SOLE PRACTITIONERS

It is becoming an up hill slog!

How will you ever retire?

You have worked hard over the last several decades and built up a solid practice, kept your nose clean as far as SRA and professional indemnity insurers are concerned, but are finding that the going is getting tougher, because of the general economic climate and the whole-scale changes occurring to the profession in so many areas of law

You are not getting any younger; you once thought yourself invincible but now have visions of ill-health/mortality; you feel that you are on a roundabout that is turning around faster and faster! You would like to step off, but it is probably going too fast already – you fear that you may be thrown off?

Ideally, you would like someone to pay you to take over your practice, retain you as a consultant and if you own the premises, pay you rent as well. However those days are well gone!

Younger lawyers tend to be quite specialist and do not have the breadth of experience to carry out all the work involved in your diverse practice

You could simply close down; buy run off cover and make your staff redundant; tell all those clients simply to seek a lawyer elsewhere; retire to Spain or the golf course and let that brain and all your skills atrophy

You have no doubt calculated the mental , physical and financial cost of that course of action

Alternatively, ...

...you could consider joining Kaslers Solicitors LLP a firm that has been around since 1938 but which, facing the same challenges as you now face, changed its business model in Summer 2009

The Kaslers Business Model is geared towards former partners, solicitors, licensed conveyancers and legal executives . You could join us on that basis; still earn as much (probably more) than you did before and (more importantly) work your way to losing some of those personal liabilities that you now face

This Note deals with your concerns as a Sole Practitioner

Employed fee earners

You may employ fee earners . TUPE would mean that their contracts transfer to us

Subject to interview and all the usual recruitment processes, we would consider taking on your fee earners in their own right, provided they are happy to work under the Kaslers Business Model (they have to mitigate their loss so cannot just refuse outright without considering seriously the offer and most of our fee earners earn more than they did in "regular" employment )

You / we would have to arrange for them to sign a Compromise Agreement under which they gave up any rights to claim, against you or us, constructive unfair dismissal as a result of the change in terms and conditions of employment

We could not contemplate weakening the Kaslers Business Model by employing them on the same terms as you now employ them (presumably a salary). That would give rise to all sorts of difficulties with regard to discrimination and equal pay

However, your fee earners might regard the new way of working as an enjoyable challenge, compared to their alternative fate if you just shut down

Any work you gave them to do would earn you 15% and them 50% of the invoice (net of VAT)

Additionally, you pick and choose the work that you want to do and earn 70% under the Kaslers Business Model

You will no doubt calculate the redundancy payment saving

Support staff

Depending on the workload being brought in by you and other SPs, we may well need more Support Staff

You may ask us to employ some or all of them as part of "your firm within a firm" with the cost of employing them forming part of your "expenses", coming out of your commission earnings

Again, this would be subject to interview and all the usual recruitment processes and a calculation by us of the inherent liability to redundancy payment, which we might have to pay when you finally retire… in orderly fashion

Professional indemnity insurance

If we become a "successor practice", we pay an enhanced premium for the next six years because of perceived risks by professional indemnity insurers of the way you have conducted your practice in the previous six years

We need to discuss how we deal with this or it might be cheaper for you to buy run off cover, just as you would have to do, should you close down.

Files/Deeds/Wills

Assuming that you are not taking any premises, but are going to work virtually like most of us, then we can take your Files/Deeds/Wills into safekeeping and assimilate your indexing system into ours

Computerized bookkeeping

Hopefully, your accounts software package can be ported straight across to our AlphaLaw accounting package, but we can assist you to "tidy up your balances" so that we do not inherit a lot of ledgers, where matters are effectively completed but there are small balances

Premises

Our business model is based on having as little rented space as possible thereby avoiding one of the largest overheads of traditional practices - property outgoings in the form of rent and rates

You may wish to

work from home (as do most of our fee earners),
ask us to take additional space in our serviced offices (the expense coming our of your commission earnings)
ask us to open a branch office to house your "firm within a firm" (terms to be discussed)

All is negotiable...

Call Michael Breeze 07 900 195 195 for a confidential discussion