[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Most firms survive. The best ones scale.
Welcome to the Managing Partners podcast, where law firm leaders learn to think bigger.
I'm Kevin. Daisy.
Let's jump in.
We're recording. So, Tom, interesting background. It's so cool when we got to connect the other day and we got a cool topic to talk about today, but want to hit you with a quick question for my law firm owners out there with exits in their mind or the future? What's, what's a good tip? What's a good word of advice for them if they're listening right now?
[00:00:50] Speaker A: Yeah. If you're looking at exiting your law firm in the future, my number one tip is to start delegating to today. Really hard for law firm owners, especially typically small law firm owners, to give up control to start delegating certain responsibilities like marketing, like, you know, accounting, the financials, running payroll, whatever it would be. The more you delegate, the more you're preparing for an easier transition as you exit. And you also find yourself focusing more on management of the firm, which is a good thing, right, because that's, you're going to need that time as you go through and exit and a transition that's really help on the management transition. So, you know, it's one of those traction concepts, Kevin, you know, delegate to elevate. But I would start now. The more you can start giving up some of those things you had controlled historically, the better prepared you'll be.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah, that's an awesome tip. And I've witnessed that myself in business. And I think it's hard for any business owner, but especially for law firms, you know, and giving up some of the legal responsibility, you know, the work product and things like that, I think it's even more challenging. So obviously everyone, you can kind of tell where the topic's going. But Tom, we're going to be talking about buying, selling, valuing your law firm succession plan, exiting all those things. So not a topic we get to talk about as much on the show. And I was excited to have Tom on to kind of dive into this stuff. And obviously we all have heard the changes in the market and you know, Arizona and you know, the KMPG starting their own firm. So it's, it's interesting time. So we're excited to dive into some of those things and talk with you for Tom. So, Tom, if you wouldn't mind, tell us a little bit about your background and in your story.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Kevin. So, Tom Linfesti, I'm a attorney, CPA by degree. I started out practicing law. I'm coming out of law school in a state, corporate and tax kind of found myself in the years of working with a lot of transactional aspects for professional practices. So a lot of dentists, a lot of CPAs, doctors, even some other attorneys that were going through things as far as succession or just different planning for their firm. And as I did that for the years, been in practice about a decade plus, I really started to think, well, all these other professional business owners seem to have figured out how to build succession plans, how to really implement an exit strategy. Even if they were like a dentist, a general dentist who owned a dental practice, sole owner, no associate dentist, they were able to go to the market list with a broker, find a buyer, have that buyer come in, pay a bunch of cash, and they were able to transition and exit out into their retirement. And so openly, Kevin I tell everybody, you know, for me there was part of it. I was growing my practice. I'd left a bigger firm, you know, in prior years where there wasn't really that succession path that was defined to partnership to the equity table. And I joined more of a firm of my peers, built my practice up. I was adding associates. So at first I was like, wait, I'm doing this. I feel like I'm building value. How am I going to, you know, exit it someday, right? I want to build value and have value come back in retirement. And really it probably triggered me to say who out there was doing this for lawyers? And the real answer back then like 2011, 2012, was no 1. There was definitely some consultants talking about buying selling law firms, but there wasn't really a marketplace, a brokerage option, you know, those really helping through the process.
