Ep. 221: The Exit Blueprint — How to Build a Law Firm You Can Actually Sell

What happens when you're finally ready to step away from the law firm you've spent decades building?

In Episode 221 of the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, Ben Glass welcomes back attorney, CPA, and Law Practice Exchange founder Tom Lenfestey to discuss one of the most overlooked topics in the legal profession: exit planning.

Drawing insights from his new book, The Exit Blueprint: The Law Firm Owner's Playbook for Selling, Succession, and Life After Law, Tom explains why the biggest challenge isn't finding a buyer—it's figuring out who you are when you're no longer running the firm.

Ben and Tom explore what makes a law firm truly valuable, how lawyers can create businesses that thrive without them, and why waiting until retirement is often too late.

In this episode:

✅ Why lawyers struggle with succession planning
✅ The emotional side of selling a law firm
✅ How to increase your firm's value years before an exit
✅ The role of systems, SOPs, and AI in building transferable businesses
✅ What buyers are looking for in today's market
✅ Private equity's growing interest in legal practices
✅ Common deal killers and valuation mistakes
✅ How to create a meaningful life after law

Whether you're planning to retire in twenty years or considering a transition today, this conversation offers practical guidance for building a law firm that serves your life—and leaves a lasting legacy.

Guest: Tom Lenfestey
Book: The Exit Blueprint: The Law Firm Owner's Playbook for Selling, Succession, and Life After Law
https://a.co/d/0d4256oI
Website: https://www.thelawpracticeexchange.com

Ben Glass is a nationally recognized personal injury and long-term disability insurance attorney in Fairfax, VA. Since 2005, Ben Glass and Great Legal Marketing have been helping solo and small firm lawyers make more money, get more clients and still get home in time for dinner. We call this TheGLMTribe.com

What Makes The GLM Tribe Special?

In short, we are the only organization within the "business builder for lawyers" space that is led by two practicing lawyers. 

One thing we're sure you've noticed is that despite the variety of options within our space, no one else is mixing
the actual practice of law with business building in the way that we are.

There are no other organizations who understand the highs and lows of running a small law firm and are engaged in talking to real clients. That is what sets GLM apart from every other organization, and it is why we have had loyal members that have been with us for two-decades.

Transcript

The Fear Behind Exit Planning

SPEAKER_02 0:00

The biggest obstacle to exit planning for lawyers is those lawyers not knowing what they're going to do next and fearing it. Like truly fearing what they're going to do if I'm not a lawyer in my law firm, you know, the next day. You would be shocked if in five years you're in the same seat in your law office thinking the same things. And man, how did five years slip by? But that's what happens.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Welcome to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, the show that challenges the way lawyers and professionals think about life, business, and success. Hosted by Ben Glass, attorney, entrepreneur, coach, and father of nine, this show is about more than just practicing law. For over 40 years, Ben has built a law firm that stands for something bigger. He's helped thousands of lawyers create practices that make good money, do meaningful work, and still make it home for good. Each week, Ben brings you real conversations with guests who are challenging the status quo. Lawyers, doctors, entrepreneurs, thinkers, and builders. These are people creating bold careers and meaningful lives without burning out or selling out. If you're ready to stop playing small and start thinking like a renegade, you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

Why Build A Firm To Sell

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Hey everyone, this is Ben, and welcome back to the Renegade Lawyer Podcast. I get to interview really interesting people inside or outside of legal. Today I've got a repeat guest. Tom just reminded me a couple of years ago. We did an episode. So Tom Linfesti is known in the space. Um, he's one of the guys who's really, really working on helping, you know, the transition of law firms, maybe the sale, maybe the acquisition of law firms. He's built a practice around that. And he's got a brand new book, The Exit Blueprint, the law firm owner's playbook for selling, succession, and life after law, which is like I read it over the weekend. I actually read the whole thing. It's all clipped and stuff. And Tom, this is it's it's one of the best books for the legal business space that I've seen. And I see, I read a lot of them, most of them marketing or like, you know, how to build your law firm and stuff. And maybe it's because I'm 68 years old and trying to figure out, we've actually figured it out, but trying to decide like, when is when is it I never ever come back here? Uh who knows when that will happen. And so what's in what I want people to know about the book, first of all, is that whether or not you're even thinking about selling your law firm or acquiring law firms, like if you build a law firm to sell, and you make this point in one of your chapters, like you build an enduring organization that will serve your life no matter what you decide to do in terms of you when you're when you're ready just to call it a day. So thanks for writing the book. And one more thing, and then we'll get it's the most comprehensive guide to buying and selling any business that I have seen, and I've read a number of those books as well. So everything down to the nitty-gritty detail of what L O I means and you know what uh which which set of financial numbers are important. It's all in here. So it's a great encyclopedia. So so first of all, thanks everybody. I know that that was that's a lot of work to put a book like this together.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

That's one of the biggest compliments I can receive, Ben, especially from you. So I take that as it makes me feel warm. And of course, the hours put into it and everything else from that side. Because yeah, I think you know, the overall goal of the book was to write something that could be a reference guide if you're going through the sale, you know, or by process. Like you can flip pages and kind of see and get detail, or it is your guide years ahead of time to you know, build that exit strategy. So it's exciting that you interpret it the same way. And um hopefully we'll find it very useful.

