From Practice to Asset: Building a Law Firm with Real Value, with Tom Lenfestey

Episode Notes

Transcript

Bernadette Harris:

Hi, I’m Bernadette.

Zack Glaser:

And I’m Zack and welcome to The Lawyerist Podcast, one of the many ways that we help lawyers build healthier firms, better businesses, and more sustainable lives. Today I talk with Tom Lenfestey about exit planning in your law firm. And Bernadette, actually, I think you were supposed to do this episode because you have a lot to say about succession and exit planning. So I hope that people are okay with me doing this, but you and I wanted to talk here though. I like how Tom reframes or at least frames the idea of succession planning to exit planning because that moves it away from being, my dad was 72 years old and literally got to where he couldn’t go up the courthouse steps. And that’s what he said he was going to do. It frames it from that to whenever you can be 32.

Bernadette Harris:

Yeah. And succession planning is just one of those words that sounds like it belongs on an obituary. It’s just like after succession is death.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah, it just does. It feels like the end, the end. And you and I have both gone through the end an exit of something that we were doing and now a second act, but that’s tough. A second act, something that you’re doing after that exit plan.

Bernadette Harris:

Yeah. Because I know for me, I guess I can say I’m a former accountant. I still identify as an accountant, right? But I don’t practice accounting anymore. And so there was an identity tied to that, that is who I was, that is how people know me. People still DM me and ask accounting questions. And so to transition into something else is not as easy as it sounds, but it’s also not impossible.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah. It feels weird though. I haven’t set foot in a courtroom in years, probably three, at least three years, four years, certainly before the pandemic. And I was in a courtroom almost every single day. I lived in a suit and now I live in sweats, but it is a different image of myself

Bernadette Harris:

And

Zack Glaser:

It’s tough and it’s weird and it’s exciting too.

Bernadette Harris:

I was going to say, but it’s also amazing, right? Yeah. Because I think that having that second act, and I feel like I’m in my second act, you’re in your second act. Having that second act just speaks to how we are not one dimensional. There’s more to us than that one thing. And so it is hopefully encouraging for our listeners not to get too caught up in that identity. And there’s nothing wrong with identifying as that, because that is who you are, that is what you’ve done, but recognize that there are other aspects of your identity.

Zack Glaser:

Yes. I think that’s the key is that that’s not the only thing you are, is that you can change that and still have internal value, still be who you are. I got out of college and I started building athletic fields. I was driving a tractor around the Southeast and then I was an event photographer for a while. Then I built websites for a while and I have had all those various identities. I mean, actually lawyer is one of my second acts. And I think there’s probably a lot of lawyers out there that feel that way. I think that one

Bernadette Harris:

Juice usually has the stronger identity, right?

Zack Glaser:

Right, right.

Bernadette Harris:

Why?

Zack Glaser:

That’s the thing is that we think, okay, well, I became a lawyer. I built athletic fields when I was younger, but I’m a lawyer. No, I’m Zack.

Bernadette Harris:

And don’t burn a debt.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah. And this is the lawyer’s podcast. And now here is my conversation with Tom Linfesty about exit planning so you can do your second act.

Tom Lenfestey:

Hi, I’m Tom Lynfasty, attorney CPA and founder of the Law Practice Exchange. I help lawyers and law firm owners create continuation strategies for their businesses, which are law firms, believe it or not, those businesses that are law firms. And so the overall goal is to make sure that what you’ve built, you can transfer and you can exit from it when you’re ready to do so.

Zack Glaser:

Tom, thanks for being with me. I really always appreciate talking to you about this stuff. This isn’t the first time that we’ve had you on the Lawyers Podcast, but this is always a subject that I think attorneys shy away from. And personally, I think that you approach these things from a direction that allows people to connect with it. So thank you. Thank you for being with me. And you practiced estate planning and business law for like 15 years, something like that before you did this?