And so in 2013, I started the Law Practice Exchange. And the Law Practice Exchange started with a lot of education, right? Talking to groups of lawyers about succession planning, buying selling law firms, internal options, external options, kind of like what we're talking about today and over the years morphed into a brokerage model, a business brokerage where we would be retained and you know, go find the buyer. Today it's really kind of a two tiered platform or two kind of hand platform. We run the marketplace housed at the Marketplace Law, which is our tech enabled platform, it allows sellers and buyers to go directly, create confidential listings, search, match, hopefully find their successor or find their acquisition target. And then where we spend most of our time as the team is our LP advisory, which really helps those lawyers, either in the marketplace or those that maybe need help outside with their succession plan with the transaction they found to really complete that through law firm valuation, through deal structuring, due diligence, coaching on the emotional aspects of selling a law firm. You know, all of those different things that we've really been through with our clients in the past, and so that's really where we sit today is to really, hopefully grow and scale that market, spread the knowledge of these options that attorneys have today. And also, as you and I have talked about a little bit leading up to this, you know, keeping tabs on the changing marketplace that we're really seeing today.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, no doubt. That's awesome. Okay. And I appreciate kind of the. The background there and, and kind of what led you down this path. And I think it's really cool and very interesting. And if a lot of lawyers listening today, you know, you know, are they thinking about exiting. Is that even in their future, you know, are they planning for it? And I, I know this from just talking to lots of people. My business partner's more into, like, this side of the business. But you don't just decide yourself tomorrow. And you haven't planned for it. You haven't, you know, put things in place if you want true value out of that deal. So what's, you know, for someone that's, you know, earlier in their business or maybe a few years in the business, and they're just like, this is not something I'm even thinking about. When do people really approach you or when's the right time to. To talk to someone like you that's even interested in learning more about it?
[00:06:40] Speaker A: Absolutely. So we have certain law firm owners that, you know, have built their practice, working on growing their practice that come to us just on valuation metrics. They're just really keeping track of their exit value.
Right. It's probably one of those things that I could have said, you know, to do, but really they're just benchmarking. Right. What is my practice worth in the open market? Am I doing the right things that the market values to do that? But they may be 10, 15, 20 years out from really even selling. They're just focusing on building a firm they can exit from and knowing that they're on the right path or course. So we do a lot of law firm valuations for those that aren't even looking to exit or sell. The other. What I would say is normal as you're moving into that, the hope is that you're really coming to start planning three to five years before. Right. And I'll. I mean, I'll tell you, Kevin, I mean, that's a Hard timeline for some to plan for. Right. Because, you know, it always seems like they're later in that timeline than earlier in that timeline. Right. You know, we get so many calls. You know, end of the year, beginning of the year is such a kind of cyclical, you know, push force because everybody's planning. And so we get lots of calls in January that say, I'm ready to retire. Well, when do you want to retire? By the end of this year. Right. And so 12 months may seem like a long time, but if you've built a significant practice and you've got to go out and find a buyer in the marketplace, get the firm valued, structure a deal and transition, which most of our sellers have to work, you know, afterwards to hand off referral sources or managerial. It's not really enough time. And so that overall aspect is, I still say three to five years out, but it doesn't hurt to get started now if it's kind of on the horizon for you. And, you know, you don't have an exit strategy or a succession plan. So just to go through, to know what is possible. One of the biggest things we do is when we start with evaluation, we're getting to know your firm and also, like, what market opportunities for sale or exit would be, or is this an internal sale or succession? So for those that are coming to us 10 years out, seven years out, they get to see like, hey, this is probably my path. Right. My path is to find a market buyer like this. So I know that might take a little bit more time. Right. Or I need to really invest in my next tier partnership within the firm. Because this is such a niche area, such an expertise in a credentialed area.
It's going to be really hard to find somebody in the market. So I need to invest in the internal. So it helps set a timeline that hopefully, you know, doesn't surprise you. Right. So the earlier you start on, just having a concept of what your path may be is definitely something that then helps you set your timeline and achieve whatever that exit goal would be.
[00:09:28] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's all good stuff, I think. Yeah. The three to five number is something I've just, I've heard people say, people that I've talked to seems to be a consistent three to five. Three to five. And yeah, that's not a lot of time, if you think about it and to prepare. And you're not just, just trying to find the buyer, but you're, you're trying to set your, your company up to be, you know, to Sell at the highest possible amount. Right. So there's things you got to change. You know, there's. If you're a business owner just used to just taking all these owner benefits and things like that. Like, you know, how is that being done? And, you know, what's your. Your, you know, we're on a cash basis, we're supposed to do accrual, which I just learned that that's what we should be doing. But there's a lot of things that you have to put in place. Management, C level, maybe someone that can take over your roles at the company. And that's something that Tom said to me when we were talking the other day, was all the things that you got to do to prepare your company to be as valuable as possible to sell is worth doing, regardless if you want to sell. Because you're just going to have a company that runs better and runs without you if you want to go on vacation or you get sick. So there's so many positives to just thinking like you're going to sell and preparing for it.
