Asked and Answered 

By John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC

Q. I started my firm as a solo practitioner nine years ago in New Orleans. My practice focuses on maritime defense litigation. Over the years I have added associates and currently I have six associates working for me. I am overwhelmed with work – from the legal work that I am doing in addition to business development and firm administration. My thought is that I should consider restructuring the firm by making some of my associates partners so I can offload and share some of the administrative responsibilities. I would like your thoughts. What are other firms in my situation doing?

A. Years ago, when I started in this business there were solo practitioners and multi-attorney firms that were partnerships. There were not many multi-attorney firms that were sole owner firms – firms with many attorneys and just one owner. This has changed. More and more attorneys don’t want to be in partnerships with other attorneys. Sometimes this is a result of bad experiences in other partnerships. In other cases, they simply want to go it alone. Also, more and more associates don’t want to take on the stress and financial obligations of partnership – they simply want a job that provides them with a decent income with work-life balance. I have law firm clients that are solos, as well as firms with 15 to 20 attorneys and those with 50 to 70 staff employees. These firm owners have hired firm administrators, marketing managers, and other such talent to offload the administration. While these firm owners have been enjoying the fruits of sole ownership, eventually they will have to reevaluate their situations when they begin planning their succession and exit strategies.

I think you have to ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is adding partners the best way to offload your administrative responsibilities? Should you hire a firm administrator?
2. Are you ready for partners?
3. Do you have associates that meet your requirements for partner admission? Have you thought about these requirements?
4. Do the associates who you would consider for partnership have an interest in being partners?

Give this some more thought – don’t just make partners to have partners or to have someone to handle administration.

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John W. Olmstead, MBA, Ph.D, CMC, (www.olmsteadassoc.com) is a past chair and member of the ISBA Standing Committee on Law Office Management and Economics and author of The Lawyers Guide to Succession Planning published by the ABA. For more information on law office management please direct questions to the ISBA listserver, which John and other committee members review, or view archived copies of The Bottom Line Newsletters. Contact John at jolmstead@olmsteadassoc.com.