Business of Partnerships

Never have the competitive pressures on professional partnerships been greater with increasing competition from within the practitioner's own profession but also from other professions and elsewhere. When these are combined with political pressures for deregulation, the removal of restrictions on advertising, soaring salaries for professional staff, recent mergers and the development by some firms of national and international networks, we have an environment in which the prerequisite to success is the ability to manage a partnership as a business. In the second edition of this guide, there is an extended chapter on planning and developing a business strategy and an updated treatment of profit-sharing and partner appraisal. A new chapter on incorporation recognizes the continuing trend towards abandoning the traditional partnership structure, but also stresses the pitfalls and misconceptions associated with such a step. The chapters on mergers, taxation and pensions have been revised and the appendix illustrates how to analyze the key dynamics of a business as a first step towards improving profits.