Tom Lenfestey:

Yeah, absolutely. So in private practice doing a state corporate and a little bit of tax planning, trying to bring that CPA world into it mostly for small business owners and with a niche in professional practices. So that’s a lot of where the law practice exchange idea came from is I was working with a bunch of dentists, a bunch of doctors, investment advisors, otherwise who really had built good businesses and were able to plan for their exit, their succession otherwise. So yeah, I have not only talk about being a law firm owner, but I’ve done that and I have sat in that seat and know the challenges that come with it

Zack Glaser:

And had to actually get the business together and sort it out and in a place where somebody goes, “Hey, that has value beyond just your name.” So my father was an attorney and I actually practiced with him for I think 11 years, something like that. I was fortunate enough to practice with my dad for a long time and he always told me growing up that a law firm doesn’t have value other than it as a going concern with the attorney whose name is on the door. And with him when he first started, that may have been more, I want to say it may have more true than it is now, but he believed that and I believed that growing up, but I think that’s at the very least extremely less true now that there is value. How did you get into the law practice exchange?

You were practicing for 15 years, you were watching dentists and these professional practices finding value, gaining value, selling their firms and what?

Tom Lenfestey:

Yeah. I mean, I’ve probably said it on this podcast before, Zack. I got jealous, right?

I was sitting there in that seat of, I had my own law firm that was growing and here are these dentists that walk in and say, “Hey, I hired a dental practice advisor, a broker, and they helped find a buyer and here’s the terms. I’m getting a million dollars cash at closing. I got to stick around for a week or two, but then I’m out. ” And you’re like, “Whoa, who’s doing this for law firms?” I feel like I’m building something and kind of carrying that forward. So my pivot point was really working with those professional business owners and then I read a book Built to Sell, John Waterlow. It was just kind of one of these things, to your point, maybe your conversations, you either have a job or you have a business and it’s really your choice of which you want to have, but one is sellable, one is not.

And it’s the overarching aspect of putting those together and just really looking around and seeing who was doing this for lawyers, like who’s helping lawyers do this, whether it’s internal succession or merging firms, selling firms, whatever else, and the answer was really no one. And so that was really the starting point of the law practice exchange seems like many moons ago, but back in 2013. And so we’ve been at that charge of really to grow the marketplace, expand the options, prove the process so that those conversations of, “I don’t think my practice has value, we can really change that and say neither did so- and-so and look how their sale turned out or anything else from that because those are probably the most proud successes we have is those doubters that come in because of their unique situation. And if there’s a good opportunity, we can show success now.

And that’s been a big timeline build as you know, but it’s awesome from that because I just feel like it’s providing options that weren’t available in the past. And to your dad, he didn’t see those options in the market. Nobody was doing this. And so the goal is now to have more.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah, that’s exactly right. I think using your words there, I think my father had built a job for himself. Growing up again, he said,” I don’t want to work for anybody. I don’t want to have a boss. “And he essentially just built a job that he didn’t have to work for. You have your clients and everything, but he was his own boss at a job, not running and thinking about building a business. He didn’t envision himself as a businessman, but I also think at that time, not many lawyers really did, certainly not a lot of sole practitioners. I think that’s one of the interesting things about what you do is that we’re not just talking selling a huge firm. We’re talking about everything in between, right?

Tom Lenfestey:

Everything in between. Yep. A couple years ago we launched our marketplace, which I call our Zillow for law firms

Bernadette Harris:

And

Tom Lenfestey:

Mainly that is to provide really options to any size firm. Because even if you’re a small law firm doing a couple hundred thousand, few hundred thousand in revenues a year, there should be a good succession partner call it, for you to really transition what you’ve built, whether that’s referrals, a book of business, good clients, otherwise to kind of carry that over and going the traditional route of hiring a business broker or an M&A advisor or going through there, the fees are more, the timing can be longer. It just doesn’t work out sometimes with the smaller business enterprises, but with the marketplace, we’ve kind of created a tech enabled subscription advisory overlaid platform that allows any size to transfer and transact. And we see those exchange because there’s sometimes small law firms that are sellers, but there’s also small law firms that want to be buyers and they can’t buy because their infrastructure isn’t one that can take on the big firms.

