LEAP Estates Australia partners with Finders International on probate genealogy research

3 August, 2026 — Sydney

LEAP Estates has partnered with Finders International, bringing the internationally renowned probate genealogy specialist directly into LEAP Australia. When a matter involves a missing beneficiary, an intestacy with no clear next of kin, or assets and heirs across borders, you can now engage Finders International directly from the matter, without leaving LEAP.

Click here to view a demo of Finders International within LEAP →

A significant amount of time for an estate practice is spent on administration rather than advice, and genealogy research is a common example. Families are more geographically scattered than they used to be, and locating a beneficiary or verifying an entitlement on intestacy now often means working across two or three jurisdictions rather than one. That due diligence is easy to under-resource when it's handled by phone and email alongside everything else on a practitioner's desk.

LEAP Estates' clients can now access the following services:

• Missing Beneficiaries and Executors – Testate Estates: Locating a beneficiary or executor named in a will who can't be contacted

• Missing Beneficiaries – Intestate Estates: Identifying and locating next of kin when there's no will

• Vital Records Retrieval Service: Obtaining birth, death, and marriage certificates needed to prove entitlement

• Overseas Bankruptcy Search: Checking whether a beneficiary or executor has a bankruptcy history in an overseas jurisdiction

Finders has been doing this work for more than 30 years, including the genealogy research behind the BBC series Heir Hunters, and the Australian rollout gives local practitioners access to that same expertise. Requesting it from inside LEAP means the request and the result both sit in the matter file, instead of a separate inbox that needs to be checked and reconciled later.

Mahwish Malik, Managing Director of LEAP Estates Australia, said:

"As families, assets and investments become increasingly global, estates practitioners are more frequently managing matters involving overseas beneficiaries, international assets and cross-border family relationships. Our integration with Finders International equips our practitioners with direct access to trusted probate genealogy expertise, helping them navigate these complexities efficiently from within LEAP."

Simonne Llewellyn, CEO at Finders International, added:

"Solicitors don't want to switch between multiple platforms or manually duplicate information. By integrating specialist probate research directly into the systems firms already use, we're helping practitioners save time, strengthen due diligence and focus more of their attention on advising clients."

Getting started

Getting started is easy. In three steps, you'll be on your way to requesting Finders International's probate genealogy research directly from a matter.

1. Enable it

Menu → Marketplace → search Probate Genealogy → Enable.

2. Open it in a matter

Open an Estate Administration matter and select Probate Genealogy from the ribbon. The Finders International Services window opens on the Services page.

3. Choose a service and submit

Pick the service you need and click Select Service.

For clients currently sending probate research requests by phone or email, this removes that step from their workflow. Available on both LEAP Desktop and Web.

Final words

This partnership with Finders International brings decades of probate genealogy expertise directly into the platform LEAP Estates practitioners already use, at a time when families, assets, and beneficiaries are increasingly likely to sit across borders. The services are available now under Marketplace in LEAP.

About LEAP

LEAP Legal Software is a cloud-based legal practice management platform supporting over 71,000 legal professionals worldwide. With more than 30 years of innovation, LEAP integrates matter management, legal accounting, document automation and AI-driven tools to help law firms operate more efficiently and profitably.

Australian-owned and headquartered in Sydney, LEAP delivers practice-area-specific solutions across Property, Estates, Personal Injury, Criminal Law, Litigation and Family Law, combining deep local expertise with the experience of a global legal technology organisation.

Media contact

Julia Merrick

Email: julia.merrick@leap.com.au