
Retirement or Reboot?
If you are a well-seasoned lawyer with years of experience facing the end or near-end of your career, consider what follows.
After years of putting blood, sweat and tears in (so-to-speak), it would be a shame not to fully capitalize on your highly valuable knowledge and experience.
Solo? Don’t just close the doors and walk away. Consider bringing on some juniors and grooming them to take the reins when you are ready to head off to the next phase of your life. There may also be opportunities through strategic succession planning to grow your firm and position it to become more valuable to an outside buyer. Either way, it would be a shame not to capitalize on your way out.
Larger firm partner? Don’t want to retire? Try a ‘Reboot.’ If you are at a larger firm and faced with a mandatory partner retirement policy, consider negotiating an ‘of-counsel’ arrangement. While you may be bought out of the partnership, there are still ways you can continue to be of value to the firm, and draw a healthy salary, even if your time is paired back. There may also be opportunities to do less of the legal work and take on more of an official mentoring role, potentially even management.
Before you just give up and ride off into the sunset, consider your options. You have some.