They’re okay with starting with a couple hundred thousand.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah. Well, so that’s an interesting thing you get at there with the law practice exchange, the actual Zillow for law firms. In reading the new book, and we’ll get to the book here in a second, but in reading the book, I look at this and I think about succession planning or I think about planning for my exit, exit planning, add exit. And in reading this, my thought was, well, I’m only going to go talk to an advisor at exit, but all of this advice in the book is five, eight, 10 years prior to exit. And so how does somebody make that planning? How does somebody go get advice and help and when? Again, I said five, 10, whatever, when should they too?

Tom Lenfestey:

Yeah. Self-serving, of course, but people always ask that question, when should you start planning for your exit or your sale or anything else? And I’d say, if you don’t know what your exit plan is, if you’re building a business and you do not know what your exit plan is, then now is your time to plan. Because truthfully, you cannot always control life’s timeline of what ifs, change of just health, change of passion for running a law firm business otherwise. So if you build the business, I mean, it’s part of the reason, Zack, I love what you guys do with lawyerists is helping lawyers build a law firm that is the business they want to build. And if you can then add to that, what is your exit strategy if when you need it? If when you need it could be a determination by me, I’m ready to exit, retire, anything else, or it could be a requirement because something’s happened.

And

That’s truthfully, that’s disaster planning, that’s other aspect. And so what we talk about is exit planning really should just be part of your strategic plan for your business, for your law firm. And it starts with just knowing the value of your firm. If you’re going through and you’re building a business, having strategic knowledge of your numbers, I think your guys are pretty big on knowing your numbers, right? Yeah, absolutely. Knowing your financials, everything else, but it’s like also like, have you built a business that if you were to exit today is going to be worth 100,000 or 10 million That’s good strategic knowledge as you build because it also starts to let you know if you’ve done a valuation, how would you potentially see that value monetized? Does it really mean that you’re going to have to find a marketplace buyer? Do you potentially have internal options to be the next generation of owners?

It starts to get you to think about the next steps of what your exit options may be because of that value. We’ve worked with firms, significantly large PI firms that even if they have the natural next buyer in their firm, funding that is the challenge because they’re so significantly large, like funding that purchase price becomes a challenge for those next generation managers, potential entrepreneurs. And we’ve seen that even in small firms that you may have the perfect candidate, but they don’t want to take the financial risk or they don’t want to do that. So it’s largely knowing what your exit strategy is and starting to test that a little bit because your timeline is your most important part, in my opinion, to success of your solid exit. If you are short on time, it’s a liability, you’re going to have to accept whatever comes your way.

If you give yourself time and you really explore those options and you make it part of your strategic plan for your law firm, you’re going to have a great exit.

Zack Glaser:

Oh, so really as soon as you can … Why start your firm if you’re not thinking about the strategic exits? Really kind of like that’s part of having a firm, right?

Tom Lenfestey:

Well, like I said, I mean, I started this mission, I read John Warlow’s book, Built to Sell. And it’s like if you’re going to build a business, you should build it with exit in mind. That’s used in a lot of other exit planning books, anything else, but it’s not just about what you’re doing today. It’s building it an asset, right? It’s like a house that you’re going to improve, you’re going to have a paint, you’re going to fix stuff, everything else. If you’re putting all that work and effort into it, you should probably know and you probably get excited when your house is worth a little bit more or

Bernadette Harris:

Anything

Tom Lenfestey:

Else and it moves you to improve the right things in your business, not just for today, but hopefully for tomorrow when you do exit and monetize that value or you see the legacy, sometimes it’s not only for value. You and I have talked about that in the past. It’s

Bernadette Harris:

Not

Tom Lenfestey:

Necessarily the check that I’ll get. It’s for seeing the firm that I put everything into for 30, 40, maybe 50 plus years, continue on and do great things for the clients, for the community, for the team that’s part of it, anything else that comes with it.

Zack Glaser:

You and I have talked about preparing yourself for the exit. You and I have talked about some of the things that you can do. Now you’ve written a book on a lot of these things so people can get into what they can do by looking at the book. You’ve been doing this for a while. Why this book, why now?

