The practice’s goodwill can be very significant, but, as a practical matter, accurately valuing it is difficult. For some firms, the goodwill may be too closely tied to the seller to have significant value. On the other hand, if you’re a firm that advertises heavily, let’s say on TV or billboards, that value can be substantial. Even if the owner stars in the TV commercials, potential clients usually realize they won’t be hiring the person on TV but someone from the owner’s firm. This goodwill is not tied to the owner, since clients have no reasonable expectation that the owner would handle the file.