Firm Succession Planning - Practical Tips for Professionally Preparing Your Practice for Life’s Planned and Unplanned Transitions

As estate planners we help our clients prepare for death but often fail to think about our own legal practices and firms as an asset that deserves planning. In our session, we will address the importance of creating a firm succession plan (and the professional responsibility to do so) as well as planning for other transitions including attorney leave (whether caused by happy or unhappy circumstances), sale of practices, and attorney transitions to new firms. We will examine a case study of a firm where decedent lawyer did not have a succession plan (and the resulting headaches and heartaches) and give practical suggestions for attendees including sample language to consider adding to firm engagement letters, internal policies and practical guides for succession planning, and provide attendees a succession plan template that can be adapted to fit the transition circumstances.