[00:10:35] Speaker A: It's always interesting, Kevin, you and I were talking about it, but as somebody comes to us who's maybe on that timeline, you know, three, five years out, but when they get the valuation, to your point, about all the benefits they receive through the firm, and they look at it and they say, maybe I can't retire now. Right. Because it's not just about the value you're going to receive. It's the benefits and other things that you have to replace. And so that's a retirement planning coordination with, you know, your exit and timeline, everything else. But as they do go through the valuation, it's how much they learn about their firm. Right. Hey, did you know you run away above benchmark on labor or marketing or other aspects, and maybe you're not getting those returns. And so we always talk about those that go through valuation are going to learn a lot. Those that then enter the. The sale process learn even more. I mean, they really do. You learn what is valued and what is good and bad potentially about your firm. And that's a real powerful aspect where we encourage somebody who's like, you know, I'm not really sure about timeline, but I know I need to, you know, start this process. It's going to take a while. Well, even if you start, like, the selling process and you don't complete a deal, the questions that are being asked from buyers are informing you that you may not be as strong or as, you know, as you think you are. You may Be down here and have to work on some things to then come back to the marketplace. And so it's a learning process. And if you learn and actually implement, which is what you and I were talking about, you're producing, you know, really creating a better law firm that you can enjoy, right? Usually more profitable, hopefully a better lifestyle, you start to delegate things, right? You move yourself into a different role. To your point, you've implemented C Suite or some other management level. You built a better firm, right? It's more sellable, but it's also more enjoyable for you to run for however long you want to.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: I love that. I think that's just a great mindset. And I think, you know, for me, it's just, again, we're not selling or, you know, in that process, but I talk to folks a lot about it and I just, I'm interested in person, you know, all this stuff, private equity. And, hey, how does this work over here? I'll meet a client that's like, yeah, I own, you know, 10 med spas. You're like, oh, wow, that's kind of cool. Why are you doing that? And what, what's driving you? And they're like, oh, well, I'm going to do this and roll this up over here, and then I'm going to offload, you know, so it's. I just like learning all about that stuff. And so I think just being engaged versus being like, well, I'm a lawyer, you know, this is my life. I'm never going to sell this. This is going to be what I do. I think it's worth, like Tom saying is investigate, learn, get feedback. And you're going to get that along the way of an evaluation or the sales process. You all hear from buyers of what they don't. They're not, what they're not interested in and what they are interested in.
And that could change over time.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: You and I, Kevin, were talking about, again, you know, leading up to this, a little bit about, you know, your program that's helping provide, you know, different attorneys that have accomplished a lot, right? And so the overall goal in listening to this is, wow, that's interesting. I wonder if I could do something like that or what could I learn from it? You know, with masterminds, coaching programs, everything else, it's the opportunity to learn and then you have to implement, which is the tough part, of course, for yourself. But, you know, an example for us is we had a personal injury seller come to us and wanted to sell their firm. And when we went through the valuation process, we realized their intake was way down based on historical. And it was something that where they were in managing, like they weren't really managing, you know, they didn't have all the metrics on a daily and they were kind of in that lifestyle mode. But as we looked at it, we said, well, look, you can go to market, but this is going to be a concern. Your historicals are good, but your future doesn't look great. And they just paused and said, let me fix it. And they came back to market within a year with much stronger intake and everything else. And the value, you know, was another million and a half up because of just identifying a problem. And the neat part I think for us about that story is if they had never come to us, right, their intake would have just kept going. Right. It's the same thing when you guys work with clients. Look, there's always issues, there's always opportunities for improvement. But it's just really law firm owners have a lot to do and so it's going to the right resources and then learning about your firm and then hopefully, you know, going to implement. So I think that's part of what you and I were discussing and it's a great part of the education and everything that's out there for lawyers. Today Foreign.
