Incorporating your practice takes time and careful planning.
Is your legal practice currently trading as a Sole Trader/Practitioner, Partnership, and/or a Trust and you've been considering restructuring to an Incorporated Legal Practice (ILP)?
If this is you, then what we can tell you is that we are yet to meet a practitioner that has adequately grasped the magnitude of restructuring their practice to an ILP. The administrative, operational, and compliance factors are extensive.
A couple of years ago a law firm operating as a partnership approached the team at Lawganised seeking assistance to transition to an ILP.
It was the 20th of November, and they had set a date of 1 January to restructure: about 40 days, including a period of shutdown. Putting aside 1 January was a terrible date to implement such a change, 40 days was incredibly ambitious. Doable, but ambitious. Our Director, Ben, advised them to rethink and aim for 1 July the following year. Ben presented them with the Lawganised project plan for an ILP restructure.
The conversation then went like this:
Managing Partner (MP): "WTF?! You mean we have to do all of this?!"
Ben: Yep.
MP: A new trust account?
Ben: Yep.
MP: All new cost agreements/retainers?
Ben: Yep. For matters that will continue in the new entity.
MP: Geez, I had no idea there was so much to it.
So, if you are considering a switch to an ILP for your practice and are keen to understand the scope and scale of the change, contact us to discuss your plans.