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People stress, get high blood pressure and, without relief, find more difficulty than they can handle. "The more choices we make, the more we're in control. The more we're in control, the more we're accountable." (Alan Weiss, "Monday Morning Memo") And when we're in control, we are not a victim ... the worst state of all.
Take control of your law practice, interact actively with your clients, understand what they want and, if you believe it is also what they need, work out a written plan with them to achieve it... Create a team with them, and they will be singing your praises.
lawbiz.com
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Pension Funds: Are They What They Seem to Be?
Complacency is not a good trait when it comes to retirement and pension funds. In other words, don't presume that your firm's pension plan is what it seems to be and what you expect it to be. To use a trite expression, don't count your chickens before they're hatched.
If you are a partner in a firm that has a pension fund program (albeit these seem increasingly rare), you will want to look closely into the details of the fund's current status. In an analysis conducted by the American Lawyer, as reported in a March 2012 ABA Journal article ("Unfunded Pensions Are BigLaw 'Elephant in the Room'"), American Lawyer looked at pension plans of large U.S. law firms. It appears that a number of the country's largest firms have pension plans that are unfunded. In other words, these firms have pension plans, but those pension plans are without the money to pay the firm's obligations as the firm's lawyers retire.
This may or may not be true of your firm, but be aware that the profession will increasingly see firms with the bulk of their lawyers leaving the practice for retirement with only a hope and a prayer that the remaining partners will be willing to fund the firms' obligations. We will also see situations where the younger lawyers in such firms will find it to their economic advantage to torpedo the existing firm's pension obligations in exchange for creating a new firm with no pension obligations since doing so would give them the opportunity to take on more of the revenue that is produced by their efforts.
Thus, partners nearing retirement age are well advised to review the status of their pension plans—and use their partnership status to demand answers regarding what the plan's funding and future payment prospects are.
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CLIENTS SAY:
"On a personal level, I'm not scared any more. The recession reduced my wife and me from a comfortable two-income family to a one person income and a capital drain. When I first called Ed, I truly was counting the months until we would have to put the house on the market... The things we have put in place and will continue working on guaranteed my business picking up."
FW
Northern California
"Ed was coaching me during our firm reorganization when disaster hit! Key personnel departed and I was panic-stricken. Not only did he honor his commitment to 24/7, but his advice enabled me to refocus my priorities. Now, I'm eating, I'm sleeping, and I'm smiling thanks to his guidance."
KH
England
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