SPEAKER_03 3:59

So so for listeners, really important words, Tom just said, years ahead of time, right? Because it's it's really hard. And I have talked to so so Brian and I, like we look around, like who's getting older in our space who maybe is a sole practitioner and maybe you think about hanging it up? And do they have anything we'd want to acquire or anything at all we'd want to acquire? And I've you know, I've met with some of these folks, and there is no plan, and they are they are close, right? And there is no plan at all. And so there really isn't anything to be interested in. I mean, I've purchased some actual web domains just for the traffic indicator from retiring uh lawyers or the estates of lawyers who passed away. And so I've done that. But here's here's the part I want to start with because you and I show up at a bunch of the same conferences. There's a lot of conferences these days for what I would call like the big, big, big, big players, right? Especially in the contingent fee planned space, right? National trial lawyers, great conferences. Um uh and and one of the things now we are hearing, we're in early to mid uh actually mid-2026, is oh, private equity wants to buy your thing. Like you could sell, you could sell, you could sell. And nobody is talking about and then what? So let's talk a little bit about that, because I know that this transcends all businesses when the founder sells, whatever selling means, in my view, there has to be a and then what are we gonna do? Or else you just die, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Yeah, and I think that's part of it, you know, towards the end, and as you know in the book, we talk about life after law. And one of the biggest things when I started the law practice exchange, you know, I really, as an attorney CPA, you know, I was more of the business transactional, I approached it as a transaction. And some, you know, good mentors and friends I had would really tell me the emotional aspect for, you know, founders, for lawyers, you know, our identity is a lawyer, like we are a lawyer, or your identity is you are the partner in that firm, or that is your law firm, and that's what you do every day. And so a big thing that, you know, really over the last almost 15 years has showed me is that the biggest obstacle to exit planning for lawyers is those lawyers not knowing what they're gonna do next and fearing it, like truly fearing what am I gonna do if I'm not a lawyer in my law firm, you know, the next day. And so that's again part of the overall, if you can start thinking about it. One of the biggest things I like is, you know, if you start looking at the legacy that you've built as your law firm and your personal brand, and you take control of exit planning, then it really means like, yes, you're gonna have transition. You may stay on with the firm, you know, after you sell for years, maybe, or six months, or whatever it would be. But it really starts to shift into I'm controlling this next phase of my life, right? I have built my firm, I built my professional legacy, everything else with that. But now I'm taking control of how that's going to be as I walk away, as I transition away. And it allows lawyers to control something that they truly fear. Like they truly fear that aspect of I do not get to come into the office at a certain point. Like, I will not be called a lawyer if I retire and you know, fully give up my license at a certain point. And so it's controlling that versus it just letting it happen. Like you use the examples of you bought some domains from like estates and other things. We get those calls all the time, and life happened to those lawyers. They didn't plan for their legacy to be that, but it happened to them. So I think the biggest thing is really verbalizing it, starting that positive conversation about, you know, exit planning, retirement planning, whatever you want to call it, and not really fearing what you're gonna do, but tackling it as part of your plan now. No sale that we have done is going to be like feeling, you know, a seller is going to be feeling great if they close the deal and they do not know what they're doing the next day. Truly. Like they don't have a plan for what they're doing the next day. They haven't attacked that life after loss stage, just like they attack their daily life in law, right? Like I always say lawyers don't go from 100 to zero wealth. We don't. And so you've got to kind of have that, you know, transition time and everything else, or you know, they will regret, or they really won't be able to even step forward into the exit plenum.

SPEAKER_03 8:42

This is where um, you know, having a personal mindset coach, and Brian and I have both had one. I've worked with Sammy Chong for probably a decade, you know, personal development coach, and we so Sammy and I talk about this all the time. I'm 68. I am sort of the the face of the brand, although Brian is two. I'm doing very little actual legal work in terms of cases, but I'm still building some really big relationships and still like driving a lot of cases and and opportunities to the firm, just not by doing the legal work. And, you know, for a lot of from probably all founders, like the guys and gals who've who've pushed and built from nothing

Private Equity Buzz And Then What

SPEAKER_03 9:35

to something that's pretty cool. Like we're just used to building something. And so, just personally, for me, it's like, all right, what can I go build over here? Not necessarily another business, right? But where can I put my energy into the world? It might be in the space of continued like consulting with younger lawyers and young law firm owners. It might be in the soccer referee space, which is, you know, I just love working with those teenagers. But but if you're listening to this, like it's really important. And and having a therapist or a coach or somebody like that is just a high value thing for people like people like us. Um, so you know, the whole buying and selling of law firms, I'm sure has gone on for a long time, but it's kind of, I would, my words like exploded in the last few years. You have this whole generation of lawyers that are kind of my age cohort who are, you know, have built something, usually small firms. But what is the land, what are you seeing? Because you've been in this space for a while. So what is the landscape, Tom, in terms of like, you know, the frequency with which someone is contacting you and saying, hey, I'm thinking about selling, whatever, buying. No, let's just do the sell. Let's just do the sell side. I'm thinking about re retiring and selling. Like, do you find like the volume of people asking that question to reach out to you is increasing every year?

