For Sale

It's finally happened. My partner and I are on the same page about our firm -- we want to wind it down.

I've wanted out of the law business for a good while, but he always enjoyed being a lawyer more than I did, and was vehement about keeping at it. He's had a change of heart.

And, like the great partner he is, he has creative ideas about how we might go about selling the business.

We refer most of our cases to two friends, Brian and Stuart, and they'd be the natural choice. They know our practice intimately, and most of our clients. The problem is, neithor of them have any money available to buy what we have to sell --several existing cases, as well as the good will and name of a practice that's 16 years old. They'll have a major decision --whether to borrow money to do it. Or not. Either way, our friendships will remain --they'll just no longer get referrals from us.

We've been reading up on valuations of law practices. The bottom line is that they sell for some multiple of the average of some past years' earnings. The money is paid with a downstroke, plus future share (for a certain time) of fees earned.

My partner and I would stay around, continuing to "make rain" and consulting on the cases.

The second part of the value we could bring was hammered home yesterday, during a conversation I had with a defense lawyer representing one of my doctor friends, in a case where I'm pro bono personal counsel. As we spoke, this woman (seen as a competent, experienced trial lawyer) had so little clue about handling the case.

At lunch with my partner, I told him it was no accident that most plaintiffs' lawyers I know, just a little smarter than the average bear, made a TON of money in this business. There are so many easy targets on the defense side.

We're just starting the process of selling. I have 2 other good friends, one a criminal defense lawyer who's thinking about branching out into the civil world (and recently flush from some fat fees from South American, um, import-export clients) as well as another close friend (and loyal blog reader) who is a leading defense lawyer taking on more plaintiff's cases that don't involve his primary defense clients...

We'll see.

Still, we're planning on big changes by January, so the next 1/2 of a year ought to be the most interesting in the history of our firm.

In the meantime, there's still some cases to handle. A car crash case came in last week, and a carrier just tendered $100K, so we'll be able to pay my secretary Mirta.

Another case, where a child was badly hurt, referred by a client whose case we handled 15 years ago , has major coverage.

The future is bright!