Team Building: Growth by Acquisition as a Hiring Strategy

It’s almost always hard to find good attorneys.  That’s especially true in certain practice areas – family law, for example.  Some firms try to hire and fail – or they never bring on a candidate in the first place because they never come across a good fit.  It’s rough out there.

But hiring isn’t the only way to add staff.

While very few attorneys actually engage this strategy, growth by acquisition is a possibility as well, even for solo and small firms.  Because, yes – one way to acquire staff is to acquire a business (that could include both lawyers and administrative staff).  There are plenty of solo and small firm lawyers out there with a waning desire to manage a business – they’d rather take a paycheck, potentially with some upside, to work for someone else.  Not only that, but law firms are relatively cheap to acquire, usually selling for 1x gross annual revenue – and, that’s if the attorney whose firm you’re looking to acquire even asks for an acquisition fee (some don’t/won’t).

See, this is a potentially more appealing option than you might have thought at first.

Now, it does take some work to acquire a law firm, including finding acquisition targets – but, these are lawyers you’re looking for.  Attorneys are great at networking with other attorneys!  Of course, this is not all that dissimilar from the hiring process – locate the target, make the offer, sign the contract.

And – grow, baby, grow!

. . .

If you want to talk about new strategies for building your business, reach out to us!

The Wyoming State Bar offers free law practice management consulting services through Red Cave Law Firm Consulting.

To request a consult, visit the Wyoming State Bar’s law practice management page, and start running your law firm like a business.

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