SPEAKER_02 10:56

It is increasing, probably not at the pace that we would expect it, or even of some of the other like retirement coaches out there and advisors could tell you that. Lawyers are stuck, a lot of them of really taking that next step. So, you know, I'll give as an example, Ben, I may do a succession planning webinar with some, you know, association or otherwise, and there'll be a bunch of people on that, right? Like interested in hearing about it, a bunch of law firm owners. And then there's always this follow-up of like, hey, if you really want to take next steps, like here you go. And how few really take next steps is at this point not surprising to me, but it that really shows that, you know, want to and can are very different when it comes to those emotional blocks or anything else. And so a lot of times I just give the visual. Like, if you're there now, if you're listening to this podcast and you're saying you're seeing like, yes, I need to start my succession planning, my exit planning. I need to start this. You would be shocked if in five years you're in the same seat in your law office thinking the same things. And man, how did five years slip by? But that's what happens. I mean, it truly does. It just slips by if you don't really take those positive steps. And so I would tell you the market is increasing based on the, you know, aging demographic of law firm owners, anything from that side, but the buy side has definitely outpaced the sell side as far as interests and kind of those moving to, you know, acquire and kind of grow through that aspect. And so good quality firms that are looking to sell, looking to exit, are still very much needed in the space. But overall, the overall market has definitely picked up. I would say, you know, when you look at 21, 22, there was a lot of regulatory changes, some tech changes, some other things that really opened up what we see as this marketplace for buying and selling. I mean, I've been in it since 2013. So I could tell you this for several years, we're pushing to try to grow a market. But overall, in the last, you know, five, it's definitely sped up significantly.

Identity Loss And Life After Law

SPEAKER_02 12:55

And there's never been more options for good law firm owners to truly like transition their practice to somebody else and preserve that than today.

SPEAKER_03 13:06

That's amazing. And I want to get, I want to come back to, I just made a note, the buy side and kind of what you're seeing there. Because I imagine that you know what we hear from stages isn't exactly what you're seeing in real life sometimes, right? Shocker. Um, but so one of the issues, and and you make you talk about this a lot in the front part of the book. Uh, one of the issues that prevents successful transitions, I would phrase it my words now, the lawyer's ego. So the practice has been built and is still running on the lawyer producing the legal work. It is running on the lawyer's uh contacts and relationships out there. It is running on the lawyer's total brand. And so even a practice could be highly profitable, but when you look under the hood, there's not a lot there in terms of when the lawyer leaves, now what do we have left? So talk to us a little bit about a am I am I accurate? Like this is, I think, an e kind of an ego problem a little bit, right? Nobody could do this as good as I could. So I want to take care of my clients. Uh, but also then let's talk about how lawyers, because you said, like, give yourself years to think about this and and take action. So, how can lawyers start to um set up a firm like I've just described, right? Lawyer-centric into a firm that's actually a saleable asset.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

I'm gonna, yes, absolutely. You call it the ego for the first part, right? Lawyers that everything kind of, you know, is with them. It's a potentially an ego aspect, it's also a control aspect, right? Like lawyers, whether it's the ego or otherwise, we like control. And that's where I would go back to Ben, you and I were talking about, and I, you know, based on you were saying looking back years ago where your firm invested in traction in the EOS model, right? And then where that really leads into potentially exit planning. Traction, one of the core concepts, as you know, is delegate to elevate, right? Truly like giving up right things that you do to others or to a system or anything else to build the business, to build the firm. So you're not going through. And so I always talk when we go through valuations for law firms or deal structuring or anything. There's the personal value, like you as the lawyer, you know, you're the brand, it goes through you, anything else. And then there's the business goodwill or the business value. The higher your business value, right? Truly, the more you're gonna have in market value, the better terms, the more buyers you're gonna have. So the more you've delegated to people and systems and built out that business business, the more that runs through you or is tied to you personally, you set it perfectly. It's that aspect of, you know, the control and will that transition to another person is still a question mark at the time of sale. And so, meaning the buyers coming in and saying, man, you hold all those referral relationships. And I hope they're gonna like us or like our firm, but I'm not sure. Right. So let's structure the deal a little bit differently. So there's some risk allocations, right? I need you to stay on for a little bit longer to make sure we can transition. So the terms get a little tougher, the buyers get a little bit more risk adverse on those. And so the goal is to, as you said, start now where you kind of diversify. And we use some stories in the book about how you can really start once you recognize that that is your year from. And what I usually say is we've got some free tools like on lawpracticeexchange.com, like a valuation estimator for your law firm. It's a great little metric to just go through. There's some other tools, of course, in the book about looking at is it business value or personal value? But the biggest thing is you can probably just sit back and you know, reflect as a law firm owner, how much is dependent on me? Like when I go on vacation, how much is that phone ringing? How much is piling up for me versus how much is really operating through the business? And if you're fine, it's still going through you. And you know, you've worked with lots of small law firms too. And the pushback I get is look, if it's me and two paralegals, how am I supposed to create this business value over there? And there is ways, as you know, and as we know, but there's simpler ways than building complex teams, building complex software systems, otherwise, to really just document and go through those different steps. But it's to take that because the more you can document, the more you can start moving into what I'd call a transition ready state for your firm, the better terms you're gonna have, the more buyers you're gonna have. And the happier you're going to be when you actually go out and exit because you've already moved yourself into a situation mentally, emotionally, physically, a lot of times, where you are not required to be in that firm for it to continue to run. And that's a great transition ready firm.