Tom Lenfestey:

I really think it’s because truthfully, the market for giving law firm owners options for exit has changed so much over the last two years compared to the previous 10, 12 years I was in this. And a lot of that’s regulatory changes with Arizona, Puerto Rico. We’ve got ABS, right? A lot of this is we have private capital moving into this space, but I will tell you a big part of it is just there are entrepreneur driven law firms looking for good businesses to acquire so that they can expand their law firms. And so to the point of telling the story about your dad, for lawyers who maybe have not thought that their law firm, they didn’t build it with that plan, or maybe they’re younger and they haven’t been building it, but the overall goal is the options are out there and they’re increasing more than ever before, but you do have to prepare.

You do actually have to do the right things to go through the steps to have a successful exit. You really can’t fall into it. The best deals and the successes that come from it that we see are those that were always just like, “This is my plan. I was planning to build a business that is my law firm and exit out of it. ” And so they get the best outcome, it’s successful, it’s a good deal for them, for the buyer, anything else. When you fall into it or you have to do it, it’s tougher. And so the overall goal is to really get that information out there. You and I were talking, there’s some technical stuff in there and our team and there’s good advisors beyond our team that can help you through that, but it’s also the aspect of here is truthfully the roadmap to help you prepare and build your law firm for when you’re ready to exit.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah. Well, so let’s talk a little bit about what’s in there because as I was reading the book, I got into the first part, the introduction of like, “Hi, I’m Tom and I know you’ve been here. I know what you’re feeling.” And you lead this book or you have this thread that goes through that are three attorneys that are kind of examples. And in reading the descriptions of these attorneys and their situations, I’m looking at at least one of them going, “Ooh, I feel that. Oh, I feel that. ” And so the first part as I was going through, I was like, “Man, I wish this had been around when dad and I were still on the firm.” And then I got further into it and it got very technical because this is a 200 and something page book, isn’t it? First thing, let me say this, the name of the book, which I think I’ve been remiss to say is The Exit Blueprint, A Law Firm Owner’s Playbook for Selling, Succession and Life After Law.

So this is not just a, “Hi, you should sell your firm and here’s all the touchy-feely stuff.” Talk to me about some of the things that are in here, some of the structure or some of the more interesting aspects of this.

Tom Lenfestey:

Yeah. The real goal when I started out frameworking is I truly wanted a playbook. I wanted to lay out what we do with clients and have been doing for the last decade plus of like, look, this is the first thing we’re going to ask you to do and kind of go through these different steps and also share the knowledge of how we do things on valuation, how buyers are going to look at your firm, how they’re going to run different numbers, how you need to know these different systems and other things like that. There’s two aspects. It’s like it can be a read and you can go through it and say, “Hey, that really helped and I’m empowered now to prep my firm and there’s some good things or it’s going to be a reference guide.” And I’m okay with that too of like,

Bernadette Harris:

“Hey,

Tom Lenfestey:

The buyer that I’m talking to right now is asking me for this. I need to go look at that book on this section and kind of see that. ” So it really was intended to say, look, if empowerment comes from knowledge, then let’s try to give law firm owners the knowledge that we share through working with us or that we’ve done transactions and succession plans for years and kind of put that in there to really give you the roadmap if you want to prep now and get ahead of the game or if you’re in a deal, it’s a great reference guide to kind of look through that. And I had, to your point on the technicality,

One of our pre-readers was a past law firm owner or seller of ours who called me just to say, love the book, everything else. He’s like, “I will tell you, it got a little technical at certain parts.” But he’s like, “I also realized I’m not the most business-minded attorney. The numbers were something that I was weak on, everything else.” But he is like, “That’s part of the reason I hired you guys.” And so again, it’s that good advisors can help you for that, but having the knowledge, and especially Zack, a lot of the technicality or technical deep dives, some of it’s coming from more sophisticated buyers than we’ve ever had before and that’s a big part of it.

Zack Glaser:

Honestly, talk to me a little bit about that because that was something that struck me was when we started to talk about the management services organizations and the private equity and yes, there are a lot of different structures to purchasing that are being allowed because of places like Arizona and whatnot, but talk to me a little bit about that and what opportunities that is creating for law firms now that if we prepare for, might be in a really good position.

Tom Lenfestey:

Yeah, absolutely. A big change again over the last couple years has been the movement Arizona for those, I’m sure they do know that the listeners, but Arizona’s moved to the law. Act like

Zack Glaser:

I don’t.

