For more than 15 years, healthcare lawyer Sarah Stoddart has been navigating the legal complexities of pharmacy ownership.
As the director of Vitality Law Australia, one of only a handful of pharmacy law specialists in Australia, her career is niche to say the least.
She assists more than 250 pharmacists a year with a range of legal services, including leasing, buying and selling, shareholder and regulatory approval arrangements.
Rewarding is how she describes her role.
“Pharmacy law is not an area you can study at university, where you do things like family law or environment law.
“It’s just where I found myself, but I absolutely love it,” she says.
Handshakes going wrong
The most common mistake she sees is a breakdown of partnerships, arising from informal “handshake deals” that were never written in a legal contract, also referred to as a partnership agreement.
“Pharmacists come to me and they’re in a partnership structure in their business, but the relationship has soured — usually a dispute has arisen,” she says.
“I ask if a partnership agreement is in place, but it often gets overlooked so you end up trying to work things out in a hostile environment.”
Low-cost options
At APP2026, Sarah is presenting on Saturday March 14, when she will explain why having a partnership agreement in place when buying or leasing a pharmacy is so crucial.
The document — which governs how the partnership will operate — is low cost when compared with the hefty legal fees often involved in resolving disputes down the line.
“I’m not joking, [disputes can cost] 10, 20, 30 times the cost of the actual investment had the agreement been done upfront,” she says.
“Potentially your worst-case scenario is it ends up in court, and the partnership is dissolved.
“When a partnership is dissolved, the partners aren’t left holding much in terms of assets or money, which is unfortunate.”
A well-drafted pharmacy partnership agreement sets out how the business operates day to day, and what happens when circumstances change.
Leave entitlements, roles and responsibilities, exit and succession planning, and how profits and losses are shared are other details decided upon in the document.
As younger pharmacists look to move into ownership positions, acquisition of interest is also an important topic to cover, she says.
“Initially the young pharmacist might take a small stake in the business with a view to over time increasing that interest.
“They might verbally agree, that the senior partner will give them another 10 per cent in three years but what if the store does really well and suddenly the senior partner doesn’t want to sell down and then it becomes a dispute.”
Hire a specialist
While legal advice can feel like a burden when starting a new business, hiring a healthcare expert is also a crucial step, Sarah says.
“Unfortunately, I do see cases where someone says, I use the conveyancing firm down the road to buy my house, so I’ll also use them to buy the pharmacy.
“You wouldn’t go to an orthopaedic surgeon for heart surgery, so find the professional who truly understands pharmacy and use them.”
An educator at heart
Sarah’s career in law was never planned. During her school years in Queensland, she dreamed of being a teacher.
But after doing well academically, she went on to study law at the Queensland University of Technology.
Now, she uses her passion for education by presenting at conferences, hosting Calm the Pharm podcast, sharing practical legal advice and business strategies for pharmacy owners.
“Each episode looks at key business or regulatory skills that pharmacists often overlook, so things like navigating the pharmacy location rules to understanding leases, exercising options or how to prepare to sell their business.”