SPEAKER_03 18:02

You know, one of the things, uh, so so my son Brian and I are in practice together, and we have um we are we are in a process of ultimate sale. He bought half the firm a few years ago. There's a another event coming up in um in early 2027. Um, and and one of the things I think we've done a pretty good job at, and it just got a whole lot easier to do, is documenting systems. In the old days, what you tell some lawyer, like, oh, we've got a document. It's like, oh my God, like it's all in my head, it's all in Susie's head. That sounds like a pain, but today, one of the things we're using the AI tools for is to just kind of listen in to everything that we do and create a book, right? A training manual, a step-by-step process. Um, and I'll tell you this too. We just we had a meeting yesterday, you might be interested. So we we're Filevine users, and I don't know how familiar you are with Filevine. It's really cool for running cases, but it is extra cool as a place now to build out to take your past work, either your legal work or your playbooks, how you do things, create a project in Filevine, stick that stuff in there. And Lois is great at querying again, it's our work, yeah, right? Right. Um, to create the next thing. So some so we get a new young lawyer, they're in the PI space, they have a question about well, you know, which paper do I file this court, whatever, like our Filefine will answer that. Because now Filevine didn't create it, we created it. You right? We created the the the the the knowledge and transferred it. And we have we were smart, I think. Years ago we started creating knowledge bases of the legal side, particularly on the ERISA side, because it's you know, lawyers come out of law school, they're not really familiar with that. And now transferring those knowledge bases into AI tools like File's Lois, it gives a big advantage.

SPEAKER_02 20:14

I think that's the big thing too. I mean, I've gone through it with even those small law firms, and you know, you're using the tool. It's it's what you do every day, what your team does every day. You're just using a data, you know, kind of accumulator analysis tool, yeah, Lois, right? To go through and do that. And that's the same thing I tell a lot of times, you know, our even our our small, you know, under 500,000 revenue firms like our solos with maybe

The Sell Side Reality Check

SPEAKER_02 20:40

a part-time, is there's stuff you do every day that is your system. It truly is a system. You just never have sat down to document it. And so whether they use tools like the AI tools or otherwise, or they just take out a yellow legal sheet and start writing it down to this is my unique system. And that's in itself, you know, building some of that business value as you document it and go through it. So, I mean, yeah, there's there's never been a better time to build SOPs, standard operating. Never, right? Never and knowledge bases. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 21:10

I joke I've lived through sort of the major technological revolutions in law, starting with we didn't have to go to the library. We could actually pre-internet, pre-the-internet, modem to modem, we could do online legal research. And I've been practicing long enough to remember the day we hooked up the modem, 2400 baud modem, and we're able to access to Lexus or Westlaw or whatever it was. Um, let me let's talk about valuation. Because I and and uh you know, I listened to other podcasts of John Warlow's podcast, I think it's great. And you mentioned him in the book um about uh you know selling building businesses that are that are ready to sell, built to sell. Um and uh, you know, a a lawyer founder will often, I think, come because I've experienced this like. Inside my own head. It's like, shit, I built this thing. It took me a freaking long time. I started with zero. I worked my ass off. There were times I had no money. And now it's to X, right? But and a lawyer like me could think, oh, wow, that's like really valuable. Like, look at all the blood, sweat, and tears. You have great sections in the book on valuation. Ultimately, it's the market. Like, is there a willing buyer, right? Under terms you would agree to. But what are some of the factors today, Tom, that drive real life valuation? You're getting paid X for this transfer in whatever form X is, because it could be over time. But what are the big drivers?