Tom Lenfestey:

Okay.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah.

Tom Lenfestey:

Alternative business structures, which in plain and simple allows non-attorney ownership of law firms. You go through a process in Arizona to apply, but that allows anybody from individual … I think some of them have been like a state planning attorney and a wealth management advisor and pairing together and running legal and wealth together to private equity, funding other big firms and everything else. So it allows non-traditional owners, operators into law firm ownership. Puerto Rico’s gone that way. DC’s always had a limited ABS jurisdiction. For

Bernadette Harris:

Those

Tom Lenfestey:

That don’t know, the UK and Australia have been ABS non-attorney ownership jurisdictions for a few decades. And so there’s a roadmap where this movement is happening. What’s come from it though is also this managed service organization structure, which is essentially a structure where the law firm still has to be owned by lawyers,

Bernadette Harris:

But

Tom Lenfestey:

A lot of the systems, the value, anything else can transfer to a managed service organization, which could be owned by non-attorneys. And some capacity that’s private equity or family office or private capital. It could be just an individual attorney. There’s different things that are basically being used, but it allows for the law firms to be owned and have a services arrangement, but it really allows for the entrance of private capital and more sophisticated buyers than we’ve ever had before into the market to see value of the law firms that they built and to make investment into those firms because they can invest into the marketing, through the MSO structure and everything

Zack Glaser:

Else. So talk to me about what you mean by more sophisticated buyers. What does that mean for me as Zack attorney?

Tom Lenfestey:

Yeah. They want to know your data and they want to know- I want my data. Yeah, your marketing, right? What do you do for marketing? And we have so many attorneys that for years have said, oh, well, I do this, I do that. And they’ll say, great.

Zack Glaser:

Referrals.

Tom Lenfestey:

Yeah, show me the reports. Show me where you’re spending your dollars on marketing and where that’s turning into intake. What is your conversion rate for intake and how much does that lead into a client matter fee or a client case? How long does that take? Show us your good financials. Are you running those good monthly profit and loss or income statements? Do you know what your payroll, your labor cost is? And again, I think the overarching is maybe a lot of people listening to this would say, “Well, this is for big law firms.” And I would tell you that big law firms are transacting right now with private capital, but there’s also smaller law firms that are transacting with private capital. And that’s the part of, again, you guys have been talking about this longer than anybody, having knowledge of your data, having good systems is what these buyers are looking for.

And

Bernadette Harris:

If you

Tom Lenfestey:

Can’t tell that, then they lose confidence in the acquisition opportunity. They lose confidence in being your chosen successor and they would rather look at a better business platform that has that data, has the ability to really tell the full story.

Zack Glaser:

What’s amazing there, the thing that I love about this is that it doesn’t matter how successful your firm is. If you can’t document that, it’s going to lose value in the eyes of these buyers. Personally, I love that because I preach document your systems and run your firm by the numbers. And so seems to me that running your firm by the numbers not only helps you run your firm, but also helps you sell it.

Tom Lenfestey:

Well, and that’s it. I’ve given this story before, but one of my kind of, I don’t know, proudest transactions we were involved in was a 32-year-old seller who had built a good business with a great coaching program, lawyerist, but had built a good business on systems and data and they decided they wanted a life change. There wasn’t anything forcing them to do so. They just decided that they wanted a life change and so that life change was, “I don’t need to be the owner operator of my firm anymore.” And so they came to us to seek that exit and the ability for us to find a great, I’m talking great match because of what they had built, they knew all their numbers. They could tell you where every client came from. They could tell you the timeline for clients and everything else because they had built on data and systems and also that owner had moved themselves more into an owner’s seat than everything goes through me seat from that.

And so that’s the empowerment too is I’ve seen the success in working with you, Zack and your guys, members and everything else and other good coaching. And it’s like the things that you’re going to do that are going to come from the exit blueprint are probably things that are going to just make your firm more fun to run, more profitable, everything else anyway, but hopefully the exciting part of it is you’re not just doing it for today, you’re actually building value that you’re going to monetize in the future and that’s something that lawyers haven’t traditionally thought about.

