Looking for a Financial Advisor for Attorneys?

Your path to becoming a successful attorney likely included countless hours in the classroom, more than a few sleepless nights studying for the Bar Exam, and a handful of moments when you questioned your decision to become a lawyer. But with persistence, grit, and potentially several thousand dollars in student loans later, you walked across the stage proudly accepting the law school diploma that launched your career in the legal profession.

If you’re now working in private practice or at a BigLaw firm, your above-average compensation trajectory may feel like just reward for years of blood, sweat, and tears. But financial planning for attorneys can often be complicated by outsized student loan debt, lofty lifestyle aspirations, and a desire to retire comfortably, perhaps at a younger age, so you can travel the world or make up for lost time devoted earlier in your career to late nights in the library and internships you’d rather forget.

Fortunately, financial advisors who specialize in working with attorneys understand the unique financial obstacles and opportunities commonly faced by lawyers throughout their careers. These specialist advisors can work with you to develop a personalized plan tailored to your individual circumstances and provide the guidance you need to achieve your financial goals in both the near and long term.

You’ll likely find dozens of financial advisors in your community well-suited to help you reach your money goals with a general financial plan. But it may be more difficult to find a financial advisor with the experience, credentials, and dedicated focus serving BigLaw and private practice attorneys who truly understands what it took for you to get here, and what it will take for you to enjoy a comfortable lifestyle and retirement.

Today, many financial advisors offer virtual services so you can meet online no matter where you (or they) live. This means you can choose to hire a financial advisor who lives hundreds of miles away if you decide their specialized knowledge working with BigLaw and private practice attorneys could help you achieve better outcomes.

⚖️ Smart Money Insights for Attorneys

This page is organized into sections to help you quickly find the information you need and get answers to your questions:

1. Q&A with Financial Advisors for Attorneys
2. Get Answers to Your Questions About Financial Planning for Attorneys
3. Browse Related Articles

– Financial Advisors for Attorneys –

Four Questions with Eric Scruggs

We asked Boston-area financial advisor Eric Scruggs to answer four questions related to his experience guiding lawyers on their path to financial independence.

Q: When you first speak with an attorney, what questions do you like to ask to better understand their unique circumstances and determine how you can best help them achieve their goals? 

Eric: In initial meetings, I like to focus my questions on three primary topics.

First, I aim to get a clear understanding of what motivated the potential client to set up the meeting. Since most people don’t randomly decide to look for a financial planner, it is important to understand the pressing concerns that made them reach out. Knowing this will inform whether I can help and what should be prioritized in the planning process.

Second, I try to learn more about the potential client’s financial purpose or why money matters to them. Getting some insight into this allows the potential client to explain what their high-level financial values are and will set the overarching mission that we use to ensure we are setting the right financial goals at the outset.

Lastly, I want to learn about the expectations the potential client has when working with a financial advisor. With a clear understanding of expectations for the relationship, we can quickly see whether there is alignment between what the potential client wants to achieve and my service model.

Tackling these three questions allows for a quick assessment to determine whether we are a fit to work together, sets clear priorities, and provides a high-level vision to set up the framework for determining goals and next steps.

Q: For attorneys thinking about leaving their current employer to accept a job elsewhere or launch their own practice, what actions do you recommend they take before resigning and shortly thereafter? 

Eric: When planning to leave your current employer, it is important to plan for the financial changes that come with the move.

If you are leaving big law to go in-house, for example, you should start living on a lower income as soon as possible to give time to adjust your lifestyle to the reduced income level. Additionally, as you are leaving, keep in mind that the legal community can be fairly small, and you never know when you will interact with your former coworkers again, so try as best you can to leave on good terms. Those former coworkers could be future clients, referral sources, or outside counsel for you. 

Get to Know Eric:

View Eric’s profile page on Wealthtender or visit his website to learn more.

Q: For attorneys approaching retirement age, how do you recommend they prepare to make the transition from living off employment income to relying upon other sources of income? 

Eric: Transitioning from saving to spending your investment accounts can be a hard mental shift for many people to make.

A few strategies to consider include slowing down your work before fully stopping so that you phase down your earned income and slowly start tapping into your income from other sources. Additionally, start taking funds a month or so before you need them so that you can get comfortable that the funds will show up in your accounts when you expect them.

This transition is a bad time for surprises, so testing before you really need the money can substantially reduce the stress that comes in those first few months.

Lastly, realize that this transition is more than about where you get money from. In addition to financial changes, there are psychological and emotional changes you want to prepare for.

Think about how you will spend your time each day – even those who love to golf or fish, for example, are unlikely to want to do those activities all the hours they were working each week. How will you find connection to others now that you are not connecting with colleagues each day?

Before finally starting to retire, perhaps consider taking a few months off to try out retirement life, see what activities you enjoy doing (like volunteering, serving on a board, or pursuing a hobby), and determine how you will make connections and stay in touch with others in a meaningful way. 

Q: What questions do you recommend attorneys ask financial advisors they’re considering hiring to help them decide if they’re a good fit? 

Eric: When looking for an advisor, I think there are a few key factors to consider.

First, consider whether they have the right qualifications for the level of complexity your plan needs.  Unlike attorneys who typically have 3 years of specialized education and need to pass a bar exam to be an “advisor,” all one has to do is pass a relatively easy exam, the Series 65. But what else has the advisor done to build and demonstrate his/her expertise? Is the advisor a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ practitioner, or does he/she have some other advanced training in financial planning?

Second, ask about what experience the advisor has working with people like you and in similar life circumstances.

Third, you should determine whether the advisor is a fiduciary like you are to your clients.

Lastly, consider how the advisor is compensated. Understanding the way(s) an advisor is compensated can help you understand potential conflicts of interest and talk with the advisor about the ways he/she attempts to mitigate those conflicts. 

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