SPEAKER_02 22:49

Yeah, I always tell everybody valuation in law firms really come down to three components financials. And then financials in law firms kind of goes, yes, your revenues matter, your net earnings, right? Your normalized EBITDA or whatever you want to call it, that owner benefit that you receive by being the owner after paying everybody else, including yourself, for the work you do. But that net benefit, but there's case inventory, right? Because there's value to the receivables you have in the door, accounts receivables. There's other metrics that kind of point to the financials. How strong those are and how scaled those are, right? So, you know, firms that are, of course, more significant may have less risk if there's a market downturn or other things. The other is what I would call your brand. And your brand, really, what I'm trying to talk about is that business brand we were talking about, like how much have you built out that is truly, you know, portable to somebody else by, you know, whether it's digital marketing, anything else from that side, or it's your brand that really carries beyond, you know, that aspect. Brand also goes into how unique is your brand. Like, truly how unique is in the day and age of like digital marketing, as we know, and some of you know, the attorneys will do this. You can go and start spending ads, you know, put ad spends in a certain market and start acquiring cases right away. But all it takes is more competitors to that space. The spending war is on and everything else for some of that. So the real thing is how unique is your brand and how strong it is that somebody can't just come in and replicate it quickly by spending, right? So that's where we've some of our largest transactions have come because the buyers look at going into a new market, a new state. Otherwise, what they would have to spend to start up there, they just decide it's more efficient and safer to acquire that great proven brand. And so brands that last piece. And then third is systems, which you and I have already talked about, you know, earlier. It's really how much does the firm run on systems and how much is the owner that will be exiting at some point in time a key part of that, you know, systematic process. If there's systems, but everything still goes through one person, right? There's just more owner dependence risk that a buyer is going to see, and that market value is going to kind of go down. The other market drivers are, of course, practice areas, geographic markets, right? Other things that you really see, how predictable consistent revenues are, other things that can kind of move the needle, you know, up or down, depending on what.

SPEAKER_03 25:23

Um Do you have some examples of situations, you know, not naming names or any specifics, of deals that probably should have closed, but then like the October surprise or something pops up at the end, deal terms change. Worlow talks a lot about this in his podcast. There's a there's a term for it, and I forget what it is, but um uh but where have you seen deals that look like they should have happened and closed, fall and not close?

SPEAKER_02 25:58

Yeah, I would say the seller emotions, which we already kind of mentioned, is one of that. Those pop up in weird places at weird times if you have not worked through it, right? From your own aspect. So fear starts to build if you really haven't encountered it and said, this is okay. I'm controlling my plan, my legacy, and it can pop up and be a deal killer, right? The other aspect I would say is you are not the only decision maker in your firm typically. There is uh family members involved, or there is, you know, key key employees or otherwise. So, you know, Ben, from that standpoint, we've had a couple great deals, you know, to the finish line, essentially, like under LOI, letter of intent, in due diligence on its way to close. And we've had, you know, children, adult children pop up and say, I'm going to law school. And, you know, mom or dad who owns the firm have said,

Turning Owner Dependence Into Systems

SPEAKER_02 26:50

I can pass it on to them now, right? And that stops everything kind of cold because they never really thought that child was going to go to law school, anything else. And here is the first preference for a lot of lawyers, I think, if they have a child who is interested in the practice they have, and you have found one, right? Is to really go through and be able to work with them to pass that down. But the other is spouse. And spouse can be that part where we've had uh, you know, aspects where we've had the law firm owner, you know, significantly running through health issues otherwise, but the, you know, other spouse, you know, wasn't on board, right, with the sale and exit. One is because their whole financial platform is dependent on that law firm owner continuing to go, everything else. And so what we would really talk about is the emotions, but then entering those, you know, other decision makers in your, you know, your exit planning early in the process because, you know, that's the easiest thing to come home and say to your spouse, significant other, to your children, I'm starting this planning. Is there any interest, right? Before I do this, is there anything you think I should be aware of? And one of the things we hear from spouse a lot of times is, well, wait a minute, what are you gonna do when you do retire? Like, you're not gonna sit home and bug me all day because you can't be by yourself. And so they're helping you coach with what we were going through before, which is you better have a plan for after this, right? And they're gonna help you be advisors and accountability partners through the process, but it also gives them an opportunity. Like we have a succession workshop that's coming up, and somebody emailed and said, Is it okay if I bring my spouse and I bring my firm administrator who's been with me for like 20 years? And we're like, not just okay, but wonderful because you're bringing those decision makers to it. So I would say those are probably the two biggest factors. The financials can always be worked through, the structure. Um, but overall, those are probably the two biggest emotions, and then just making sure decision makers aren't.

SPEAKER_03 28:51

So this is very, this is real. So when Brian and I several years ago started talking about this, you know, initial reaction of his mom, my wife of 45 years, Sandy, God bless her, was like, hey, but it's got to be fair for for you, from for me, right? And so mom became sort of the the the tiebreaker. Not that we had any disagree, like we are, we are aligned, um, we are good. But just so people know, like we've had an advisor, and each of us has separate lawyers if we go through the process. And there was so much, you know, I again, even in a family situation, I'm sure you will agree with this. Like, you got to get advisors and lawyers because you don't know what you don't know. Yeah. In terms of the whole process. And there were so many things. Um, so we worked at Ed Alexander. There's so many things that Ed like asked us about that, oh shit, well, we hadn't thought about that. Maybe we should think about that too. Um, and so that's that, you know, I want people who can maybe get some value about our our uh process and experience to go back to what you said.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Yeah, Ben, as you kind of look at that process, like that was probably those were probably difficult conversations at first, right? Some of them, yeah. Yeah. Like they seemed awkward, like, how do we do this? We want to make this fair, right? Everybody ri r brings up usually like why it may not work, like the risk of it going wrong. But like as you went along that process, I'm assuming it got easier, right? You had the right advisors, you had open communication. It just becomes easier to kind of make progress once you get over those first hurdle conversations, right?

