In any law practice today, it is critically important to respond to partner departures in the right way. It is equally important to anticipate and manage partner departures proactively. From most firms’ perspectives, the partnership agreement is the primary defense to partner departures. And it can be a powerful tool. If properly drafted, the partnership
California Partner Departure Law
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What to Expect When You’re Departing
By Dena Roche
For law firm partners, some circumstances arise after giving notice of a departure that can seem unexpected or even shocking. But it turns out that what may appear unlikely or uncommon is quite usual in partner departures, and some circumstances that may be difficult to imagine are foreseeable with the correct perspective.
Not all of…
Why Your Law Firm Needs a Lawyer
By Dena Roche
For many law firm partners, even those who run and manage law firms large and small, the idea that a law firm needs its own lawyers to manage legal ethics issues and related law firm governance matters may seem like overkill. After all, law firms are full of lawyers — hopefully, smart and skilled lawyers,…
5 Law Firm Events That Can Trigger Partner Departures
By Dena Roche
Law firms are often shocked and surprised when a partner or a group of attorneys announces their departure. We preach advance planning for law firms to avoid this element of surprise where possible. Well-managed firms try to anticipate situations that can lead to partner departures, try to actively monitor the signs that a departure may…
Which Law Firm Partners Should Stay and Which Should Go?
By Dena Roche
We frequently address how law firms can use partnership agreements to disincentivize partners from departing the firm. Protecting the firm through the partnership agreement is an important way for law firms to manage the risks of partner departures. The partnership agreement is also among several tools the firm can and should employ to address the…
How Savvy Law Firms Protect their Firm from Partner Departures
By Dena Roche
Partner departures typically are very disruptive to law firms. In the near term, partner and group departures can create short term revenue shocks, create holes in the firm’s expertise, foster uncertainty for those who remain, and damage morale, to name a few effects. In the long term, departures can have serious negative effects on the…
Succession Planning for (Dearly) Departed Partners
By Dena Roche
In today’s rapidly changing legal marketplace, law firms must prepare for potential partner departures before they happen, with detailed plans for reacting if a partner or group of attorneys leaves the firm for another firm. But partners or groups leaving voluntarily for greener pastures is not the only way for a lawyer to leave the…
Law Firm Risk Management Goals for 2021
By Dena Roche
Here it comes again, that dreaded thing: New Year’s resolutions. Yes, just when all of us were ready to turn the page on 2020 and embrace a new year with new possibilities, so far, the turmoil does not seem to have disappeared so quickly. And it likely won’t for a while. But that does not…
Looking at Your Firm’s Balance Sheet: Law Firm Clients, and Lawyers, are Not Property
By Dena Roche
It has been almost two years since the California Supreme Court issued its decision in Heller Ehrman v. Davis Wright (2018) 4 Cal.5th 467, holding that a dissolved law firm has no property interest in fees generated after dissolution for hourly matters that were in progress when the firm dissolved. And earlier this year,…
Is Your Law Firm Prepared for the Next Partner or Group Departure?
By Dena Roche
While it is a good practice for any law firm to periodically assess its exposure to potential partner departures, the pandemic’s impact on law firms has made this task more important than ever. Doing so involves taking a candid look at the firm’s management, operations, strategy, and culture to determine whether any partners or groups…