Wealth Management for Lawyers
Working as a lawyer can be very demanding and leave you little time to manage your own affairs. There can be career events which require careful planning, such as the transition from employed to self-employed (becoming a partner) and on to the later stages of your career and to retirement.
We can provide guidance on such changes, as well as manage the administrative elements such as setting up a pension, personal dealing and investing accounts. We understand the rules and regulations that affect income, such as the requirement to only invest on a discretionary basis for retirement. In addition, we are skilled in cashflow planning, so we can help you to understand when to make key financial decisions around family planning and retirement.
Case study
‘I’m becoming a partner – how should I overhaul my finances?
Background
Our client is 36 and is married with one child. She was recently invited to join the partnership of one of the UK’s ‘magic circle’ law firms.
Key objectives
Ahead of a planned house move in two years’ time, our client wanted to gain an understanding of our services. She also wanted to know how we have helped other partners at her firm, and to review her finances.
How we helped
In our initial meetings, we discussed some of the key considerations that come with being a partner. We shared examples of how we have helped a number of her colleagues, as well as outlined how we might look after her family over the long term.
We then carried out a ‘financial health check’ to make sure her finances and investments were operating as efficiently as possible.
On becoming partner, you become self-employed, which has implications for workplace pensions accrued from your time as an employee. We discussed her options here, and helped transfer her workplace pension to a self-invested personal pension and arranged for this to be fully funded each year from now. We also consolidated her family’s ISAs into one place, for administrative ease.
As our client was looking to move house, we introduced her to one of our network of mortgage brokers who is familiar with the income profiles of partners.
In addition, we helped her set up a tax account, where we manage low-coupon gilts timed to mature for her tax bills. It is currently an efficient way of holding money earmarked for tax, whilst earning attractive interest rates.