SPEAKER_03 30:28

Still the hardest part is like pulling the triggers. So we had a one-year note advanced notice provision, and like I gave it. Uh for those of you listening, it doesn't mean like the end Ben's leaving and not coming back. Like that's still kind of structured. But I'm fortunate, I'm so fortunate, Tom, because most every day, like I get to do creative work, and to extend I'm doing any legal work, it's work that I actually like doing. So I consult with a lot of doctors and their spouses who have a new diagnosis and who may need to tap into long-term disability plan. So part of our discussions, my discussions with them is this like, okay, you're you're in a practice, you're a partner you own, but you're a surgeon, you're not gonna be able to be a surgeon. What are you gonna do next? Like, and no one's ever talked to most of them like that before. So that just makes it my impression, that makes it fun.

SPEAKER_02 31:15

And the interesting part is owning a law firm or being a partner in a law firm has nothing to do with still practicing law. Yeah. Right? And and that's like separate those two timelines because I think so many people that are law firm owners, they think about, well, I'm gonna own the law firm. And then when I when I do sell the law firm, I have to like stop practicing law. And that is not the case. If you want to practice law or stay in creative endeavors like yourself, which I really love, right, is taking this wealth of knowledge that's been accumulated over 40, 50 years of practicing law and deploy it into other areas or anything else. But you don't have to stop practicing. And so for a lot of them, they stay on in a part-time or a very like I we transacted from a couple years ago and he was a great trial lawyer, but he's like, what I like to do is win cases at depot. I like to win cases at deposition. And that I would like to just do that. I do not want to prepare for a three-week trial anymore. I would love to be part of that. And so if I could be part of the team, right, that does that, I would love to do it. And so that was his role post, you know, he's got some trials to finish up, whatever. But overall, that was going to be his role is to be the depot kind of mentor for the younger attorneys and everything else to try to win them there. And so I think that's the part that's just yes, to your listeners, everything else. Ben's not going anywhere, right? It's the overall goal of ownership does not mean stop.

SPEAKER_03 32:37

And and so to your point, too, the point you're making here is there's lots of ways to structure both your personal life, but also the deal. So there isn't, and and you you know, you make this point throughout the book, like there's no one way to exit. But it does involve, it does require first honest uh thinking on your own behalf. Like, what do I really want out of this? And then I think sharing that with whoever your sort of mentors are, and then uh both sides or multiple, whoever's involved in the transaction, like like what what will make so our our my language to Brian, his language with me always is uh what can I do for you? Like, what will make this feel like perfect for you? We don't know if we can get to perfect, but if we don't have those discussions, then we'll never get there. Never

Using AI To Document SOPs

SPEAKER_03 33:30

get there. Let me ask you this have you seen uh times where like a guy like me that thinks about acquiring firms, I think I can often see value that the owner doesn't even realize. For example, the whole the whole URL play, right? Nobody ever thinks about that. Um, but have you seen that as well? Like um, and then maybe you maybe even like suggested already, like someone who wants to expand, doesn't want to start from ground zero, wants to acquire geographically or whatever, right? But are there other things you've seen where an acquirer saw something or maybe brought an asset to the table that really the seller didn't realize, didn't recognize, and maybe didn't even think of as the case as the transaction closed.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Yeah. But you know, most of the transactions we've done over the last 12, 13 years, you know, small and large, have been, you know, the traditional firms that have been built over time. So as the next generation firms potentially have been built with then coaching, right? They've had good business coaches. They've gone to certain, you know, summits and otherwise to put in their systematic approach. And so we talk a lot of times to sellers, your goal, and it should be your recognition, is your buyer should be stronger than you. Like, truly, your buyer should be stronger. Like you may have certain components of what you've built that's very strong. But your buyer as a business, because look, if you've got a couple million dollar law firm or bigger and you're turning that over, you want to have confidence that they're gonna be able to run and operate and hopefully grow it beyond what you have, because that is truly the buyer's goal, and that should be your goal as the founder, you know, the person that's gonna sell. And just as an example of where we've seen this, you know, years ago, date myself, but years ago, we had a residential real estate practice that our two husband-wife sellers, you know, we match with a great, you know, buyer out of market, you know, residential real estate, kind of geographic market expansion, right? And their big stopping point where they're like, we'd love to do this deal. We love, you know, this buyer, we love him, but we're worried that he's just not going to be able to take on our workload because it's two of us, and we have these other people, and it's, you know, he's already doing more than us, but overall he's doing this. And, you know, again, the buyer was using certain software that the sellers weren't using, right, for real estate closings. They were fully mobile with that software. So they would move people around to do that. And they had systems. And I remember, you know, had lunch with the two sellers about a month after. And I said, you know, how is everything going with workload? You're there to kind of be that stop gap if he needs to hire somebody. And they said, it's amazing. They said, we wish we had invested in that software and in this system years ago because he's able to do essentially, he could take double what we're doing now and still be fine, right? So that's software investment in that investment in systems. And most of our buyers are pretty strong on marketing as well. And they see value in potentially, that's where you're going with domains and other aspects, is whether it's digital or otherwise, of being able to take something and grow it. Where a lot of law firms traditionally have built on maybe referrals, some marketing, website, SEO, but it's like, what could we do with your brand that is awesome? And you have never seen it, but we could really help it grow, help preserve, you know, that legacy plus, and that's a big thing that of course a lot of the buyers are gonna see. They're gonna come with strong marketing. Or, you know, it's an estate planning firm, and the owner of the firm has never ever sent a letter or an email to any past estate planning client ever. Right, right. So they've never heard from them after they've closed the door. The only way they hear here is when they come back and say, I've got some questions I may need to update. And so we've had estate planning buyers really, their goal is to get in, have a big open house, welcome everybody, meet the new merged team, right? Everything else. And then, hey, start a newsletter or start sending out those. Money in that list. Yeah. It's just, you know, the analog stuff that works so well, also. And so, yes, what I would say is buyers typically should have certain strengths that the seller looks to and said, Wow, if I I wish I would have done that five years ago, right? Because they can see it and they can also see how they can really help preserve and grow the firm that they're going to transfer up.

