2.0 MCLE credits in practice management

Planning the orderly succession for administrative and substantive management and the transition of client and client networking are critical issues in today's highly competitive environment in which a firm's financial and professional success depends greatly on the skills of its lawyer management.

The program:

• Discusses the reasons for succession planning including, why a firm should have a succession plan, but why so many partners may be apprehensive to develop such a plan;

• Describes who should be responsible for initiating discussions about and developing a succession plan, and for assessing whether the roles, authority, accountability, reporting relationships and the quality and frequency of communications of the next generation of lawyer management with partners, attorneys, administrative managers and staff should be modified, and how;

• Identifies how to spot leadership and management potential of mid-level and junior partners who may serve as the next generation of lawyer management;

• Identifies the management skills required by the next generation of lawyer management and describes techniques for acquiring/developing these skills;

• Discusses when and how the succession plan should be implemented, including the tenure and process for selecting the next generation of lawyer management;

• Describes approaches for providing some level of security for the former lawyer management, i.e., a "soft landing" for one or two years;

• Describes the "do's and don't's" in the relationship between the successor generation of lawyer management and the former lawyer management;

• Describes the types of client transition;

• Discusses proven techniques for transitioning clients;

• Describes the role of the departing partner in the transition process;

• Discusses compensation incentives for transitioning clients.

About the Presenters

Robert P. Fine
Robert P. Fine, Esq. is Chair of Hurwitz & Fine, P.C. in Buffalo, New York and concentrates his practice in Business/Corporate Law, Corporate Finance, and Health law.  He has extensive experience in the purchase and sale of business entities, including stock and asset transactions, business valuation; and in transactions involving major financial institutions, including industrial bond matters.  He has lectured on buy/sell agreements and business valuation for the Erie County Bar Association, the State University of New York at Buffalo School of Management, and the Small Business Council of the Buffalo Niagara Partnership.  Mr. Fine has written articles for Business First on these subjects.

Joel A. Rose
Joel A. Rose is a Certified Management Consultant and President of Joel A. Rose & Associates, Inc., management consultants to the legal profession. The firm, national in scope, is headquartered in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Mr. Rose received a B.S. from New York University and an M.B.A. from the Wharton Graduate School of Business, University of Pennsylvania. He has extensive experience consulting with private law firms, corporate law departments and government agencies. Mr. Rose performs and directs consulting assignments in law firm management and organization, strategic and financial planning, lawyer compensation, the feasibility of mergers and acquisitions and marketing of legal services. He has extensive experience planning and conducting retreats and special expertise resolving problems among and between lawyers. He has been a lecturer for the American Bar Association, the American Lawyer Seminar on Law Firm Management and Leadership, the New York State Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Bar Institute, the Florida Bar Association, the Minnesota Bar Association, the Practice Law Institute, and many other state and local bar associations. He is a member of the advisory board of Law Office Economics and Management and the board of Law Department Management Advisors.

Bernard Vishnick, Esq.
Bernard Vishnick, Esq., a senior partner in Capell Vishnick’s Litigation Practice group has significant experience in various areas of litigation, concentrating for many years in the Trusts and Estates area.  Mr. Vishnick’s 38 years of extensive litigation background has involved Will contests, both for and against the probate of the Last Will and Testament, accounting proceedings, removal of fiduciary and other fiduciary related proceedings, discovery and turnover proceedings of Estate property, defense of and removal of Trustees of Trusts, rights of various parties to assets of or formally belonging to the decedent and a myriad of other litigation emanating out of or in connection with Trusts and Estates and other related Supreme Court matters.

Recorded September 16, 2008