Buying a law practice in South Florida

• A steady flow of new work from referral sources and marketing, not only the selling lawyer's own network.
• Practice areas with repeat work, such as estate planning that leads to probate, or business clients with ongoing needs.
• Trust accounts reconciled every month, with no unexplained balances.
• Organized digital files and reliable practice management software.
• Experienced paralegals who know the clients and procedures and plan to stay.
• Fees that actually get collected, not just billed, with little owed by former clients.
• A website, reviews and listings that bring in new clients under the practice's name.
• A seller willing to stay on, introduce you to clients and referral sources, and answer questions.

• Trust account records: the monthly reconciliations the Bar's trust accounting rules require (Rule 5-1.2), each client's ledger and any shortfalls. Money in trust belongs to clients, not the practice, and problems there are serious.
• Open cases, court deadlines and statute of limitations dates, so nothing slips in the handover.
• Conflicts of interest between the seller's clients and your own, checked before closing.
• Past malpractice claims, and coverage for the seller's past work after closing.
• Contingency cases: put in writing how each fee will be split between seller and buyer.
• Where new clients come from, and whether the practice's advertising follows Bar rules.
• Who will hold the original wills and closed files, and how long files must be kept.
• Unpaid bills, and how much of what's billed clients actually pay.

• Where did your last 50 new clients come from?
• Which clients will expect to keep working with you personally?
• How long will you stay to introduce me to clients and referral sources?
• Who reconciles the trust accounts, and how often?
• Have you had any Bar grievances or malpractice claims?
• What happens to cases still open when we close?
• How many original wills and closed files do you hold?

South Florida covers Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Monroe counties: Miami, Hialeah, Doral, Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pompano Beach, West Palm Beach, Boca Raton, Jupiter, and the Florida Keys down to Key West. It's the state's largest metro area and its most international. PortMiami, Port Everglades and Miami International Airport tie the region to Latin America and the Caribbean, which supports a deep base of wholesalers, freight forwarders and logistics firms, many of them near the airport. Tourism and cruises, finance and wealth management, health care, real estate and construction carry much of the rest. Palm Beach County adds wealthy seasonal residents and, out west near Lake Okeechobee, sugarcane and vegetable farms. In the Keys, nearly everything turns on visitors, fishing and boating.

Companies that serve homes, condo buildings and other businesses do well here: the building trades, property services, insurance agencies, medical and dental practices, and professional firms.

Costs run high: commercial rent, wages and, above all, property and windstorm insurance. Price the insurance before you make an offer, not after. Miami-Dade and Broward make up the Florida Building Code's High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, with stricter rules for roofs, windows and structures. That raises building costs, and it also gives steady work to the contractors who know those rules well.

Much of the workforce and many customers speak Spanish as well as English, and a company that works well in both languages has an edge. The winter season matters more in Palm Beach County and the Keys than in Miami. In the Keys, the cost of housing makes hiring and keeping staff one of the hardest parts of running a company. Ask any seller there how they find workers and where those workers live.