“… Possession being nine-tenths of the law, a partner/member in this position may have to sue to recover his capital …” A worrying trend has been emerging. It has become much more common for partners and LLP members leaving professional practices to have difficulty extracting their capital. Typically professional practice governing agreements provide for capital…
“… Typically the senior partner becomes complacent about the fabulous hand of cards that life has dealt him and starts to presume that he can do no wrong …” It may come as no surprise that amongst professional practices that have no provision in their partnership deed for regular senior partner elections, an unusually high proportion…
… The majority of professional practices are woefully deficient in detecting the “virus” at the point of introducing it/him into the practice … Last month I chaired an Association of Partnership Practitioners workshop on “Rogue Partners”. What was striking was how many members attended (well over 100 leading partnership practitioners) and the intense interest in the…
…Recessions bring out the worst in people… A recession has a way of exposing weaknesses in legal drafting. As practices try to respond to the economic climate, management teams consult the fine print of their partnership deed or LLP members’ agreement, and may find it wanting. This article describes and explains the importance of a…
“… the number of insureds under a practice’s professional indemnity insurance can easily double every fifteen or so years …” (First published in the Law Society Gazette on 20 August 2009) Last year a letter dropped though the door of numerous former employees of Merricks LLP, putting them on notice that if certain of the…
… By the time creditors are negotiating terms with partners the firm may have ceased to trade, and the partners may have gone their separate ways … (This article was first published in the Law Society Gazette on 21 June 2007) When a firm fails, major creditors are often prepared to agree to limit each…