SPEAKER_03 38:00

Let's talk a little bit about the the buyers that are out there now. And again, and some of these big conferences you hear from the stage is all about private equity, private equity, private equity, and then it's about uh ABS uh systems, and then it was about uh now if now the big rage is managed. Is it managed services organization? What do you what's the O in MSO? Yep, organizations. Right. Okay. So again, so uh is it is it a real we have seen headlines of some big, big, big transactions. Uh I'm not able to get

Valuation Drivers That Move Price

SPEAKER_03 38:35

underneath the hood and figure out what really happened. Um what is your sense of the future of sort of non-lawyer money helping to fund a transaction where a firm is acquired?

SPEAKER_02 38:55

Sure. Absolutely. To give that, I'll kind of explain our our overall model. We run what we call the marketplace, um, which is our Zillow for law firms. It allows buyers and sellers direct access, everything else, really confidential search, match, connect, close. And that's meant for, you know, your everyday firm, right? Up to several million. And then we have our private market, which those firms are larger, right? Some of our large personal injury firms, otherwise, that just, you know, based on extreme confidentiality, their brand recognition, otherwise, they end up in the side. For our marketplace or everyday firms, PI or PE is not having private equity is not having a huge impact over there, right? I will tell you that lawyer, uh, lawyers and lawyer uh law firms backed by potentially a private capital partner are trying to consolidate some of the smaller, you know, multi-million, still looking at business system um firms, but there's a lawyer in the process of that, right? And you had that five years ago when lawyers could go out and borrow money or otherwise. They've just chosen to maybe use a capital partner to do so. And that managed service organization, that MSO entity to consolidate brands. Because at the end of it, really a managed service organization is really the full back office, right, for law firms. And it allows them to manage multiple brands, right? So if you're going to not have to merge all brands together, you can have that back office and you get used to managing different geographic markets, different law firms, otherwise. Private market, largely led by personal injury right now, we are seeing a significant impact. Private equity is definitely moving into that space. They are, you know, hungry for the right firms. Um, again, some private equity platforms have a desired appetite for 25 million EBITDA and up. That's big firms, right? Those are your bigger players, everything else. Others are looking at, you know, they would like, you know, five to 10. Um, but there is definitely an appetite for personal injury because, as you know well then, a lot of those have built significant brands, marketing machines, right? Not owner dependent, right? They've invested in systems otherwise. So private equity sees those as scalable. So most of that movement is happening over there. I will say the private equity maybe impact is across the market, in that when private equity ponies up real cash for investing or acquiring whatever you want to call it, a firm, it kind of has a ripple that sends signals to everybody that, hey, these law firms are worth something. And if you want to, you know, acquire law firms, you will have to come with a similar, you know, deal structure, parameter otherwise. And so I think it's making the market move, especially for law firm sellers, in a good way, in that it's bringing buyers that probably are a little bit more prepared, willing to take on a little bit more risk to, you know, put some cash consideration down, you know, at closing or otherwise. But I mean, we are definitely seeing it in certain practice areas. And I don't think we'll see it trickle down fast and furious to the other marketplace deals. Um, but it is having an impact for sure.