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So go check them out and let's get back to the show. That's awesome. I never even thought about some of the things that might come out of just going through the process and evaluating the parts of your business again, whether or not you want to sell or not. But an investor or private equity or whoever, they're looking, they're buying the future of the business, right. They're not, they're not putting their money down on what you did 10 years ago or five years ago. They're looking at the opportunity. That's why some, some of these buyers will pay a lot more for something that has a better future that they can see. And that's clear to them. They're like, wow, what, How'd they get that much? How'd they get a. A 12x or some crazy multiplier? And some of these that I hear about, you know, there's usually a good reason is something they can build off on or something that'll plug into something they already own and just magnify it.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I think there's really two components there. One is, we always talk law firms, it's about transferable value, right? If you're a lawyer and you do certain really specific niche work, like expert witness stuff or whatnot, maybe that's not transferable, right? It's not going to transfer to a buyer that's personal, unique to you, or you have a client that's going to be retiring out. It's not transferable business.
But what is transferable with transition? So to your point, it's like that buyer, that's what they're looking at, the future. And then the other part is we talk a lot about, like, when we go through valuation, like, that's value for your business as you've built it. The law firm that you've built, the really cool part, which you kind of alluded to, is strategic deals in the marketplace. And I mean, we've seen them, been part of them, help transact them where, you know, you'll have a firm that's not really healthy on profits, but they've got good revenues. They've just built an inefficient, you know, box. But then here's this strategic play over here. It's like, if I can get these clients and the revenues to transition over, we have a more efficient box and they can really start making money and they're willing to pay based on that money over there. So it takes the right fit. You gotta find that. But deal terms are really exciting and strategic purchases are really cool. Just like you get to work with a lot of law firm owners and see these differences. So we. And it's just really, it's always, I think, really uplifting to see how certain lawyers have built law firms, right? How they're really trying to do things and build them and then the different structures, as you said, you know, owning 10 locations, 10 law firms, I Mean, there's people out there that own multiple. Multiple law firms.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:31] Speaker A: Under different brands, sometimes under the same brand, you know, those different things. So there's opportunities for sure.
[00:18:37] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot of cool stuff going on out there. And then, you know, in the podcast here, I, you know, always get a lawyer that's got something different, some tweak or twerk to their marketing, their message or their niche or, you know, whatever it may be. And so it's.
Yeah, I see a lot of creativity out there as far as law firm owners that are coming about right now. Like, I'm going to do things different, I'm going to do things like this.
It's just getting definitely, it's far from like your old school suit and tie, you know, mahogany desk law firms, you know, so it's a lot of creativity out there. And I think, you know, some of these firms are building a brand up quickly and you got to think about value of the brand, social media, inbound leads and position in things like what we do, Google and leads that will continue to come in without the owner there.
[00:19:30] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: So I think that's another big thing is your.com has a value. Your website, the leads it generates, your position in your market, your brand, all those things, you know, add up. And to your point about that one firm that kind of like rested a little bit, kind of got, you said, lifestyle mode, they're diluting all those things down and they're going to just become less and less valuable, you know.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:52] Speaker B: And they'll enjoy it less probably too because it's not going to be providing as much for them over time and.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: It becomes more problematic. They lose key employees. Right. It just kind of in that wind down mode. That's one of the things I always tell people is the caveat to that 3 to 5, like, hey, you got life, health, whatever else. But if you're tired or if you're not attacking it with the passion that you used to, like, you're in kind of slow down mode. It's time to find your succession plan. Plan. You can keep being an attorney, you can get lots of financial benefits from the sale and keep practicing. But if you're not driving, you know, it like you used to, it's time to find that succession so somebody else can continue.
