This is Ms. Kennedy’s story.
How to sell a law firm at the right time, to the right merger partner, for the right price is the question Olivia Kennedy, JD had been carrying for almost a year before she finally picked up the phone. When the right time came, she called CGK Business Sales. Olivia ran a $7.8M revenue, $2.1M EBITDA boutique business law firm out of a Class A office tower in Uptown Dallas, Texas, near Klyde Warren Park in the Turtle Creek corridor. Twenty-six W-2 employees moved through the floor each week: 18 attorneys (Olivia plus four equity partners and 13 associates), six paralegals and legal assistants, and two office administrators. The practice ran 35 percent on transactional and M&A advisory work, 25 percent on commercial contracts, 20 percent on employment law, 15 percent on litigation overflow when a transactional matter soured, and roughly 5 percent on trust and estates and private client work. Approximately 280 active business clients across Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, and South Texas were on the engagement roster, plus a small ongoing book of high-net-worth individuals on the trust and estates side. Olivia was 52. She had founded Kennedy & Associates in 2004 in a smaller Uptown suite after eight years as a senior associate at a Big Law firm in New York, and over twenty-two years she had grown it into an 18-attorney boutique with five partners (Olivia plus four she had brought up through her associate-to-partner track), an AV Preeminent Martindale-Hubbell rating across all five partners, and an associate retention pipeline that kept 80 percent or more of associates through partnership eligibility. Her father Liam, a Boston-based partner at a regional firm, had passed unexpectedly in early 2025 from a heart attack at 79. Her mother Margaret, 74, was in early-stage Alzheimer’s. Olivia was the only one of three sisters within driving distance of Boston, and she wanted to step back to of-counsel so she could split time between Dallas and Boston while keeping a strategic role at the firm. She came to us in mid-2025 because she did not know who else to talk to about how to sell a law firm at this size, with this transactional-heavy mix, this AV Preeminent partner bench, and this associate pipeline, in a market where the buyer pool reshuffled around firm-to-firm merger structures rather than the PE roll-up theses that drive most other industries. This page is what happened next, and what could happen for you. Olivia is a composite, not a single real CGK seller, but the patterns and details are pulled from real law firm engagements.
The night before Olivia decided to sell a law firm.
Most owners who decide to sell a law firm have been carrying the question quietly for a year or more before they reach for the phone. Olivia was no different. She was 52. For twenty-two years she had been the rainmaker on the firm’s largest M&A engagements, the managing partner who set every compensation, hiring, and partnership-track decision, the attorney of record on the most sensitive employment-and-restrictive-covenant disputes the firm fielded, the lead diligence partner on the firm’s two largest institutional accounts, and the founding voice that brought four of the five current partners up through her associate-to-partner track. The firm did $7.8 million in annual revenue, $2.1 million in EBITDA at law-firm-typical 27 percent margins, and twenty-six W-2 employees including four equity partners (Daniel Park, Rebecca Holloway, Anson Vega, and Priya Nathani), 13 associates running across the practice areas, six paralegals and legal assistants, and two office administrators. The firm served roughly 280 active business clients across Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, Houston, and South Texas, and a small ongoing book of high-net-worth individuals on the trust-and-estates side. Kennedy & Associates was AV Preeminent peer-rated across all five partners through the Martindale-Hubbell rating service, the highest practitioner rating, and Olivia was an active member of the Texas Bar Litigation Section and the Texas Bar Business Law Section through the State Bar of Texas. The associate pipeline was running 80 percent or better through partnership eligibility (rare in mid-market law firm pipelines), four of five current partners had come up through Olivia’s associate-to-partner track, and Olivia was an adjunct professor of M&A practice at SMU Dedman School of Law on Tuesday afternoons.
