PwC's services for legal firms is dedicated to helping legal firms and their partners achieve their specific business and financial performance objectives and increase the total values of their firms.
Some of the key areas where we assist legal firms include the following:
We work with many of the leading practices in the country, and have a lot of experience in assessing legal firms’ tax reporting and compliance processes as well as offering creative solutions to tax issues. Our tax services team handles both compliance and planning services for legal firms so as to leverage information gathering and identify tax planning opportunities. This structure is designed to increase efficiency and provide quick responses to client enquiries - often resulting in "one-phone-call" solutions or early identification of more complex issues requiring careful analysis and management.
Issues frequently needing to be addressed, particularly on the admission or retirement of partners, include:
Partners’ capital accounts,
Goodwill,
Capital allowances on partnership assets,
The different tax implications of salaried partners, equity partners and consultants, and
Pension arrangements.
Other issues often arising include:
Potential pitfalls for legal firms in relation to VAT and PAYE/PRSI,
The tax consequences of doing business in or with other jurisdictions,
The implications of acquiring or merging with other practices,
Business development and client entertainment expenditure, and
The valuation and tax implications of work-in-progress adjustments.
Income taxes typically represent a partner’s single largest item of annual expenditure, and thus merit significant attention. An inadequate understanding of tax rules and their potential impact on personal goals and strategies, particularly in the periods around admission and retirement, could place assets and long-term financial plans at risk.
We help partners meet their individual income tax filing requirements, and identify tax saving opportunities, while reducing the administrative burden on the partners as well as the legal firm itself. Important elements of our partner tax services include:
Tax preparation: Providing timely, consistent preparation of partners’ returns, regardless of their location worldwide.
Tax planning: Conducting interim and year-end estimated tax planning, including preparation of income tax projections.
Our pension specialists work with legal firms to advise on appropriate pension options for partners. The Personal Pension regime for partners can be restrictive from funding and investment perspectives, so we work towards optimum structures to overcome those specific challenges. In addition, we can assist with advice and implementation of innovative staff pension arrangements to minimise costs yet achieve ‘buy in’ from employees.
Our assurance services are tailored to suit the size and nature of each legal firm and draw on our extensive industry knowledge of this sector. Through the high level relationships which we develop with our clients, we are able to identify ways in which we can improve their businesses. Some of the key services we offer include:
Audit: We provide independent assurance for a legal firm on its partnership’s financial accounts. In doing so, we focus on the business risks facing the partnership and give feedback on the effectiveness of its systems and controls;
Law Society of Ireland regulatory reporting: We act as Reporting Accountants for legal firms submitting reports to the Law Society of Ireland in order to comply with the regulatory requirements of the Solicitors Accounts Regulations, and
Working capital management: For partnerships concentrating on reducing ‘the days outstanding’ to reduce working capital needs and bank borrowings, the process of tracking, identifying and reconciling payables and receivables is crucial. We work with legal firms to analyse and, if necessary, re-engineer, their accounting procedures and administration policies to better manage their payables and receivables.
Our advisory services practice for legal firms work with many of the country's leading legal firms to help them achieve financial and managerial results consistent with their specific needs and objectives. As a professional services organisation ourselves, we have a deep understanding of the challenges facing legal firms and can help identify and implement practical solutions in their business operations.
Legal firm M&A services: Advising legal firms on various aspects of proposed mergers, including structure, tax implications for the firms and their partners, accounting systems, year-ends and due diligence issues
Operational reviews: Performing an analysis of the effectiveness and efficiency of the core business operations at legal firms in terms of quality, control and cost and making appropriate recommendations
Risk management for legal firms: Providing an enterprise-wide risk management approach, which addresses operational, market, regulatory, employee, client reputation/brand, IT and financial/accounting risks
System selection and implementation: Advising on the evaluation and selection of business systems and helping firms manage their implementation projects.
Business strategy services: Supporting business strategy initiatives through sectoral and feasibility studies, organisational and leadership reviews and Voice of the Customer programmes
Dispute analysis & Investigations: Offering financial, economic, and statistical services to legal firms involved in litigation, arbitration or mediations, and regulatory investigations or other regulatory issues
There are probably as many ways to measure a legal firm’s success as there are to create it. But one factor is clear: the powerful link that exists between the quality and energy of the people who work for a firm and its performance. PricewaterhouseCoopers’ human resource services (HRS) practice places this often-overlooked success factor front and centre. We believe that people play the most essential role in the creation of value and so we strive to help our clients nurture and train their employees into a sustainable source of competitive advantage. We also have the practical experience, the multidisciplinary resources to help clients achieve that goal.
We help our legal firm clients align their business strategy with their people and processes. We offer fresh perspectives and innovative services, often challenging standard approaches to complex global and local human resource issues, such as:
Strategic HR advisory services including organisational effectiveness and people performance
Executive and employee reward planning and performance related remuneration planning
Executive Resourcing
Salary and benefits benchmarking
Start ups and overseas expansion: HR growth and development issues
Compensation and retirement programme structuring for cross-border workers.
Employment benefit design and communication, including total reward packages, flexible benefits and employee
Executive and employee reward planning and performance related remuneration planning
Whether in litigation or other dispute-based situations, legal firms and their clients may require financial modelling and data analysis support to make informed decisions. We provide quantitative analytic solutions in instances where facts are disputed and answers are buried in complex collections of transactional data.
With years of hands-on experience in litigation support and forensic services, our specialists will deliver practical solutions to complex problems in the corporate litigation and dispute arena.
We help clients in this area by:
Providing an initial assessment of the financial merits of a potential claim or defence;
Preparing and evaluating claims for loss of profits and other damages;
Preparing an ‘expert report’ for use in the dispute;
Helping clients to prepare responses to experts acting for other parties; and
