Jim ran a solid personal injury firm — a healthy mid-volume practice with a steady stream of serious injury and wrongful death cases, backed by a larger book of smaller car crash matters. Business was good. Then it got better, or so he thought.
Among his associates was an attorney we’ll call Jude. Jim saw something special in him. He invested heavily — training him personally, pulling him into the firm’s biggest cases, and eventually letting him run point as lead attorney on a large slice of the smaller files. In Jim’s mind, Jude wasn’t just an employee. He was the future of the firm.
One day, Jude walked into Jim’s office and announced he was leaving — in a week. That alone was a gut punch. But that wasn’t all. He told Jim he intended to take a large number of cases with him, worth $2 million+ in potential fees. That represented about a third of the firm’s entire case inventory. Then came the final blow: Jude said he was taking the firm’s best paralegal too.
Panic. Betrayal. And then the scramble.
What happened next happens almost every time an attorney like Jude walks out. I call it the Jerry Maguire moment — everyone scrambling to contact clients and convince them to stay … or go.
Jim fought hard, but in the end, he only managed to hang on to a few of the contested clients. The rest went with Jude.
Then came the lawsuit. Jim tried to negotiate a resolution he considered fair, but Jude wouldn’t agree to the terms. With no deal in place, Jim felt he had no choice but to sue. Counterclaims followed, along with a pile of ugly allegations flying in both directions — breach of fiduciary duty, ethics violations, the works.
Two years, several hundred thousand dollars in legal fees, and one reported court decision later, the case was finally resolved.
I represent law firm owners who find themselves in Jim’s position all the time.
These cases can be expensive, and there’s usually enough money at stake that both sides feel compelled to fight rather than reach agreement in the near term. But the cost isn’t only financial. During years of litigation, owners lose time, sleep, and sometimes their health.
If you or someone you know has lived through something like this, you already know how painful and disruptive it can be.
Consider the math. If an attorney leaves and takes cases that would have generated six figures or more in fees, and you have no agreement — or an unenforceable one — you’ll recover a small fraction of what you would have collected had the matter stayed. Repeat that scenario a few times over the life of your firm, and you’re easily looking at seven-figure losses, sometimes more. A strong, enforceable agreement flips that script: when an attorney leaves and takes cases, you recover a meaningful share of those fees, protecting your downside for the long term.
Take a moment and think about your own firm. You spend years training an associate, integrating them into your culture, and handing them meaningful cases and client relationships. Then one day they walk in and tell you they’re leaving — and just like that, all the time, energy, money, and trust you invested evaporates.
What would happen to your firm if one-third of your revenue walked out the door tomorrow?
I’ve reviewed many agreements that simply don’t hold up. Common — and unenforceable — language includes statements like “cases are firm property and cannot be taken” or “if you take cases, all fees must be paid back to the firm.” Neither of those provisions will survive a legal challenge.
Most agreements I encounter address fee splits and stop there. That’s important, but it’s incomplete. A properly built agreement should also include additional provisions that can slow the departure process down and buy the firm owner critical time to react.
Lawyers can leave. Clients can leave. Lawyers can leave and take clients with them. You cannot stop that outright, and no agreement will change that reality.
But what you can do is put a properly structured, enforceable agreement in place with every attorney in your firm before you need one.
Yes, that agreement should address fee splits if an attorney departs with cases. But fee splits are only one piece of a much bigger puzzle. A well-drafted agreement should, among other things, also cover:
None of these terms are unfair to the departing attorney — they simply create structure and predictability for everyone involved.
I’ve worked with law firm owners who rolled out new contracts to their entire associate pool. Understandably, the associates weren’t thrilled at first. But years later, some of those same associates left to start their own firms — and called me back, asking to put similar agreements in place for their own teams.
Jonathan Hawkins
Founder | Law Firm GC
Jonathan Hawkins is the Founder of Law Firm GC, Host of Founding Partner Podcast, and author of The Law Firm Life Cycle. Jonathan is a business lawyer for lawyers. He serves as Outside General Counsel to law firms and assists lawyers in starting law firms, law firm structuring, partnership agreements, lateral moves, separation agreements, law firm dissolutions, law firm M&A, and succession planning.
