The Content Calendar for Law Firms Built Around the Christmas Court Shutdown

03 September 2026·6 min read

Quick answer: Most Australian courts and tribunals run a reduced or fully closed registry from mid-December to late January, though exact dates vary by state and by court, so confirm with each registry directly. Your marketing shouldn't go quiet just because the courts have — the trick is to keep publishing content that nurtures the leads you already have, while being scrupulously honest that nothing will actually move on their file until courts reopen. Build the calendar now, in one sitting, so nobody's improvising content on Boxing Day. 🌴

There's a particular kind of quiet that settles over a law firm's marketing every December, and it's not the good kind. The courts wind down, the office adopts skeleton hours, and somewhere between the Melbourne Cup and New Year's Eve, most firms simply stop. No new posts, no emails, radio silence until someone remembers to switch the out-of-office message off in the third week of January. Meanwhile the leads who enquired in November are googling other firms because nobody followed up. The firms that come back strongest in February aren't the ones who worked through the break — they're the ones who planned six weeks of quiet-but-present content before they left the office, so the relationship kept ticking over even when the file couldn't move. That's the whole game here, and it's one of the easier wins in a law firm's marketing calendar to love 💖 once you've built it a single time.

What most law firms get wrong

Promising turnaround times the courts can't deliver. ‘We'll have this sorted by early January’ sets an expectation that a closed registry will break, and the complaint lands on you, not the court.
Going completely dark instead of going quiet on purpose. There's a difference between no new content and a deliberately paced, lighter calendar — the first looks like the firm's closed for good, the second looks organised.
Treating every practice area the same. A family lawyer's shutdown content needs to address custody handovers over the break; a criminal lawyer's needs to cover what happens if someone's arrested on Boxing Day. One generic ‘see you in the new year’ post serves nobody.
Forgetting the re-entry. Firms plan the shutdown and forget to plan the first week back, so January starts with silence instead of a clear ‘here's what happens next’ message to everyone who's been waiting.

The Shutdown Content Calendar (copy this structure, adjust the dates to your state's registry)

Week of 1 December: Publish a plain-English post — what happens to your matter over the Christmas court break — to set expectations early, before people start asking.

Week of 8 December: Email or message your open-file clients individually with their specific expected status over the break, not a mass ‘Merry Christmas’ — a real update.

Week of 15 December: Publish your office closure dates and emergency contact process (if any), and confirm it across your Google Business Profile, website banner, and email signature.

Week of 22 December: Light, warm content only — a thank-you post to clients and referrers for the year. No sales pitch.

Week of 29 December to 5 January: Schedule one evergreen educational post people actually search for over the break — set-and-forget, no monitoring required.

Week of 12 January: Reopen post — we're back, here's what happens to your matter now — plus direct outreach to every lead who enquired in November or December.

Week of 19 January: Resume normal publishing cadence and follow up personally with anyone who hasn't responded to the reopening message.

A family law firm managing parenting arrangements: The fortnight either side of Christmas is when handover disputes spike — a parenting order sets a 10am handover on 27 December and someone doesn't show. The firm's Week of 1 December post addresses this directly: what to do if a handover breaks down over the break, who to call, and the honest fact that nothing gets filed with a court until registries reopen. It's the single highest-traffic post of their year, every year.

A conveyancing and property law firm: Settlements scheduled for the last week of December are a known headache, since banks and other parties run reduced hours too. Their shutdown calendar includes a direct email, not a blog post, to every client with a settlement date within the shutdown window, confirming exactly which days their file will and won't be actively worked, sent the second week of December so nobody's blindsided on the 24th.

A criminal law practice: Unlike most civil matters, criminal law does not fully stop over the break — bail applications and urgent hearings still happen. Their calendar includes a pinned Google Business Profile post and website banner stating exactly how to reach the firm for an urgent matter over the break, because for this practice area, ‘we're closed until January’ is the one message that could genuinely cost someone their liberty.

How to build and schedule it before you switch off

Block one afternoon in late November to write and schedule everything above — trying to do this live during the break is how it falls apart.
Confirm your actual registry dates per court or tribunal you use. Magistrates, Family Court, Fair Work, and various tribunals don't all close on the same days, and dates shift year to year.
Use a scheduling tool for social and email so nothing needs a human at the keyboard on 27 December.
Brief whoever's on call on what ‘urgent’ actually means for your practice area, so the emergency contact process isn't just a phone number nobody's monitoring.
Draft the reopening message in November too — write it while you still have the headspace, not at 7am on the first day back.

Please note: general information, not legal advice — check current official guidance and your specific court or tribunal's registry dates before relying on any shutdown timeline mentioned here.

💡 Send the individual client updates before the mass ones. A personal email about their specific file lands better than a blanket ‘Merry Christmas from the team’ — and it's the message people actually remember when they're deciding whether to stay with you in the new year.

Mistakes to avoid

Promising a turnaround date that depends on a court being open when it won't be.
One generic ‘see you in the new year’ post standing in for updates to every open file.
No plan for the first week back, so January starts in silence.
Emergency contact information that's technically published but nobody's actually monitoring.
Forgetting that practice-area-specific urgency, like criminal matters or urgent injunctions, doesn't pause just because the registry counter does.

Frequently asked questions

Do all Australian courts close for the same period?

No — registry closures and reduced hours vary by state, by court level, and by year. Some tribunals maintain limited urgent-matters access throughout the break. Always confirm directly with the specific registry rather than assuming a standard date range.

Should we stop billing or chasing invoices over the break?

That's a business decision more than a marketing one, but from a relationship standpoint, most firms find it easier to pause active invoice chasing over the two weeks around Christmas and resume in mid-January — sending a bill on Boxing Day rarely helps retention.

Will scheduling content in advance feel impersonal?

It can, if every post reads like a template. The trick is writing the individual client updates as genuinely personal messages, and saving the scheduled, evergreen content for the general audience, rather than blending the two.

Does this actually generate new enquiries, or is it just retention?

Honestly, mostly retention — this calendar is built to stop existing leads and clients drifting off during a quiet period, not to spike new enquiry volume. If new leads over the shutdown period are the goal, that's a separate paid strategy, not a content one.