Why owners decide to sell a law firm
Olivia’s father Liam, a Boston-based partner at a regional firm and the man who had pushed her into law school in the first place, had passed unexpectedly in early 2025 from a heart attack at 79. The funeral happened at the Catholic church in West Roxbury on a cold Tuesday in February. Olivia flew up from Dallas the night before, sat with her mother Margaret in the front pew, and watched her two younger sisters (one in Seattle, one in Atlanta) take turns at the lectern. Driving back to Logan that night, Margaret asked Olivia three times in the car what street they were on, and Olivia realized her mother’s early-stage Alzheimer’s had moved further than the family had been admitting. By April, Margaret needed help with the calendar and the medication schedule. By June, the home-health aide was coming in three days a week. The two sisters in Seattle and Atlanta could fly in for stretches but neither could relocate. Olivia was the only one of three siblings within driving distance once she committed to a Boston rotation. Her husband Michael, a retired Dallas-based commercial real estate developer, was willing to split time between Boston and Dallas with her so she could be present for the Alzheimer’s care path her mother was now on. The firm needed a structural transition that let Olivia step back to of-counsel without disrupting her client relationships, her partner-track associates, or the four equity partners she had brought up through the firm. Olivia had been approached six times in the prior twelve months by larger Texas-based firms exploring merger structures: three times by AmLaw 200 firms expanding their Dallas business law and M&A capacity, twice by AmLaw 100 firms with national M&A practices looking to add Texas-based capacity, and once by a regional consolidator out of an Arizona platform exploring a Texas market entry. Olivia did not know what her firm was actually worth at $7.8 million revenue, $2.1 million EBITDA, with the AV Preeminent rating across all five partners and the 80 percent associate retention pipeline. She did not know whether the firms calling her were the right merger partners for her four equity partners, her 13 associates, or her broader twenty-six-person bench. She did not know whether her transactional-heavy practice mix, her institutional-account concentration, or her associate pipeline were value drivers or merger-friction points. She did not have a single peer in her life who had ever sold a law firm at this size and partner depth.
That is the night she found CGK and submitted the form. We called her back at 7:52 the next morning, while Olivia was at the Uptown Dallas office between the morning partner stand-up and a closing call on a middle-market manufacturing platform.
The first call about how to sell a law firm.
The first call was 53 minutes. We did most of the listening.
Owners who think about how to sell a law firm in their early-fifties, like Olivia, usually carry the same handful of pressures into the first call. Olivia talked about her four equity partners and the way each one carried a different practice book. Daniel Park (the youngest at 38) ran the bulk of the M&A advisory pipeline alongside Olivia and was the closest to taking over rainmaker responsibility on the institutional accounts. Rebecca Holloway ran the commercial-contracts and technology-licensing book. Anson Vega ran the employment law and restrictive-covenant book and most of the executive employment work. Priya Nathani ran the litigation overflow and the smaller trust-and-estates book. She talked about her 13 associates and the partnership-track pipeline she had built across them, where the four senior associates were each within 18 months of partner consideration on the 12-year track Olivia had structured. She talked about the AV Preeminent rating across all five partners and the way the peer review process had taken twelve years of sustained partner-level reputational investment to land. She talked about her two largest institutional clients (a DFW-based middle-market manufacturing platform that drove 14 percent of revenue across M&A advisory and ongoing corporate counsel work, and a Texas-based PE fund that drove 9 percent of revenue across deal counsel for portfolio company transactions) and the way the firm’s reputation in the business law community had been shaped by a decade of high-stakes transactional work for those two anchors. She talked about the NetDocuments document management system she had migrated to from iManage in 2017 and the Clio Manage time-tracking and matter-management system the firm used on the smaller-matter side. She talked about her adjunct teaching role in M&A practice at SMU Dedman School of Law and the way the relationship had given her a recruiting pipeline into the firm’s associate class. She talked about the geographic question (the Boston-Dallas split that her mother’s Alzheimer’s care path was forcing onto her calendar). We asked about the firm the way you would ask if you were trying to understand it, not the way you would ask if you were trying to win the engagement. What we were listening for was not just the financials. We were listening for whether Olivia was actually ready to sell, what she was working toward, and whether her expectations on price were grounded in what the law firm M&A market would actually support.
At the end of that call, we set up a working session: an in-person conversation where one of our Managing Directors would walk Olivia through our valuation model and tell her honestly what her firm was likely to command. We did not promise her a written report. Written valuations involve substantially more work, and we charge for those when a seller actually needs one for partnership buyout, estate planning, a divorce, or another documentary purpose. The walkthrough was free because Olivia was clearly thinking seriously about how to sell a law firm, the way someone thinks about it before they actually do it. Whether that ends up being in a year, five years, or longer, we make the same call.
The valuation session was the following Thursday at 7:30 a.m. at the Uptown Dallas office, before the daily 8:30 a.m. partner check-in and after Olivia had finished her morning matter review with Daniel Park.
Olivia was not ready to sell a law firm yet. She went home and waited four months.
