Attorneys in their seventies may be fully retired, practicing selectively, serving as counsel, teaching, mediating, or completing the final wind-down of a legal career. Financial priorities may shift from accumulation to a sustainable paycheck, simpler administration, healthcare and long-term care preparation, and ensuring trusted people can step in if needed. This is also a decade to preserve the legacy created over a lifetime.
1. Confirm That Your Retirement Paycheck Is Sustainable
Add up dependable income from Social Security, pensions, annuities, rent, and any remaining legal or advisory work. Then, compare it with core living costs, discretionary spending, healthcare, family support, travel, and home expenses. The amount you withdraw from investments should be tested against market conditions, inflation, and longevity rather than based on a single rule of thumb. Revisit your plan after a major change in health, housing, family, professional income, or the market.
2. Coordinate Required Minimum Distributions, Taxes, and Charitable
Retirement account distributions, taxable gains, Roth assets, cash reserves, and charitable gifts can be planned together. A thoughtful withdrawal sequence may help manage taxes and Medicare-related premiums while keeping your portfolio aligned with long-term needs. Required minimum distributions can also be coordinated with charitable goals where appropriate. It is important to avoid making each account decision independently without considering its effect on the household.
3. Simplify Accounts and Financial Administration
Consider consolidating certain accounts, updating your trusted contacts and automating routine bill payments. Review who has authority to act and whether a spouse or agent can locate your statements, policies, tax records, and advisor information. Simplicity can help reduce missed payments, duplicate investments, and the potential burden on family members if they need to step in.
4. Maintain Liquidity Without Becoming Too Conservative
Consider keeping sufficient cash reserves for near-term expenses so you are less likely to need to sell investments when markets are down. At the same time, remember that some assets may need to support spending for many years and keep pace with inflation. It is a good rule of thumb to review diversification, concentration, and the amount held in cash or fixed income. Rebalance intentionally rather than allowing fear or inertia to determine the portfolio.
5. Plan for Healthcare and Long-Term Care Before a Crisis
Review your Medicare coverage annually, including any Medicare Supplement, Medicare Advantage, and Part D prescription drug coverage, along with your medication needs and preferred providers. You should also consider the resources available for care at home, in assisted living, or in a skilled facility. Discuss where you would want to receive care and who can make decisions if capacity changes. Long-term care planning with your spouse, partner, family, or trusted individual is not only about funding, but should also be about where you would prefer to live, the roles family members or trusted individuals may play, who would have legal authority to act on your behalf, and how your wishes will be communicated.
6. If You Still Practice, Reassess Your Role, Specialty and Safeguards
Consider whether your schedule, deadlines and matters remain manageable and whether you can serve clients competently. Also, pay attention to your health, colleagues’ feedback, liability coverage, bar status, continuing education, conflicts and confidentiality. A BigLaw or boutique partner might move into a counsel role and transfer clients and origination responsibilities. A litigator might reduce trials and travel. A transactional, regulatory or specialty attorney might narrow the matters they handle. An in-house, government, or solo attorney might shift to consulting, mediation, teaching, or board work. Age alone should not drive the decision, so consider your capacity, professional requirements and goals.
7. Complete the Professional Wind-Down
Before stepping away, work with your firm, tax advisor, insurance professional and financial advisor to create a clear wind-down plan. This should cover the transition of client matters, the handling of firm finances and records, and any remaining legal, insurance, licensing, or tax obligations. Solo and small-firm owners should also determine whether the practice can be sold under state rules. Document what still needs to be done, who will be responsible, and when each step should occur. A thoughtful wind-down protects your clients, your family, and the reputation you have built.
8. Update the Estate Plan and Create a Continuity Binder
Organize estate documents, beneficiary designations, insurance, accounts, tax records, digital access, and instructions for firm or practice interests. List your estate-planning counsel, accountant, financial advisor, physician, firm leadership, successor counsel, and liability carrier. Secure client information and professional credentials separately, and tell trusted family members whom to contact in an emergency.
9. Add Fraud and Decision-Making Safeguards
Use account alerts, trusted contacts, strong password practices, callback procedures, and a second review for large or unfamiliar transfers. Also consider discussing how financial responsibilities will be shared if memory, vision, hearing, or mobility changes.
10. Communicate the Legacy You Want to Leave
Estate documents may not explain your values, family history, charitable priorities or professional lessons. Consider a family meeting, letter of intent, ethical will or collection of professional stories. Decide how mentoring, pro bono work, scholarships, or community service might carry forward your legal legacy. A clear plan can reduce confusion while helping loved ones understand what you built and why it mattered.
You may continue practicing law because you want to, while the financial decisions outside your practice have become more consequential. Decisions about spending, family gifts, charitable giving, investments, taxes, healthcare, and the wealth you may eventually transfer can affect one another, while partner capital, deferred compensation, or other financial interests may still connect part of your wealth to your legal career. Beacon Pointe can help attorneys bring those decisions into one financial picture. If you want a second look at how much you can comfortably spend or give, what you may eventually want to transfer, and whether the financial arrangements you have accumulated over the years are still serving a useful purpose, schedule an introductory conversation with Beacon Pointe.
No matter where you are in your financial journey, thoughtful planning can help you prepare for what lies ahead. Explore our tailored financial tips for those in their thirties, forties, fifties, and sixties to learn more about the key priorities and planning opportunities to consider during each decade.
If you could benefit from a conversation with our advisory team, we would be happy to provide a complimentary consultation.
Important Disclosure: Beacon Pointe Advisors, LLC (“Beacon Pointe”) is an investment adviser registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Registration does not imply a particular level of skill or training. Beacon Pointe does not provide legal or tax advice. This material is provided for general informational and educational purposes only and is not intended as individualized investment, tax, legal, accounting, insurance, healthcare, or employment advice. The considerations discussed may not apply to every individual and depend on personal circumstances, applicable law, and the terms of relevant employment, ownership, compensation, benefit, insurance, and estate-planning documents. You should consult the appropriate legal, tax, insurance, healthcare, and other professional advisers before taking action. Investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal. Beacon Pointe is not responsible for errors or omissions in materials accessed through links to third-party websites and does not necessarily approve or endorse the information provided in those materials.