Managing a legal practice

We can offer specialised assistance with:

Risk Management
The business plan
Incorporating your law firm
Management structure
Firm's partnership agreement
Partnership changes
Financial management
Financing the business
Partners taxation
Tax planning
Compliance work.

Risk Management

Prudent practice management includes an understanding, assessment and management of your business risks.

Grant Thornton is well qualified and knowledgeable on practice management 'best practice' as well as specific Trust Accounting requirements.

A regular risk assessment review of your practice and Trust Accounting systems should be a vital part of your management of risk.

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Undoubtedly your business is facing an environment of change. Developing a business plan is the first step towards managing that change. In order to succeed, a business needs to identify and agree its objectives and communicate them to the individuals fundamental to its development.

The independent and professional perspective provided by Grant Thornton can be invaluable in identifying and resolving business issues.

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Incorporating your law firm

If you would like to find out if incorporation is the best way forward for your law firm, we can guide you through the process in a free one-hour consultation. We offer a full range of services in this area including advisory, taxation and valuation. Click here to find out more.

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Management structure

All equity partners have a right to participate in the management of their practice - but running a business by committee rarely succeeds.

Partners can maximise earnings if they establish an effective management structure to help ensure that performance is optimised.

Our expertise and experience will help in ensuring that this can be achieved.

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Firm's partnership agreement

We have a wealth of experience in advising on partnership structures and agreements to address the following issues:

Salaried and equity partner policy
Profit sharing arrangements
Partner management responsibilities.

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Partnership changes

Partner mobility and changes in the profession inevitably lead to change in your own firm. You can draw on our advice for such matters as:

The appointment of partners and their movement from salaried to equity partnership
The retirement and removal of partners
Keeping the partnership together
Merging and de-merging of practices
The acquisition of firms.

We will help you take a considered view of these issues and can assist with taxation and accounting implications as well as the choice of funding options.

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Financial management

At its simplest, financial management is the art of maximising income within the context of the business and partners' objectives.

We can help you design your own in-house management and time recording systems and enable you to monitor cash flows and address the real issues of profitability. We can identify benchmarks and key performance indicators to help you measure your business performance more effectively. A balanced scorecard can be a valuable tool to gain a holistic view of your business performance.

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Financing the business

Cash flow of the partnership and its partners is an important issue. We provide specialist, detailed and independent advice on your questions relating to the balance between funds provided by the partners - fixed capital; current accounts; loan accounts - and those from external borrowings, together with how to deal with partnership property - its acquisition, financing, sale, and transfer between partners.

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Partners taxation

Our commitment is to help clients achieve their personal and business ambitions by providing effective tax and financial advice. We seek to clarify such areas as the calculation of adjusted profit, and how each of the partners will be assessed

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Tax planning

We know that the right advice at the right time can lead to tax savings. It is particularly important to plan partners changes. Regular planning opportunities to save tax arise not only for income tax but also for Fringe Benefits Tax and GST.

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Compliance work

With the speed of change, it is difficult to find the time to keep abreast of all current regulations. In addition to having specialists in the audit of legal firms and solicitors Trust Accounts, we assist our clients to help stay abreast of regulatory changes through seminars and presentations.

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