The valuation session showed Olivia that her firm was worth meaningfully more than she had been hoping in some areas and meaningfully less in others, which is how these conversations usually go. The AV Preeminent rating across all five partners, the 80 percent associate retention through partnership eligibility, the diversified practice mix, the 22-year operating history under a single founder, and the two large institutional accounts were all premium-multiple drivers a sophisticated AmLaw 200 merger partner would pay up for. Two issues, though, were dragging the number down. The first was the institutional-account concentration. Fourteen percent of revenue from a single DFW manufacturing platform plus 9 percent from a single Texas PE fund created a 23 percent concentration band that a sophisticated merger partner’s diligence team was going to underwrite as a transition-risk factor, especially given that those two relationships had been led by Olivia personally over a decade. The second was the partner-compensation lockup story. Daniel Park, Rebecca Holloway, Anson Vega, and Priya Nathani each held different equity stakes under the firm’s existing partnership agreement, and the existing agreement did not have a tested merger-trigger framework that aligned the four partners’ equity around a unified merger-event valuation. A sophisticated AmLaw 200 firm’s diligence team and the acquiring partnership committee were going to need that lockup-and-comp story to be airtight before the four partners could move into equity at the larger firm. The third issue, smaller but real, was the associate-track lockup. The four senior associates each had different time-to-partner expectations under Olivia’s existing track, and the larger firm’s associate-track structure used different titling and seniority tiers.
We told Olivia honestly: she could go to market now and accept the discount, or she could spend three to four months tightening the institutional-account succession story (deepening Daniel Park’s visible lead role on the manufacturing platform’s M&A pipeline, broadening Rebecca Holloway’s contact at the PE fund’s deal counsel rotation, formalizing client-relationship-transition memos for the top fifteen accounts), restructuring the partnership agreement around a merger-trigger framework that aligned all four partners’ equity around a unified merger-event valuation, and aligning the associate-track expectations into a structured map that translated cleanly into an AmLaw 200 firm’s tiering. We said the second path would likely command a meaningfully better number from a wider range of merger partners, especially the AmLaw 200 firms with structured Texas-market expansion theses, because law firm M&A is structurally a firm-to-firm merger rather than a PE roll-up, and the acquiring partnership committee’s underwriting depth on partner-comp lockup, associate-track alignment, and institutional-account-succession scrutiny is meaningfully different from the underwriting a PE consolidator would run on, say, a veterinary or dental practice. Most states (Texas included) have American Bar Association Model Rule 5.4 restrictions on non-lawyer ownership of law firms that effectively block a PE-backed roll-up structure (only Arizona and Utah currently allow PE-backed law firm ownership), so the realistic merger pool for a $7.8 million revenue Texas business law firm is firm-to-firm merger almost exclusively.
This is the part most brokers skip. Most brokers would have signed Olivia that day, taken her to market, and made the commission whether or not the deal was the best one for her. We told her to wait, even though it meant we did not get paid for four months and might never get paid at all if she changed her mind.
Olivia went home and waited. She spent the next four months tightening the institutional-account succession story so that Daniel Park was visibly co-lead on every active manufacturing-platform engagement and Rebecca Holloway was the recurring deal-counsel face on the PE fund’s portfolio company work, restructuring the partnership agreement around a merger-trigger framework that aligned the four partners’ equity around a unified merger-event valuation, and aligning the associate-track expectations into a structured map that translated cleanly into an AmLaw 200 firm’s tiering. She read background material on law firm M&A through the American Bar Association and stayed close to the State Bar of Texas Business Law Section and Litigation Section meetings while watching law firm merger announcements in the legal trade press. She called us back in late 2025 and said she was ready to sell a law firm that was finally in the shape it needed to be in.
What we did when Olivia came back.
What it takes to sell a law firm properly
When an owner is ready to sell a law firm with CGK, the speed of the on-ramp surprises them. We took Olivia’s firm to market in just over five weeks once she got us her updated financials, the institutional-account succession memos, the restructured partnership agreement with the merger-trigger framework, the associate-track alignment map, the practice-area-by-practice-area revenue and margin breakouts (transactional and M&A advisory, commercial contracts, employment law, litigation overflow, trust and estates), the originating-attorney revenue attribution by partner across five years of trailing data, the client-by-client revenue concentration with the top thirty accounts laid out, the matter-by-matter realization rates pulled out of NetDocuments and Clio Manage, the AV Preeminent rating documentation across all five partners, the State Bar of Texas section memberships and continuing legal education compliance documentation, the lease terms on the Class A Uptown Dallas office and the technology-stack capital map (NetDocuments, Clio Manage, the diligence-room software stack), and the full P&L breakouts across all five practice areas. The blind teaser went out to 22 merger partners we had pre-qualified, a tighter funnel than other industries because the law firm M&A buyer pool is structurally concentrated. Fewer than 35 active mid-market law firm acquirers operate in Texas at the $5 million to $15 million revenue band, and the highest-quality merger partners actively shop the law firm space. Buyers fell across four buckets we routinely use to think about how to sell a law firm: AmLaw 200 firms with $200 million to $600 million in revenue and structured Texas-market expansion theses (the most active band on Texas business law mergers in this revenue range), AmLaw 100 firms with national M&A practices looking to add Texas-based business law capacity (a smaller but premium-multiple band on diligence-clean firms with strong partner depth), regional consolidators based in Arizona or Utah where state bar rules allow non-lawyer ownership and PE-backed structures (a nascent but growing band on cross-border merger structures), and larger boutique firms expanding their practice-area mix or geographic footprint (typically active at the lower end of this revenue range). Each bucket prices the same firm differently, and CGK is an active member of the International Business Brokers Association and the M&A Source, both of which give us deep visibility into the active merger-partner landscape for Texas-based mid-market law firms.
