By Laurin D. Johnson, Esq., LL.M., CEPA
Managing partners: you know what it took to build your firm. Do you know what it will take to exit it on your terms?
You’ve spent years, maybe decades, climbing the ranks, building your book of business, and creating a practice that sustains your clients, your team, and your reputation. The long hours, the late nights, the relationships carefully cultivated over time, all of it has gone into building something real and meaningful. But here’s a sobering reality that most law firm leaders don’t encounter until it’s almost too late: only 20-30% of closely held businesses that go to market actually sell. And the wealth so many law firm founders have poured into their practice – years of sweat equity, client loyalty, and operational infrastructure – often stays trapped there. Building a firm that is truly transferable takes time, intention, and strategy, and that work has to start long before you’re ready to walk out the door.
Exit Planning Is Not an Endpoint: It’s a Strategy
There is a pervasive myth in the legal profession that exit planning is something you do when you’re almost done, a checklist you hand off to a financial advisor sometime in your late fifties or early sixties. The reality is far more nuanced, and far more urgent. Exit planning isn’t something you think about when you’re ready to leave. It’s something you do every day when you’re running your firm well. It is, at its core, simply good business strategy.
As a former estate planning attorney, I’ve always understood the importance of planning for life’s guarantees and its curveballs. My clients came to me to protect what they’d built – for themselves, for their families, and for the people they loved. They understood that leaving things to chance wasn’t a plan; it was a gamble. The same truth applies to law firm leaders. The same intentionality my clients brought to protecting their families is the same intentionality you need to bring to protecting your life’s work.
The Unique Challenge Facing Law Firm Leaders
Attorneys work incredibly hard to excel in their field. They build deep expertise, loyal client bases, and teams of people who depend on them. But here’s what I see time and again: law firm leaders get so focused on climbing – on making partner, on growing the firm, on serving clients at the highest level – that they rarely stop to think about what they want once they reach the top, and more importantly, what they want their exit to look like.
The managing partner role is hard-won. But it can also become a kind of gilded trap, a position so consuming that the future beyond it remains blurry and unplanned. And when the time comes to step away, whether by choice or by circumstance, many firm leaders find that the value they’ve worked so hard to create isn’t as accessible as they’d assumed. That’s not a reflection of their work, ethic, or their talent. It’s a reflection of a plan that was never built.
Alignment Is Everything
A successful exit, on your terms, at your pace, with the legacy you’ve envisioned, requires three things to be in alignment: your professional goals, your financial goals, and your personal vision for what comes next. Most law firm leaders have thought about each of these in isolation. Very few have sat down to align them intentionally and strategically. And without that alignment, even the most well-run firm can fall short of its full potential when it comes time to transition.
The question isn’t just “what is my firm worth?” The deeper questions are: What do I want my life to look like after this? Who will carry this forward? What kind of legacy do I want to leave for my clients, my team, and my community? These are not questions with quick answers, they are questions that deserve time, thought, and a structured process. And they are questions worth starting now.
Building Value That Is Transferable
This is exactly the work we do every day with law firm leaders through our strategic COO consulting services, helping you invest in your people, your operations, your client relationships, and your social capital so that your firm is operating at its best-in-class level. Because a firm that runs well with you is valuable. A firm that runs well without you is transferable. And the gap between those two things is where the real work happens.
Earning the Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA) designation through the Exit Planning Institute has deepened my ability to bring a structured, holistic methodology to that work, one grounded in the Value Acceleration Methodology™, which empowers business owners to uncover and address risks within their firm, cultivate substantial value ahead of a potential transition, and align their business, personal, and financial goals for maximum impact. It is a framework that transforms exit planning from a vague future concern into a clear, actionable strategy that begins today.
The Time to Start Is Now
It is only through educated, intentional action that things improve. And it is only through action that we create the future, and the legacy, we deserve. The wealth you’ve built in your firm shouldn’t stay trapped there. Your years of hard work, your client relationships, your team, your reputation, all of it deserves a plan that honors what you’ve built and protects where you’re going.
If you’re a law firm leader who hasn’t yet thought seriously about your exit plan, there’s no better time to start than now. I’d love to connect and explore what intentional planning could look like for you and your firm.
Ready to start the conversation?
Visit us at www.mblawconsulting.com or reach out directly to book a free consultation
About the Author
Laurin D. Johnson, Esq., LL.M., CEPA is a Law Firm Consultant at MB Law Firm Consulting, a Massachusetts-based consultancy that partners with small and mid-sized law firms to drive strategic growth, operational excellence, and successful transitions. Laurin is a former trusts and estates attorney whose background in both law and operations gives her a unique lens on helping law firm leaders build practices that are both strategic and sustainable.