SPEAKER_03 42:06

Such an interesting world. Um, all right, let's switch gears for a moment. You uh have a law practice, right? This is you are a lawyer and CPA. Um, what are you doing to besides writing really cool books that are going to be famous on Amazon? And and again, folks, like this uh the exit blueprint is not just about buying and selling your law firm. It is about running a law firm that's worth running um in large part. Uh, what are you doing with your firm uh in terms of growing next direction? Are you like totally happy and just like just keep it at this level and I'm good or I'm trying to build something big? I'm always curious how, you know, if you're willing to share what you're thinking of.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

So as I mentioned, the law practice exchange started back in

Deal Killers Emotions And Family

SPEAKER_02 42:55

2013. I read John Warlaw's book, Built to Sell, while I was building my own, you know, law practice, you know, in Raleigh, North Carolina, everything else. And I was like, man, who is doing this for lawyers? So even coming over as I transitioned on a similar path to what you did, Ben, with Brian, right? I did the same with my own, have fully been into the law practice exchange space and growing this marketplace. But our goal is to continue to grow. And so if I'm following my own lessons, you know, our marketplace, our Zillow for law firms, is part of those systems, those scalability is also part of our uniqueness. Like it's funny as this market has really kind of grown in certain areas over the last couple of years. I mean, there's good friends of ours that all of a sudden now are MA advisors in our space, like merger acquisition advisors. And I like them and I know them, and they admit they're like, yeah, I'm kind of doing helping do deals over here. I know it's your space. But usually they're really good. Like they know personal injury firms. And so if they're helping, you know, with personal injury, good for them because hopefully they will make sure it's done right. Um, but the overarching aspect is. Our goal is to course, you know, continue this push. You know, being the OG in a space, as you would probably know well, right? Like that's a compliment. Right.

SPEAKER_03 44:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 44:10

Right. But also there's a little bit of that. We talked about that ego, that entrepreneurial ego, and otherwise, that, you know, we could sit here and just watch this marketplace pie continue to grow and take our piece of it. But really, the last, you know, 13, 14 years have not been for just now letting it kind of go. It's really how can we supercharge that? The marketplace is part of that. I mean, we have, I think, 130, 140 active listings over there, 3,000 buyers and sellers in the marketplace. Our goal in a couple of years is we'll have thousands and we'll have hundreds of marketplace, right? And the overall is because that was never ever here before, right? Like lawyers did not have this option that they could go build something, take the right steps, put it hopefully on a marketplace, find the right fit for a buyer, monetize the value they bit built and exit. And I think, you know, anything we've done over the last decade plus is really perfecting the process and the knowledge as much as possible, right? To help sellers and buyers do that in the right way. And we'll deploy that in a you know more tech, you know, base with team advisory, you know, platform to do it. So we're not slowing down. Our goal is to really help continue to grow this marketplace. And then, you know, from our own exit, is take the knowledge base that we have and use that in different ways, just like you guys are doing.

SPEAKER_03 45:33

So you really model the ELS mantra of do work you like with people you like, be well compensated for it, and make an impact on the world, is what you're doing. Um, and so where can people go and find the exchange that you've mentioned a couple of times? What's the easiest way to get to that?

SPEAKER_02 45:50

Yep, absolutely. Visit us at thelawracticechange.com. That's thlawpractice exchange.com. You can come there, that's where our you know law firm valuation estimator lives. You can pick up a copy.

SPEAKER_03 46:02

Another cool tool, by the way, right? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 46:04

You know, I mean, tell everybody, it's like it's not your true, but it's a great, what I call it is a motivation, right? If if that motivates you to then take next steps and explore exit planning or anything else, wonderful. It's a resource, a knowledge base that we can share. But yeah, at the lawpracticeexchange.com, you can link over from the marketplace. We've got great resources there as well. And uh yeah, we'd just be happy to have you take a first step. If visiting us is a first step, wonderful. If it's talking to your spouse, wonderful, right? Just take that first step and hopefully your exit pan plat.

SPEAKER_03 46:39

If it's just realizing that this is actually possible. Um, well, Tom, look, this has been great. Again, folks, the book is the Exit Blueprint, the law firm owner's playbook for selling succession and life after law, pum lampesti. It's been awesome 45 minutes, my friend. I wish you the well. I'm sure our paths will cross. I'm I'm scheduled for January at uh National Trial Lawyers and a couple other places and going out to Russell

Tools Resources And Closing Advice

SPEAKER_03 47:05

Brunson's clip funnels. And I think I just got invited to another thing while I'm in Vegas. Um, so it's fine. It's good to be able to do um work that you like doing and move the world. I asked Dan Kennedy once. Why do you keep writing books? Because it's what people like us do. Like we just keep putting stuff out there. That's right. Thank you, man. It's good to talk to you. Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Ben.

SPEAKER_00 47:25

That's it for today's episode of the Renegade Lawyer Podcast, where we're rewriting the rules of what it means to build a great law practice and a great life. If something sparked a new idea or gave you clarity, pass it on. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with someone who's ready to think bigger. Want more tools, strategies, and stories from the trenches? Visit GreatLegalMarketing.com or connect with Ben Glass and the team on LinkedIn. Keep building boldly. We'll see you next time.