Law Firm Broker for Family Law Practices

Family law practices involves deeply personal, emotionally charged matters that an attorney must navigate with care amid intense client emotions while managing complex, often unpredictable legal proceedings. The best family law practitioners blend legal expertise with high-level empathy.

Key Differentiators

  • Emotional Intensity: Many clients are in crisis—coping with grief, anger, or fear. Family law practitioners require extraordinary empathy and communication skills.
  • Skills Needed: It’s adversarial in nature, so one needs to be a proficient litigator. It can also require sophisticated financial acumen when settling large marital property estates, especially when small family-owned businesses are involved.
  • Recession-Proof: Historically, the economy has not significantly affected when people get divorced.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Unique About Selling a Family Law Practice?

The key question is whether a potential client would work with a successor after your law firm sells, since it is the referral network or the goodwill that is the crucial asset being sold. If the potential client calls and wants you and only you, the goodwill is too personal, and the practice may have minimal value. However, if a client wants someone from the law firm, that is known as practice goodwill and has value.

How does one distinguish among the different types of goodwill? The answer is more straightforward than one might think. Have the firm’s new clients insisted on retaining the owner, or have they been willing to work with other attorneys at the firm? The former law firm has minimal value, whereas the latter may have substantial value.

The Name of My Law Firm only Has My Last Name Contained in It? Does that Impact Its Value?

It shouldn’t. What matters is not the firm’s name but whether potential clients are willing to work with a successor.

How Do I Know Whether a Future Potential Client Would Work with A Successor?

If you, as the owner, have been successful in delegating work to other lawyers at the firm, chances are good that future clients will work with a successor. If handing off work to others has been a problem, future clients are less likely to work with a successor.

What Happens to Those Cases that I Am Personally Handling? Does the Buyer Automatically Take Those Over?

That will depend. Some sellers choose to work for the buyer and wind down their existing caseload. Those who want to be done handling client matters will do their best to convince the client to go with a lawyer at the buyer’s firm. Remember, the client always has the choice of which lawyer to work with. That is usually easier than one might think, since for most clients, working with a successor is the path of least resistance compared with finding another lawyer.

Contact Law Firm Broker Roy Ginsburg Today

If you’re still unsure about the best way to buy or sell your family law practice, you don’t have to navigate the process on your own. Roy Ginsburg has the experience to guide you every step of the way. To learn more about buying or selling a family law practice, call Roy at 612-524-5837 or connect online.