Taking Over a Retiring Lawyer’s Practice (and Bringing It Into This Decade)

You’ve worked beside them for years. You know the clients, the files and the way the office runs. Now the practice is becoming yours.

Then you open the accounting system and realize it hasn’t changed in a very long time.

Taking over a retiring lawyer’s practice is a big emotional move and a big operational one. You inherit the goodwill, the relationships and the history. You also inherit every workaround, every spreadsheet and every “we’ve always done it this way.”

Here’s how one firm handled it, and what you can take from it if you’re buying or taking over a practice.

Quick answer: When you’re taking over a retiring lawyer’s practice, plan the operational side as carefully as the deal: get the retiring lawyer’s knowledge into the system while they’re still there, pick a clean, reconciled cutover point, modernize billing and accounting rather than copying old workarounds, and plan support after go-live.

The situation: a practice ready for its next chapter

A lawyer was taking over a long-established practice from a lawyer preparing to retire.

The firm had been running on PCLaw for years. It worked, but only because the team filled the gaps by hand:

• Invoices were built manually in Word. Disbursements went into PCLaw, but every invoice was typed up separately.
• No activity codes or standard explanations. Staff retyped descriptions for every single entry.
• Flat fees entered from scratch. Each flat-fee service was keyed in manually, on every invoice, every time.
• Paper sign-off. Invoices were printed and wet-signed for review.

The firm had wanted to modernize for a while. The handover made it the right moment: if the practice was going to change hands, it might as well move onto a system built for the next chapter.

If you’re taking over an older practice, this may sound familiar. The system isn’t just old. Your firm’s knowledge lives in people’s heads and habits, and the person who holds most of it is getting ready to step back.

What we did

Our client chose Actionstep Legal Financial Management (formerly Soluno), and Actionstep’s onboarding team handled the data conversion. Our job was everything around it: change management, filling the gaps that PCLaw never captured, customization and training, so the firm got the most out of the new system from day one.

1. Kickoff and a tight plan. We set a firm go-live date at kickoff. We set two short check-ins a week and gave the firm’s team a clear prep list: templates, settings, the user list and permissions.

2. Building what PCLaw never had. Because so much lived in Word and in people’s heads, we worked with the firm to document it properly for the first time:

• A flat-fee list by practice area, with explanations for each service
• Disbursement types with short activity codes and explanations
• A clean-up of operating and trust bank accounts, so only the right ones came across

3. A trial conversion before the real one. We asked for a trial conversion using data up to a recent month-end. That gave us a test site to set up the back end and confirm the data mapping before the final import. The live conversion then used data up to a later month-end, so the firm started fresh on a clean cutover.

4. Customization. We set up four invoice templates plus operating and trust cheque templates, and tested every one. We also set up a separate permission group for each role (legal assistant, paralegal, associate, power user and admin), turned on two-factor authentication, and removed unused codes, accounts and practice areas so the system stayed clean.

5. Liaison with the vendor. We were the go-between for the firm and Actionstep’s onboarding and support teams. We sent them templates, flagged fixes, followed up on tickets, and kept the timeline moving. That way the firm’s team could keep serving clients instead of chasing software questions.

6. Training built around real roles. We started with admin sessions on data review, billing, financial statements and reconciliations. Then we ran an all-staff session, role-based sessions for legal assistants and for the paralegal and bookkeeper, and a Q&A drop-in. We also built a firm-specific reference guide the team could keep on hand.

The results

• Live on schedule. The firm went live on the date we set at kickoff.
• A clean conversion. We ran a trial conversion first, and no data conversion issues were flagged at go-live.
• No more retyping. Flat fees, disbursements and explanations now live in the system, not in a Word document.
• Invoice review moved on-screen. Pre-bills are reviewed and edited in the system instead of being printed and wet-signed.
• A team that can run it. Every role was trained, and the firm has its own reference guide.

The lawyer who took over the practice told us they “couldn’t have done this without Chops.”

After go-live: why support doesn’t stop at launch

Go-live is the start, not the finish. That’s especially true in a succession, because the practice keeps changing after the handover.

For this firm, we stayed on to:

• Run follow-up training for the lawyer taking over, including reviewing and editing invoices and preparing trust cheques
• Train new team members as they joined
• Support a bookkeeping handover, including setting up the right accounts and permissions
• Work through support tickets and settings changes with the vendor
• Plan a review of a file network that had grown over decades

That’s typical. We give every client at least two weeks of hands-on support after go-live, and many keep us on long after that.

What to plan for when taking over a retiring lawyer’s practice

Whether you’re buying a retiring lawyer’s practice or taking over from a long-time partner, the same five questions come up.

Your law society may have its own checklists for practice transitions. In BC, see the Law Society’s Winding Up a Practice checklist.

1. What does the system actually hold, and what lives in people’s heads? Flat fees, billing explanations, file-opening steps and “how we do trust” often aren’t written down anywhere. Capture them before the retiring lawyer or long-time staff step back.

2. Is the data healthy? Older systems can hold years of messy, duplicated or even corrupted data. A trial conversion shows you what you’re working with before you commit.

3. Whose name is on everything? Files, contacts, invoices, signatures and system accounts may all need to change as the practice moves to you. Plan the sequence so the retiring lawyer’s files close out cleanly.

4. Who’s leaving, and what do they know? Succession often comes with other changes, like a controller retiring or long-time staff moving on. Document their processes and build handover training into the plan.

5. What are the rules? Transferring files, client notices and trust funds when a practice changes hands are professional responsibility questions. Check with your law society in Canada or your state Bar Association in the US. We take care of the operational side. We’re not accountants, so your accountant should review the financials and trust balances.

💡 Taking over or buying a practice?

Start with an operational review of the practice you’re inheriting: its systems, data, workflows and the gaps between them. Law Firm Technology & Operations Audit · Law Firm Mergers, Acquisitions & Succession

Book a discovery call

Moving off PCLaw?

PCLaw has served many firms for a long time. A succession is often the right moment to move to a cloud platform, because you’re already rethinking how the practice runs. Depending on your firm, that might be Actionstep, Clio, LEAP or another platform. We help you choose, then make the move an easy one. Actionstep implementation · Clio migration

We work with law firms in every province and territory across Canada and throughout the United States.

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