Generically speaking, a law firm is a partnership of lawyers who offer their practice to clients within one umbrella. The onus of any liability is shared by the partners amongst themselves. Similarly they share any profit that comes out of the venture. With time, law firms attach the services of further associates. This is to expand the services that they offer.

For many law firms, succession planning has become somewhat of a taboo subject through fear of upsetting senior law staff. But with the baby boom generation approaching retirement age, it will become an increasing struggle to fill legal jobs at the expense of the law firm's profits if law firms fail to take this issue seriously.

Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all model for succession planning, especially with law firms varying in size from one partner practices to multi-site international law firms. However, the principles remain the same; law firms should seek long and short-term successors for their most senior and key legal positions either internally or externally. The former will be more attainable within the larger firms, but smaller law firms may need to look further a field, and it may well be advisable to engage a legal recruitment agency to take on a head-hunting project on their behalf and fill any legal job they may have.

So why is succession planning becoming so important? First of all, in order for a law firm to be successful, it is paramount that their leaders have a broad range of experience, business-development skills and unrivaled expertise within their field. Often the Senior Partner or Practice Manager will be the motivating force behind the legal practice, and with retirement ages differing dependent on circumstances, it would be extremely foolish to wait until the afternoon the Partner retires or notifies the practice that they are departing.

In conclusion, succession planning should be a procedure that all legal recruitment practices should take into consideration as it is essential to the smooth running of a law firm and makes best use of resources within the firm whilst ensuring prosperity for the future especially when promoting legal vacancies

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