And you were bringing up, you know, kind of great details on, you know, that valuation piece. Right. Of the concept of value. And a lot of times, Kevin, one of the questions like, hey, what, where should I spend dollars if I'm looking to really promote market value for my law firm. And you know, I tell everybody comes down valuation for law firms come down to three components. Your financials, right, Meaning like your revenues, your net income, everything else, your brand, which is really your uniqueness, right, which is what you were saying. It's like your domain, your community, your Google reviews. Right. Like all of that other stuff. And the third is your systems that hopefully get the work done. And that brand piece can be such a key value driver or a negative. Right. If you're still using a, you know, a Yahoo address to email clients you really don't have. I mean we see it, right. Just because of that, there's less of that buyer to see the brand. Right.
And we really talk about all the time is if a lot of your intake is coming through, you know, Google, AdWords, social media, like you've spent it on the brand versus I meet with referrals across the country and it's all about me, me, me. You can still transition that me, me, me kind of value. But the other is more coveted in the marketplace. Like buyers like the brand that they can see. They and see all the Google SEO analytics, everything else come in. They can see how many clicks you get, how many leads you get on a normal basis. And they say, well that transfers to me, me the buyer pretty easily that referral source. I don't know if they're going to like me like I hope they do, but I don't know. And so you usually end up with, you know, better terms, better buyers overall, you know, kind of more buyers if you invest in that brand marketing, right? In building that uniqueness, building out, you know, that overall aspect that transfers and is probably valued a little bit higher.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: No, that's awesome. Um, I'm glad you shared that. Um, it's something I talk about often. You know, it's, you know, how important it is to, to build up your brand. And that's across all marketing. It's not just digital like I do, but yeah, that's transferable. So like for me in my space, just to kind of take a tangent, you know, let's say I was going to buy another agency and roll them into my agency. It's a lot more difficult because one agencies usually have a contract that are 12 months or more, right. So if I bought an agency, it's like, hey, they have 20 law firms with contracts. I'm just going to buy them and then all those clients will just be mine. One, they're not going to be very happy clients and a Lot of law firm agencies just sold recently.
Some of the big known names that I know of. And a lot of them start to call people like me or other agencies going, hey, I just, I do not want to be under this other umbrella. I want to get out.
So while they might stay for a period of time, it's not sticky. And so for me buying an agency, it's not, it doesn't look that it's not that lucrative because unless that owner stays, who has the relationship to say, hey, I'm still here, we just had an investor or we, or don't say anything, I don't know, but how you could handle it. But it's just, even if you got a contract, it's just not sticky. They, they're. A lot of them are going to fall off and say, I want to go somewhere else. I don't like the situation.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what we talk about all the time. Law firm sales are transition based sales, right? For the most part. You know, as an example, like the first law firm we ever helped transact was, you know, small town guy coming home, he went to law school, you know, up north. I mean we did it here in my home state of North Carolina. He went up north to law school, you know, met his wife up there practicing, you know, with a big firm and then want to come home, they were ready to start family, everything else. But instead of like hanging his shingle in small town North Carolina, he bought essentially the brand that was the go to brand in that small town. And they did it just as a merger, right? The announcement was, hey, we're now partnering, right? Welcoming, you know, new, you know, hometown guy back. And overall that seller stuck around. But all the referral sources kept sending referrals, right? And they just saw it as growth and future. And we see that a lot like with residential real estate where it's not always, you know, the marketing, but there's a lot of referral bases. You got to stick around and what I call be the goodwill ambassador, you know, to say, like, hey, we're really excited. Everything else, but to that point you can do that. It's just takes more time to do that. You got to stick around after closing, you got to find the right buyer that you're going to feel really comfortable with and they're up for that transition. So those deals where you've really built out more of that business, you know, marketing that business brand, personal injury attorneys are a good example, right? Like those guys, you know, a lot of them, you know, the men and Women work on referrals. Right. But most of them are Billboard tv. Right. Google digital spend and they built brands that way. Those brands transfer over and most of the time the market never knows. Right?
