Page 62 - Strategic Planning for Law Firms

Review Par tnership Agreement
The firm partnership agreement is typically the first and most important document to review. How you have set up the partnership, leadership, control and compensation need to be reviewed, addressed and discussed. Furthermore, the partnership agreement must address succession, withdrawal, and death. Your analysis should include the financial implications or burdens to the firm if a partner withdraws or dies. Some firms have unrealized contingencies that could destroy the firm and they simply
don’t know it.
Review Succession Plan
Does the firm have a succession plan? When was it created? What’s the plan for retiring lawyers? Is there a mandatory retirement age to withdraw from the partnership or to retirefromthepracticeoflaw? Howare clients transitioned from a retiring lawyer to someone else in the firm? What is the role of attorneys after they retire? If a firm is going to crumble, it’s more likely after one or more senior partners retire than at any other time, so the firm has to have a plan to address succession.
Review Compensation Model
Study how the firm compensates its lawyers for rainmaking, managing cases,and billing hours. In addition, how does the firm compensate lawyers for firm management, administrative work, marketing and training tasks, and professional engagement? These need to be reviewed and addressed. This may be the longest and most arduous part of strategic planning. Inequitable, or the perception of inequitable, compensation can cause people to leave or it can blow up a firm.
Review Lease
Review all of the firm’s leases, both of its main office and of all the secondary and tertiary offices and leaseholds. In this environment where we have learned to work from home, and we have learned to do more with less (including less space), you may not need as much space when
you renew. Furthermore, you need to understand whether the individual partners are expected to guarantee the lease.
Strategic Planning for Law Firms
SECTION 09 THE PLANNING PROCESS
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