The Biggest Problem “Boomer-Heavy” Firms Face and Three Ways to Solve It

Ever walk into a firm, see six names on the door, and realize five of them probably still have AOL accounts?

These are brilliant attorneys. They’ve built strong reputations, retained loyal clients, and racked up millions in legal fees. But somewhere along the way, they forgot or failed to forge their future. They have an associate, but that attorney doesn’t have client numbers in her phone.

What you end up with is a firm that’s graying out and one retirement away from becoming a real estate listing.

Let’s take a look at the slow-moving iceberg before it rips through the hull of your firm. Yes, there are ways to steer around it without selling your soul or sinking your firm’s culture.

The Problem: The Succession Time Bomb

The founding partners are between sixty and seventy. Their idea of long-term planning is booking tee times three days out.

When the leadership team is that senior and there’s no clear successor, what you have isn’t a law firm. It’s a retirement club with letterhead.

Maybe you have an associate or junior partner. She’s smart, loyal, and handles everything you don’t want to. But if she’s the only one under 45 and hasn’t been introduced to clients, promoted, or handed any real authority, she’s not your future. She’s your backup plan for when someone catches the flu.

Every firm like this has said some version of, “We’ll figure it out when the time comes.”

Translation: “We’ll wait until someone dies or leaves, then panic, hold meetings, then get back to doing nothing until the firm disappears.”

There are better ways to handle succession.

The Solutions

1. Hire a Succession Planning Consultant If your associate has ten or more years of experience and is the plane that will carry your firm into the future, build the runway.

That’s not as easy as it sounds. Especially when your clients have been with you since you graduated law school thirty years ago.

Experts can show you how to transition clients to her in a way that lasts beyond you and the GC who’s also nearing retirement. At the very least, start introducing her to clients and gradually let her manage the work.

If she’s not the one, or if she’s too junior, there are other options.

2. Find the Right Firm for a Merger

You can structure a merger that lets you keep control over your group.

Work with someone who can identify regional or national New Law firms that use a firm-within-a-firm model. You keep your clients, your autonomy, and your culture. You just attach to a larger platform with young and mid-level attorneys, support infrastructure, and a future that doesn’t depend on whether Virgil makes it through another summer.

3. The New Standard and PE-Backed Legal MSOs

If at least two of your partners plan to keep practicing for five or more years, consider a Standard or PE-Backed Legal MSO.

A standard MSO relieves you of the admin grind. Let professionals handle tech upgrades, HR, compliance, billing, and marketing while you focus on practicing law.

A PE-Backed MSO gives you all that and a pile of money. There’s nothing wrong with receiving an upfront payout worth millions for what you’ve built. The right structure brings in capital, lets you hire the next generation, and can set you up with a retirement benefit far beyond what you could create on your own.

Bottom Line

You don’t need to sell the firm, kill your brand, or turn your office into a factory floor. You just need structure. One that gives you continuity, support, and an exit that doesn’t involve locking the doors and walking away with a shoebox full of client files.

A real succession plan can do that. So can a well-structured merger or MSO engagement. Your team stays intact. Your clients stay taken care of.

But you have to act before another partner decides to spend the rest of their days chasing a little white ball and your associate gets poached by a recruiter offering her something that actually looks like a future.

The only other plan is to do nothing and hope no one retires or gets sick and that everyone lives to 90 without needing time off.

Being from Vegas, I wouldn’t bet on it.

Frederick Shelton is the CEO of Shelton & Steele. He advises law firms and groups on Succession Planning, Legal M&A, and Legal MSOs. He can be reached at fs@sheltonsteele.com