[00:25:32] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:25:32] Speaker A: They just kind of keep going and everything else because of the nature of that product.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: And you know, if, I think the general public knows, like if you got your big shot lawyer in your, your major city, you call, you're not talking to that lawyer and you didn't think you were. You know what I mean? So it's like they could continue for a long time with that brand and know nothing different.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And I think that's the key is, you know, we started with talking with like delegate. Like, you know, that's the part they delegate if, if you're taking all those phone calls or they're getting right through to you. It's how can you start to build out that team environment?
Because you're prepping for transition, you're prepping for exit, you're prepping for retirement. And look, I mean, I had my own law firm, you know, that I went through my own transition with. And you kind of have to retrain intake and say when they call up asking for that Tom and Butcher, my last name guy like overall. Right. It's just that, sure, Tom's, you know, of our attorneys. Let us talk to you about our process and let me find some more information. And we're here to help you and usually. Right. There's no issues. And sometimes they're like, I've been working with Tom for four years, I need to talk. And, and so Tom talks to him. Right. That's where you're that still that goodwill ambassador to make sure you're transitioning successfully. The worst deals we see is when they forget about transition. Right. They just forget that it is passing the baton. It's not a throw to the keys. And you know, the passing baton deals work well when you have the right parties working together, throwing in the keys deals. It's, it's seldom right. It has to be a very unique build law firm to really accomplish that and not have, you know, any drop off.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: Yeah, interesting. Good, good stuff. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, ton of good points here. Is there anything specific that you haven't kind of hit on that you, you think would be valuable to the law firm owners out there listening?
[00:27:16] Speaker A: I think the only thing you kind of alluded to it in the intro is the marketplace is changing. If you're really looking at, you know, building a law firm for ex.
You already mentioned this, the next generation of attorneys coming up are definitely focusing on more of a business model. They're comfortable with acquisition, hopefully they're comfortable with building brands, spending marketing dollars, you know, doing those things. So if you built something, there's somebody out there that sees value in it and they can move it onto their platform, hopefully. And then everything that's going on with Arizona private equity moving into the space, you know, across the board, the marketplace is changing to a point where there are more options than ever. And so really, if you're a law firm owner, and I know you've got a lot, you know, of good, you know, high growth, focused owners listening to this podcast, if your goal is to grow and then exit, your buyer pool is expanding compared to what it's been for the last few decades. Right. Which was just lawyers. Anything else? There's bigger law firms out there looking at acquisition as a form of growth. There's very entrepreneurial attorneys running boutique law firms looking for that. And now we're seeing these, you know, managed service organization, private equity models kind of move in depending on area that could be good, bad, indifferent. But from a succession and exit planning aspect, it's important to know because one of those is potentially your exit partner. And it's just good to kind of prepare and plan for that. And if you're one of those. Right. If you're looking for acquisition as a form of growth, you know, there's more and more competition. Our buyer, you know, kind of interest just keeps growing exponentially. And so it's really like preparing your firm, getting to that right point, and knowing really what you want in the marketplace to go out and acquire, to find it, having a real strategic plan, making sure your marketing is solid so that when you acquire this firm, you can roll it and keep growing that market base and everything else. There's no hiccups, no issues on that side.
[00:29:11] Speaker B: That's awesome. Good stuff. Good stuff. Yeah, sounds like, educate, learn about this. You know, get evaluations, reach out to people like Tom and, and, and ask questions. And, you know, again, back to the beginning, like, even if you're not thinking about it this right now, you're, you're learning, you're improving your business for the better regardless. And then when you are ready, you're not like, you already have some information, you know, you know what this is about and you have some, some insight. You're not just going, like you said in the I want to retire this year. It's like, hold on, you know, not a good way to do it.