Zack Glaser:

No, absolutely. And again, I’m going to continue to harp on my father because I have actual experience in this, in the succession planning. And honestly, I have actual experience in having done it and at the very least left money on the table. And part of that is because my father took 30 something years to plan his succession planning. The problem is that was literally me. He planned it 30 years in advance, but then it was me. It was, I have to get my son to be an attorney, which he took, tick the box. I have to get my son to practice with me. Tick the box. I have to get my son to want to take this over. X, nope, didn’t happen. And when you don’t have a person who has the same gut feeling about the company that you have, who hasn’t seen the six months of value and all that, well, then now you’ve got to have actual numbers and that’s not something that we had.

I At the time, we had to make a sale relatively quick. Again, Tom, I felt a lot of these people in this book. We had to make a sale relatively quickly related to health issues and we did well, but we left stuff on the table, 100%.

Tom Lenfestey:

Yeah. But I will say, Zack, too, you’re in a position because to deep dive quickly into data and systems and explain that. I mean, you are in a position to be able to do that better than most because of your work with lawyers and law firm founders and everything else. I think that’s the everyday challenge, which that’s the hope of what we’re trying to do collectively. I think that’s what you’re trying to do, great other coaches, but the exit blueprint is start thinking about these things. And as a reassurance overall is you’ll never have it perfect. Nobody succession plans is ever going to be perfect. But the overall is it’s those, you always think about the health situations, but we’ve run through it and I’ve run through it with clients over and over again of where I have that client calls up and says, “Look, I’ve got the two perfect successors.

I’ve been talking to them for years about being the next generation. They’re going to take over my firm. Just need to get you guys in to really help us transact, go through it and everything else.”

And we get involved and they’re like, “Whoa, we’re not buyers. We’re not here to take over the firm. We actually, as the two of us who are long-term associates, we don’t even like each other. We can’t be partners together. I don’t know where you thought. All we’ve been doing is getting you to retirement. We’ve already got our own plans and strategies to go on with our careers, but we were just like, you’ve been great. We were getting you to retirement.” And then all of a sudden it’s like, wow, now do you have your data? Now do you have your systems? Now do you have this? Because we have to present this not to somebody that’s on the inside, but somebody that’s on the outside and really do it. And that’s the scramble. And so going through this and really prep is just going to put you in a position to really just have a calm, successful legacy preservation.

And I think that’s the biggest thing is lawyers, I think from my experience, we like our legacy. We like our personal reputation and brand to be strong. It’s very hard for us sometimes to take these first steps in exit planning because we think retirement and that’s the end of our legacy or otherwise. It’s not just to let you know

Bernadette Harris:

Retirement

Tom Lenfestey:

Is a totally different timeline. But the biggest thing is if you do this, you take control of these last things that you’re going to do with that legacy to make sure you’ve chosen the right successor, you do it in the right way, there’s less stress, you’ve got time to do it and everything else that comes with it. So that’s the hope. I think based on it, it’ll have a significant impact as this marketplace continues to accelerate over the next few years.

Zack Glaser:

Talk to me about, and this is the thing that I think people get hung up on and I think there was some good stuff in this book, but I think it’s good to just hear it directly from you. Talk to me about the kind of idea of exit strategy versus succession planning of moving on to something else instead of retiring. What have you seen with that? Because I assume, like you said, you had a 32, 35-year-old seller and they were just, “Well, I want to do something else.” Because I think there are a lot of attorneys out there that if they could just go write that book, if they could be the next Tom Clancy, they would do it in a heartbeat.

Tom Lenfestey:

And I know you’re involved in this too. The challenges that sometimes you have as a law firm founder, it’s all the burdens fall on you as the owner or anything else. And it’s that aspect of if you always know that you could exit and monetize that exit or anything else, that’s very powerful because as somebody who still owns a business, owned a law firm, anything else, there is a feeling of you’re trapped on the hamster wheel, right? Oh my God. Your employees come and go, and that’s a frustration for a lot of law firm owners and managers. But

Zack Glaser:

They can.

