Career Planning – a Guide for Lawyers
In order to plan your career effectively you need to know where you have come from, where you are going to and what you need or want to get out of your career and life in future.
Firstly get a piece of paper and a pen. In the middle of the page write down who you are and where you are now and put a circle round it. Next, think about where you want to be in 2 years time in terms of your finances, the type of position or job you want to have, geographical location of that job, where you want your family life to be and the plans you have for yourself personally, any plans you have from your social and personal life and try to think these through and relate them to your career.
Write down these ideas and put circles around these.
Put on where you want to be in 10 years time in terms of your finances, your geographic location and your personal, professional and social life.
Once you have these put down where you have come from and how quickly it has taken you to get from where you came from to where you are now in terms of the numbers of years, where you were and where you are now, and what your finances are at present and in the past.
Be as realistic as possible with your deliberations, but do not be afraid to make bold and fairly outlandish statements such as you want to be a millionaire in 20 years time and be working 6 hours a week.
For further legal careers advice and specialist legal career coaching from Jonathan Fagan, please visit www.ten-percent.co.uk/career.htm and visit the Legal Careers Shop at www.ten-percent.co.uk/careersshop
General FAQ's
Do you provide accountancy practice valuations?
Are business brokers regulated?
No is the quick answer and no is the even longer answer. In the UK anyone can set up as a business broker to buy and sell businesses. There are quite literally 100s if not 1000s of individuals, businesses, estate agents, accountants and lawyers who assist with the sale and purchase of businesses. There is no regulation of business brokers at all, although essentially the services most provide are simply advertising and marketing assistance, rather than any actual professional advice.
What underhand tactics do business brokers use?
The business broker and business transfer agent market in the UK has some really dodgy operators in it. A couple of the more regular tricks are below:
1. The small print – there are quite literally hundreds of articles and complaints on the internet about some of the larger and more sophisticated sales operations out there who have armies of agents cold calling businesses to see if they want to sell. The most common clause is the exclusivity one. You sign an agreement with a broker and then if you end early or sell elsewhere you pay them an administration fee. www.cebta.org.uk has links to actual cases and examples that have arisen, involving some of the more dodgy firms.
2. The high valuation to entice a signature. This is a real problem for us – we have clients who have paid for a valuation, which we think is off the scale in ridiculousness, but the client is convinced that the valuation is genuine and insist on a sale at that price. Unfortunately the valuation is a complete waste of time and has been prepared for one reason only – to sign the seller up on an exclusivity contract for a period of time and take fees for various services.
Obviously our company is a little different! We charge no upfront fees and neither do we tie any of our clients in to exclusivity contracts. We are naturally delighted if anyone sells or merges without our assistance and we provide any additional advice to all our sellers and buyers at no cost.
How secure is our data?
Owners of law firms and accountancy practices can be assured that any data sent to Jonathan Fagan is kept highly confidential. We never release any information about your business without your express consent in every circumstance and we do not divulge any detail to third parties. The only information ever disclosed to buyers about sellers is the paragraph of information displayed on our website. Anything else requires the specific consent of the seller.
All buyers and sellers sign a non-disclosure agreement at the start of the process and we renew these with potential buyers every 12 months.
We are Cyber Essentials accredited. Our sister companies Ten-Percent.co.uk Limited and TP Transcription Limited are Cyber Essentials, Cyber Essentials Plus and ISO 27001 accredited respectively. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office as data controllers.
Our IT system is constantly updated, our computers are protected by a high spec Draytek firewall and Panda anti-virus software, and our website is protected by security software.
Jonathan Fagan Business Brokers Limited is part of the Ten Percent Group of websites, which include legal & financial recruitment services.
Do you offer due diligence services?
Yes we do, as part of our Platinum Plus service.