[00:29:41] Speaker A: Yeah, it's, it's always that when somebody comes to us and they're like, oh, I've, I've been offered this for my firm. It's like, well, do you have a valuation? They're like, no. Like, how do you know if it's a good offer? That. Right. So it's. Even if you have that years before and then somebody presents something or there's talks about succession, it's just know what you've built. Lawyers are out there building good firms and they should know that it has a value attached to them and they have options to monetize that. So that's what we're trying to do. You know, appreciate this dialogue because I know you guys are working to help, you know, these law firm owners build value through their brand. And I think that's, you know, really a cool thing. When lawyers are doing great things, they should continue to double down and build that brand, build the value that comes with that, and then hopefully see the rewards that come from.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: Hey, amen. I appreciate it, man talks. Thanks for talking to me about it today. And it's just all just. I'm super interested in all of it, even as a non law firm owner, but as a business owner and yeah, I just think this is important stuff for folks to be thinking about, talking about getting information about and just making your business better and just knowing what your options are. Back to that one too. You said like an offer might say, I got, I got an offer based on nothing. I doubt that offer stands. I bet the offer gets smaller and smaller as they start to dig in and see what, what you really have. You know, they offer high and then go, well, we're going to have to drop it because of this. And oh, here's this. And oh, we didn't know about this. You know, that's unlikely. You'll get the offer you just got off the cuff.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like anything, right? You would never list your house without knowing what the value is. Right. And so it's just knowing what you've built, what you have. And again, it's like if you're going to sell to an internal, you don't have to sell them for whatever that value is. You want to give a discount. That's not your driving force. But know what you have and know what's possible. To your point, Kevin, on that deal structure, like when someone goes out, this won't work. And you can say, well, actually it will, right? Because you know your numbers, you know your data and you know your value. And so That's a really cool part about just, you know, again, switching from, oh, I'm going to retire, I'm going to exit. Woe is me. What am I going to do after practicing law paired to, hey, I've really built something. It's got value.
I want to find a really good legacy plan for what I've built and hopefully benefit myself and benefit my team by keeping them all employed and benefit my clients by continuing to care for them. And it turns into a positive thing. You build something and you can see it kind of blast on in that legacy transfer versus I don't want to retire because I don't know what I'm going to do with my time. You can stay on being a lawyer as long as you want. You just don't have to own your firm forever.
[00:32:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Or abruptly, you know, being abrupt about it. And, and the folks that did work for you now have an option or no option really, that they. They have to leave because you didn't plan, you didn't think about these things. Yep. So, yeah, good stuff. Well, Tom, I appreciate you coming on. Thanks for sharing. What's the best way for folks to connect with you or to find out more about you?
[00:32:35] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Visit us at the law practice exchange.com. that's the law Practice Exchange. Com. They come there, you know, I'm there, our team's there, they can fill out. We've got a self assessment where you can go through and just kind of, you know, explain a little bit about what you're looking for, what your goals are, and then book a confidential call. With our team, our goal is really just help define, like, path and options. We don't help with everything. We know what we help with, but we'd love to see if we can help you set your path and your timeline to see what's possible. So, yeah, check us
[email protected] and we'd be delighted to be a resource.
[00:33:12] Speaker B: Excellent. Well, everyone go check him out. Take him up on that. And if you want a personal connection to Tom, let me know. Reach out to me and I'll make sure I do an introduction by email or LinkedIn or whatever you want to do. So thanks, everyone. And then I wanted to note to anyone listening, this is the Managing Partners podcast, but we now have the Managing Partners Mastermind. I have a meet and greet that kicks off this week. We have about 10 members already, law firm owners that are in the right mindset, growth mode and doing things right. So we got the Mastermind kicking off. It's going to be a lot of fun. But if you have questions about that, ask me, please.
I am taking members, but being very selective, so doing personal interviews with each potential member. But if you're interested, let me know. Excited to kick that off and see where it goes. That's it, Tom, anything else?
[00:33:59] Speaker A: I don't think so, Kevin. I greatly appreciate the opportunity and, yeah, look forward to talking again.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: Absolutely. All right. Well, you stay on with me. Everyone else, thank you so much for tuning in to the show. As always, thanks for listening to Tom. He's got great insight. Please connect with him and we'll see you on the next show. See y.
[00:34:20] Speaker A: Sa.
