About the Firm

Three names, one standard.

The Firm's name reads as an established partnership, not a start-up — because that is exactly what it is built to become: a firm families and founders instruct once, and then keep instructing for a generation.

Our Story

Built around a single thesis

Families, funds and founders who sit at the intersection of wealth, regulation and succession are usually forced to instruct three or four separate boutiques — a funds specialist, a corporate lawyer, a private wealth adviser, a compliance consultant — and then to coordinate the answer themselves. Northwood, Kelly & Sommerville exists to remove that burden. We bring those disciplines into one partnership, under one engagement, with one relationship partner who already understands the whole picture.

It is why the name carries three surnames rather than one invented brand: in the tradition of Sydney's oldest legal and private-banking houses, three names signal permanence to clients who are themselves thinking in trusts, testamentary structures and multi-generational funds — not the next financial year.

Our Values

What you can expect, every time

Discretion

Client affairs are never used as a marketing case study, in this document or anywhere else, without written consent.

Constancy

A named partner, not a rotating associate, owns every relationship from the first meeting onward.

Precision

Technical rigour in regulated and tax-sensitive work, where small errors compound over years, not days.

Stewardship

Advice measured in decades, in proportion to the intergenerational wealth it is meant to protect.

How We Work

Senior attention, from the first call to the last

Every matter is led personally by a senior lawyer — never handed down to whoever has capacity that week. You deal with the same person throughout, across every discipline your matter touches, so nothing is lost in translation between advisers who have never met.

Direct Access

Your calls and emails reach the person handling your matter — never a junior screening them on your behalf.

One File, One Advisor

The person who takes your first call is the person who sees the matter through, however many disciplines it touches.

A Considered Pace

Advice given the time complex, regulated and intergenerational matters actually require — never rushed to clear a file.

“Complex problems are unsettling mostly because they are unclear. Our task is to make yours clear, and then to carry it.”

Ready to talk it through?

Tell us briefly what is happening, and we will respond directly — no call centre, no intake form that goes nowhere.

Arrange a Confidential Conversation