Every good business needs professional services encompassing a range of expertise and experience. When looking for the best providers of these services, shrewd owners and managers regularly ask us for referrals. Over many years, M+K has actively sought to develop the highest quality network of strategic partners. That includes accountants, financial planners, brokers, agents, consultants and even other lawyers. If you’re after the best people for the job, talk to us about our network first.
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National Head, Professional ServicesTerry Kokkinos | Principal
03 9794 2687
Experience
Rising stars in your practice
For the past few years, M+K has run an annual "Your Career" two-day workshop for future leaders of our firm. It gives participants unique insights and tools for building a legal practice.
It occurred to us that many of the topics covered (strategy, marketing, finance and leadership) are highly applicable to other professional services firms. So in 2011, we extended the invite to a number of our accounting partners that did not operate a formal leadership program. This gave them a chance to invite their 'rising stars' to a structured career program.
The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and next year we intend to include more of our friends in the accounting profession to the workshops.
An exiting partner
A local accounting firm that M+K has built a strong relationship with found themselves embroiled in a dispute with an exiting partner. As we had previously received favourable outcomes for a number of their clients over the past few years, they decided to engage M+K's commercial litigation team to handle their own issue. We achieved an extremely successful outcome (avoiding timely litigation) for the firm and as such, strengthened our referral relationship with this accounting firm even further.
Planning for the future
Last year, we recognised that many of accounting colleagues were calling on us to assist their clients with succession planning advice. After speaking with the accountants on these issues, it became apparent that succession planning was also a burning issue for many accounting practices. To add value to our referral relationships, the M+K team ran workshops on succession planning and growth strategies in accounting firms. The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.
Protecting medical practitioners
The M+K team worked with a group of specialist medical practitioners to establish exit strategies for practices with multiple owners. By drafting an Associateship Agreement that dealt with specific exit scenarios, including insurance funding for death, TPD and trauma events, we were able to protect the owners' commercial interests. Soon after the agreements were put in place, a partner of one of the practitioners we worked with was diagnosed with a life-threatening condition. Unfortunately, this person was unable to continue practising. The documentation created by M+K protected the practice, and the continuing parties were able to purchase additional interest in the business. The affected practitioner was also able to obtain insurance proceeds.
