Our Vision and Values

Our Vision is...

• To HELP people in Townsville by providing quality and affordable legal services.
• To have clients who feel understood and well treated, who know we are walking with them, who are satisfied with their outcome.
• To be good stewards so we can be generous.
• For our clients to feel that they come under our protection.

Our Values

Are all about people. We are a law firm with a heart for people. More than anything, people matter to us. We try to reflect this in everything we do.

Our values include: respect and kindness,  commitment to excellent outcomes,  collaboration and teamwork, fairness and kindness,  adaptability and flexibility.

Clients

Our number one job is to protect our clients. We care about our clients and treat them with dignity, respect, understanding, empathy and compassion. We enjoy the uniqueness of people and having authentic relationships.

People usually come to us at a time when life is ‘changing’. Sometimes it’s an exciting change, and sometimes it's a difficult period of change where people need someone to walk through the changes alongside them.

We focus on helping people with legal issues when family relationships change; or if their has been a terrible accident or injury from negligence; or when there has been a death in the family and an estate needs to be administered.  We understand that difficult circumstances can make people stressed. We will always be patient and understanding.

Our role is TO HELP people by providing quality, affordable legal services. We are here to problem solve; be the bridge; to walk alongside you; to help you get through to a future that is brighter and more comfortable. 

We are committed to doing all we can so our clients feel understood and well treated. We want our clients to know we are walking alongside them and they come under our protection. We want our clients to be satisfied with their outcomes and to experience excellent care, service and results.

We will always be friendly, professional and will give the very best of ourselves; our experience, knowledge and skills, regardless of the difficulty or challenge.

We promise to do our very best to…

• be friendly, respectful, clear and professional at all times.
• always treat you with care and courtesy.
• use a polite manner, regardless of how we feel or how others are behaving.
• be optimistic and realistic.
• understand your situation and make sure you feel understood.
• be non-judgmental, give perspective, understand the details and see the bigger picture.
• show empathy and compassion.
• find solutions that are realistic and advantageous to you.
• give clear explanations, allow you to feel justified, and recognise and acknowledge your situation.
• communicate what the law is, recognise that while it might not be the most serious of legal issues, it is important to you and that is why you have come to see us.
• be efficient, prompt and clear and keep you informed about what is happening in your matter.
• proactively, sensibly and sensitively manage our communication with you and everyone we are helping, in order to be cost effective and efficient for you.
• be transparent and set good boundaries where necessary.
• see you promptly at appointment times and try not to keep you waiting.
• set aside enough time in appointments to be empathetic, obtain relevant information for your matter and to advise you.
• talk with you about managing our (yours too) time well.
• be available when you call and make sure you get to speak with someone assisting on your matter.
• make sure we know the schedule of the lawyer or paralegal who is responsible for your matter and connect you with them. If they are with someone else (or in a meeting, or at court) we will give them a detailed message and they will return your calls asap and always within 48 hours.
• respond to your emails in a timely manner. We treat emails as letters and often need time to fully consider things before we respond. Our lawyers and paralegals are not always online, as they spend a large part of their day seeing people, attending meetings or court and are on the phone a lot. If they are working for someone, and it requires concentrated attention, a few days may pass before they respond to an email. If there is something urgent in an email, we will respond promptly.
• remind you to send emails to your lawyer’s secretary or personal assistant (rather than your lawyer) as this ensures a response in the quickest possible time.
• give you realistic advice so you can have realistic expectations about how your matter is likely to resolve.
• provide cost effective solutions by being proactive in resolving your matter as soon as possible.
• use all available methods of dispute resolution to bring matters to their earliest resolution.
• work with you and be strategic in your matter, all the while taking the ‘whole picture’ into account in order to advise you well.
• provide quality and affordable legal services.
• discuss fees and payment with you at the outset and throughout your matter.
• be very clear about costs and payment terms.
• give you an accurate estimate of the likely costs of your matter early on and regular updates of actual costs incurred at various stages of your matter.
• HELP by giving you excellent care, service and results!

Team

 At O’Shea and Dyer we know that a well working team can do so much more than any individual.

We value honesty as the means to serving people well. We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses and respect each other.  We are vulnerable with each other and trust each other. We listen to each other and are able to have healthy, respectful conflict and debate around ideas. We seek clarity and understand the decisions that are made by/for the team. We commit to decisions and plans of action that improve our service and we are accountable to each other in all aspects of 'office life'.  We work as a team to get things done for our clients.

Our nature is to help and our focus is on giving clients excellent care, service and results. 

Community

We love Townsville. It’s a great city. It’s perfectly sized for family life. The sunshine is endless. There are so many things to do and see. The Cowboys call it home! And there is a spirit of community, generosity and tolerance that is pretty special.

We are aware that there are people in Townsville that need a hand at times. We try to steward our resources well so that we can always offer affordable legal services for our clients. We also like to contribute to charities and not-for-profit organisations. Over the past few years, we have supported YWAM Townsville, The Cootharinga Society, Share the Dignity, Food Relief NQ who provide thousands of food hampers each year to people in our city; and The Smith Family.

We are also a supporter of the Arts and support The Townsville Choral Society, NQOMT and the Townsville Eisteddford.

Our Past

We look back and are grateful that Pat O’Shea and Mark Dyer formed O'Shea & Dyer Solicitors, back in 1983. Pat and Mark were the most excellent of lawyers who worked with many people in the Townsville community, providing them with quality, affordable, legal services for many years. Pat O’Shea retired in 2008 after 25 years, and Mark Dyer in 2014, after nearly 30 years. OSD became incorporated in 2013 with Ivan as the sole director. Pat and Mark are fondly remembered by many of our clients. You may spot them around town if you are on a golf course or at a local theatre production.

Many of our older clients will remember OSD’s original location in Northtown on the Mall. We’ve been at our ‘new’ location in Flinders Street East, since the year 2000. You can find us at 225-229 Flinders Street East.

Ivan Baxter left Abergowrie in 1986 aged 17, to start a law degree at UQ in Brisbane. He was given his first job by Pat O’Shea in 1989 when he came back North. He finished off his law degree while working as an Articled Clerk at O’Shea & Dyer. Ivan had found his dream job and Pat and Mark were great teachers, not just of the practice of law, but of how to treat people. Ivan was admitted as a solicitor in 1991 and became a partner in the business a short time later in 1994.  Ivan has been leading the business since 2013. 

We are proud to say that for almost forty years, OSheaDyer Solicitors has provided quality and affordable legal services to people in Townsville and North Queensland and that we have people in our team, like Shelleigh Naessens and Robyn Mullins who have been with us for more than 20 years. 

Our Future

We look forward to developing O’Shea & Dyer Solicitors Townsville into an even better provider of quality and affordable legal services. We will continue to enjoy helping people with solutions to their ‘legal’ issues and hope to contribute more each year to helping people in the community.

We are optimistic that OSD will continue to grow in size as we streamline our legal services and focus on helping people with Family Law issues, Injury and Compensation claims, and Wills + Estates.  We look forward to welcoming new people to our team who are passionate about providing quality, affordable legal services.