Planning Through the Ages – Attorneys in Their Sixties

You may practice law well into your sixties or beyond. By your sixties, the wealth you have accumulated may give you more choice over how you work. At the same time, decisions involving compensation, benefits, family, and healthcare can have greater financial consequences. Understanding those issues before you make a career change can preserve more of your options.

1. Decide What Role You Want Law to Play in Your Life

You may want to continue practicing at the same pace. Or you may eventually want fewer management responsibilities, fewer clients, less travel, fewer trials, an Of Counsel role, mediation, board work, teaching, or some other way of staying involved without maintaining the same schedule. Understand whether your finances give you the freedom to make those choices without needing to maintain your current level of income.

2. Understand How Working Differently Could Change Your Compensation

For a law firm partner, compensation can begin changing before legal work ends. Reducing workload, transferring client relationships, or shifting responsibility to another attorney may affect collections, origination credit, profit allocations, or equity status. Income may therefore begin declining while you are still actively practicing. For a senior in-house attorney, a change in role may affect salary, bonus, equity awards, non-qualified deferred compensation (NQDC) and other benefits. Understand which parts of your compensation depend on your current role and what could change if your responsibilities change.

3. Know Which Firm or Employer Rules Could Eventually Affect Your Choices

Firm and employer arrangements can influence your options years before you intend to stop working. For a law firm partner, those may include age-based partnership provisions, equity status, partner capital, NQDC, firm retirement benefits, origination economics and rules governing continued practice after leaving equity. For a senior in-house attorney, equity vesting, NQDC, pension or retirement benefits, and other plan provisions may matter. The immediate objective is to know which provisions could eventually affect a decision about how or how long you practice.

4. Know How Much Flexibility You Have if Your Earnings Change

A substantial net worth does not necessarily mean all of your wealth is readily available. Retirement accounts, partner capital, NQDC, company equity, private investments and real estate may not provide the same flexibility as cash and taxable investments. Look at how much accessible wealth you have if your compensation falls, whether by choice or unexpectedly. This can matter if you want to work less, change firms or employers, pursue a different role, or simply have the ability to make a career decision without needing to replace your current income immediately.

5. Know How Much of Your Future Wealth Still Depends on Your Firm

Partner capital, NQDC, firm retirement benefits, and other future payments can represent a meaningful part of a senior partner’s financial picture. Look at these interests together rather than treating each one separately. Understand the amount involved, the basic terms, and how much remains dependent on the same firm that provides your current compensation. This is particularly relevant if a large portion of your net worth is already connected to the firm through several different arrangements.

6. For Senior In-House Attorneys, Measure How Much Remains Tied to Your Employer

Salary may be only one part of your financial relationship with your employer. Bonus compensation, vested and unvested equity, NQDC, pension or retirement benefits, and employer stock held in your portfolio can create substantial exposure to one company. Understand what you own today, what you may receive in the future, and which benefits depend on continued employment. If employer stock represents a significant part of your wealth, also understand whether trading restrictions or other limitations affect when it can be diversified.

7. Position Your Investments for the Decisions Ahead

Some of your investments may need to remain accessible for decisions you could make within the next several years, while other assets may remain invested for decades. You may also want money available for real estate, family gifts, philanthropy, or other major decisions. Identify which assets should remain accessible and which can stay invested for longer-term goals. If a meaningful amount of your wealth still depends on your firm or employer, include that exposure when deciding how much risk and concentration you want elsewhere.

8. Look Several Years Ahead on Taxes

Your tax picture may become less predictable during your sixties even if you continue practicing. Professional income, NQDC, capital gains, company equity, charitable gifts, and investment income can create very different tax years. Look ahead rather than addressing each decision separately. If you are considering moving to another state, find out how NQDC and other future payments would be taxed before you move. If you are married, include your spouse’s income and financial events in the same analysis.

9. Understand How Social Security Fits With the Rest of Your Financial Plan

Reaching Social Security eligibility does not mean you need to claim it. Continued earnings, pensions, NQDC, investments, taxes, and longevity expectations all belong in the analysis. If you are married, consider both benefits and the potential effect of each claiming decision on future survivor income. The actual claiming decision can be made when the timing becomes clearer.

10. Plan for Medicare While You Are Still Working

Continuing to work after Medicare eligibility can affect when and how you enroll. Understand how your current employer coverage works, which Medicare rules apply to you, and whether contributions to a Health Savings Account (HSA) require attention. If you are married and either spouse relies on the other’s employer coverage, know how a future employment change could affect both of you. The goal at this stage is to understand the rules that apply before a later career decision makes healthcare time-sensitive.

11. If You Are Married, Decide How the Two Work Timelines Fit Together

You and your spouse may not want to stop working at the same time. One of you may have employer healthcare coverage, a pension, NQDC, or other benefits that make working longer financially useful. Your preferences may differ as well. Understand how the two careers and benefit structures interact before either person’s work decisions begin affecting the other.

12. Decide Whether You Want to Transfer More Wealth During Your Lifetime

Your sixties may be when you begin deciding whether some wealth should move to family or charity while you are still alive. You may want to help adult children, make larger gifts, fund education for future generations, or increase charitable giving. Determine what you want to provide, when you want to provide it, and what you want to retain for your own spending, healthcare, and flexibility.

13. Make Long-Term Care Planning More Concrete

Decide how you would want care provided, what assets you would use to pay for it, and whether insurance will cover any of the risk. If you are married, consider how care for one spouse could affect the finances and living arrangements of the other. Also make sure the people who may need to make financial or healthcare decisions have the legal authority and information required to do so.

14. Make Sure Your Estate Plan Can Work If Someone Needs to Act for You

By your sixties, incapacity planning deserves as much attention as where your assets eventually go. Review who can act if you become unable to manage financial or healthcare decisions and whether that person could actually locate the information they would need. Law firm partners should understand how partner capital, NQDC, and other firm interests are handled at death or disability. Senior in-house attorneys should review company equity, NQDC, and employer benefits. Also revisit lifetime gifts, charitable goals, and what you eventually want family or future generations to receive.

15. Understand the Professional Issues That Could Affect a Future Change in Practice

Changing how you practice can involve more than compensation. Client responsibilities, origination credit, active matters, professional liability coverage, bar status, conflicts, and confidentiality may eventually affect how a change can be made. A senior partner who expects to transfer significant client relationships may have financial and professional considerations that develop well before legal work ends. Understanding those issues early can prevent the professional side of the decision from being separated from the financial one.

Questions Attorneys Often Have in Their Sixties

You may have no intention of stopping practice, but you may be thinking differently about how you want to work. Reducing responsibilities, changing your role, leaving equity status, or simply becoming more selective about the work you take on can affect compensation, firm or employer benefits, taxes, healthcare, and other parts of your financial life. Before making a change, Beacon Pointe can help determine what may actually change financially, which provisions or benefits need to be clarified, and whether your accumulated resources give you the flexibility to make the choice on your terms. If you are beginning to think differently about how you want to practice, 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 seventies to learn more about the key priorities and planning opportunities to consider during each decade.

^{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.}