firm's practice mix drives much of the method. Conveyancing, wills and estates and family law produce work that repeats in a fairly steady pattern. Commercial litigation, construction disputes and transactional work for resources and property clients arrive in bigger, less regular amounts, so a longer history is examined and the rate carries more risk. Queensland sits outside the Legal Profession Uniform Law: law practices here are regulated under the Legal Profession Act 2007 (Qld), and money held in trust is the clients' money. It never forms part of the firm's value, though unbilled time and recoverable disbursements can.
The client pool keeps growing. Queensland finished 2025 to 2026 with a net 19,244 more actively trading businesses than it started with, and the national count of professional, scientific and technical services businesses grew 3.6 per cent over the same year (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). Each of those businesses needs bookkeeping, tax returns and legal advice, the recurring work that suburban practices are valued on.
The report starts by stating its purpose, the standard of value, the valuation date and the information relied on, including anything we could not verify. It then sets out each approach considered and the method within it, records every normalisation adjustment and the reason for it, and reconciles the results into a range, with the weighting explained in plain language.
Disputes between partners test that reasoning more than anything. A disagreement over the price of an outgoing partner's share can end up on the Commercial List of the Supreme Court of Queensland, where expert evidence is governed by Chapter 11 Part 5 of the Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 1999 (Qld) and the experts may be directed to meet and narrow the issues. An opinion that cannot explain why the income approach was preferred, or how the rate was built, will not survive that process. Ours follow APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and are signed by a certified valuer who will defend them in person.
Ask which of their assumptions an opposing expert would challenge first and what their answer would be. A valuer who has done the work can tell you on the spot.
An Indicative valuation gives a partner a grounded view of their equity ahead of a retirement discussion or an approach from another firm. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report suits admitting or retiring a partner, merging two firms or supporting a loan application. A Detailed report is the level for a property settlement under the Family Law Act, a dispute under the partnership deed, or any matter where an opposing expert will examine the work.
Choose the depth by asking who will test the number. A court, the ATO, a lender or another valuer each needs to see more of the working than the partners themselves do.
For internal decision-making. Useful for testing an offer, setting an expectation before a negotiation, or deciding whether to go to market. It is not written for third party reliance.
Sets out the approaches applied, the normalisation adjustments made and the reasoning behind the conclusion. The usual choice for a sale, an ownership change or a finance application.
Applies and reconciles all relevant approaches in full. The level required where a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert will review the opinion.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.