Tom Lenfestey:

They can leave when they want. You can hire a lawyer, they can be there and then they can leave, but you as the owner sometimes, and the emotional part of what we do is that check. Yo like control, you don’t want to give up control, but exit planning allows you to take control to plan for an opportunity. And that opportunity is something that if you’ve created a practice, I know to some lawyers that are probably listening that whether their practice is small or large, chaotic, anything else, it’s sometimes really hard to see it, but I can tell you it happens successfully is you can build something and truly say, “You know what?

It’s time. I’m really interested.” We’ve had lawyers who have created great firms that have gone on to do something in software and tech, big area and big focus for you. They’ve like, “I created this with my own firm. I’ve now got a funding partner. I want to do this, but I need the monetary value out of my firm to be able to go and explore this. ” And so there’s that exit, planning the other piece. Succession planning for a lot of lawyers, and that’s really where we started with a lot of things is how that ties into disaster, health, retirement, anything else from that side. It becomes more of looking at the end instead of focusing on you’re building something for your value. It’s

Bernadette Harris:

Like, “Oh,

Tom Lenfestey:

I need to do this because I’m getting older or my health is fading.” And that’s sometimes that emotional check is really hard to really say yes, but once you do it, you can truly go on and practice without fear. And that’s my biggest thing is if you’re in that, which a lot of our clients are, if you’re in your 60s and you’ve been practicing law for a long time in your 70s, otherwise, some in our 80s, but the overall is yes, but you don’t have to hold onto your firm to really do that. And I think it’s the interesting play Zack of exit should provide you that walk away anytime you want. Succession gets to a point where you’re feeling like you’re later in that stage and you really need to preserve it because life is just telling you in different ways through age, health, otherwise.

Sometimes it’s your spouse that says, “You’re not supposed to be working this hard as we’re supposed to go seeing our grandkids more. We’re supposed to go do this. ” And so I think it all comes together into, you can have those. And really, I truly believe 2013 when I started this, it just wasn’t available. I think now it’s really exciting to see the movement and carry forward on that.

Zack Glaser:

Yeah. One of the things that I got out of this book in reading it was the amount of options, the amount of things you can do. One of the things that you say directly is kind of this idea of a lot of us want to continue to practice law. We want to keep going. Okay. Well, you can set yourself up in a way where you can be in there at advisory capacity. You can be of counsel. You can do a lot of different things and still get the value out of your firm before the end of day. And I love that about this book and this advice.

Tom Lenfestey:

I always say there’s always options or structural options, right? Past you can choose. But as we know, lawyers are some of the most creative beast on the world. So you will create your own potential structure that works for you and your firm, or you will with good advisors and just finding that right fit. But yeah, it’s keep everything on the table. There is great opportunities, whether you’re big, small, you have all the data and systems perfect, or you don’t. There’s still good options out there if you give yourself time, if you commit to the process and everything else to really do that. And that is exciting because I do think there’s so much … I go back to thinking about my early years as an associate and the believe mentorship and natural succession and everything that wasn’t there that you hope was there. And my overall goal and one of the reasons starting the Law Practice Exchange is really to see that, to see legacies built, but also transition and transferred to the next generation, everything else.

And to you and your father’s situation, it’s a common situation. Just because the next generation is a lawyer does not mean they are your successor. Yeah.

Zack Glaser:

They might go on to be a podcaster.

Tom Lenfestey:

They might go on to be a podcaster and one hell of a coach and everything else for lawyers and have a great impact in other ways. Absolutely.

Zack Glaser:

Or they could be anything. You never know. And like you said, keeping your options open, I really like that. So Tom, if people want to find the Exit Blueprint and the Law Practice Exchange, they can go to the lawpracticeexchange.com. Where can they find your book though?

Tom Lenfestey:

Yeah, we’ll have links, of course, on the lawpracticeexchange.com. It’ll also be available on Amazon, so the exit blueprint. And I would love, again, either way we’d be happy to get great feedback. The overall goal is to see it help you as law firm owners and founders and those that are looking at building better businesses that are a law firm. So very excited about it, Zack, and appreciate the time to talk about it, for sure.

Zack Glaser:

Love it. Love it. Thank you for coming on and talking with me. I always learn something from you, Tom, and we will put all those links in the show notes if anybody didn’t get it. Once again, Tom, thanks for being with me.

Bernadette Harris:

Absolutely.

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