We regularly advise professional services businesses on the following:

• Implications of the incorporation of limited liability partnerships
• Turnaround, restructuring and refinancing support
• Corporate, personal and partnership tax and planning
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Pre and post transaction due diligence
• Strategy
• Financial management including cash flow optimisation and refinancing
• Finance transformation and strategy
• Property portfolio planning
• Cyber security planning

We would be delighted to discuss your opportunities and challenges and how we may be able to help. 

What's current in the Professional Practices market?

The Professional Practices market is currently undergoing major structural changes, particularly within the legal market. Clients are demanding more for less and many legal services firms are responding with an acute focus on operational efficiency – maximising opportunities while lowering costs. The trickle of firms embracing legal and business process outsourcing has grown steadily in the last couple of years. New players - such as consumer businesses and insurance companies are entering the market.  The Legal Services Act has introduced new opportunities for raising capital, which is resulting in fundamental changes to the business model for many firms. Those that want to succeed must carefully consider their strategy, structure and investment and make an informed choice about its future direction.

Firms must also maintain a healthy client base and differentiate their services from the competition – both to win work, be attractive to the best talent and to deliver strong profitability. Mergers are one vehicle to achieving this and there have been many UK and international mergers lately, as firms seek to improve their national and global position and to benefit from increases in scale. Finding the right strategic partner is paramount but so too is the transaction execution if the potential benefits are to be fully realised.

Risk and regulatory pressures remain high. Compliance, adverse events, IT and data security are all major challenges for law firms, especially in an environment of collaborating with business partners through outsourcing models.