Eighteen of those merger partners signed NDAs and received the full Confidential Information Memorandum. Eleven submitted Indications of Interest after data-room review. Six advanced to Letters of Intent. We narrowed to four for management presentations. Two re-submitted refined LOIs after the management meetings. One went into a final-final negotiation cycle.
Olivia decided between two of the top LOIs. They were materially different. One was a higher headline price from an AmLaw 100 firm with a national M&A practice and a single-brand integration thesis, where the Kennedy & Associates name and physical office would close at merger and the entire 18-attorney bench would relocate to the acquiring firm’s Dallas office under the acquiring firm’s brand within ninety days, with Olivia transitioning to a one-year strategic-advisor role with no continuing client-facing involvement, the four equity partners absorbing into the acquiring firm’s Dallas equity-partner tier (which sat below their existing equity ownership at Kennedy & Associates), and the institutional-account relationships transferring directly to the acquiring firm’s existing M&A bench. The other was a slightly lower headline price from a Texas-based AmLaw 200 firm with around 600 attorneys, $400 million-plus revenue, and a full-service practice where the Kennedy & Associates name would fold into the acquiring firm’s brand at close but the 18-attorney bench would stay in Olivia’s Class A Uptown office (now operating as the acquiring firm’s Uptown Dallas business law and M&A satellite), the four equity partners would absorb into the acquiring firm’s full equity-partner tier with seniority and originating-attorney revenue attribution preserved, the 13 associates would absorb into the acquiring firm’s associate tier with their seniority and compensation preserved, the partnership-track expectations would map cleanly into the acquiring firm’s structured promotion calendar, Olivia would step back to of-counsel with a one-day-per-week clinical role on her two largest institutional accounts and a five-year deferred-comp arrangement that converted her existing equity into the acquiring firm’s partnership interests on a vesting schedule tied to her continued of-counsel involvement, and the acquiring firm committed to retaining the existing NetDocuments and Clio Manage stack for the Uptown office through a 24-month integration window. We walked Olivia through what each LOI would actually deliver under realistic and pessimistic scenarios, including what the cultural continuity would look like for her four equity partners, her 13 associates, her six paralegals and legal assistants, and her two office administrators under each merger structure. The Texas-based AmLaw 200 deal was the better one for Olivia. The of-counsel role gave her the structural off-ramp she needed to spend extended weeks in Boston with her mother. The bench preservation kept her four equity partners and the partnership-track associates in the roles they had earned, and the institutional-account succession story she had spent four months building during the wait period meshed cleanly with the acquiring firm’s full-service practice. She took it.
Through the whole process, the same CGK Managing Director who had taken Olivia’s first call four months earlier was the person walking her through every conversation.
The deal Olivia took to sell a law firm.
How the deal looks when you sell a law firm with CGK
This is the part of how to sell a law firm that gets the least attention in the legal trade press and the most attention from owners who have actually closed a merger: the structure of the consideration package matters more than the headline number, and the structure for law firm M&A is meaningfully different from the structure typical of every other industry CGK works in. Olivia’s deal closed roughly nine months after we restarted the engagement, the longer end of the typical CGK window because law firm M&A involves State Bar of Texas notice requirements, written client notification windows, NetDocuments and Clio Manage data migration, partnership agreement transition mechanics, and a more involved pre-close due diligence cycle on the open matter book than a typical industry M&A deal. The merger partner was a Texas-based AmLaw 200 firm with around 600 attorneys, $400 million-plus annual revenue, a full-service practice across business law, M&A, litigation, employment, real estate, and trusts and estates, and a structured Texas-market expansion thesis that had absorbed four prior boutique mergers in the prior thirty months. The merger structure was a firm-to-firm absorption rather than a stock or asset purchase: Kennedy & Associates folded into the acquiring firm’s brand at close, the 18-attorney bench stayed in the Class A Uptown Dallas office (now operating as the acquiring firm’s Uptown Dallas business law and M&A satellite), the four equity partners absorbed into the acquiring firm’s full equity-partner tier with seniority and originating-attorney revenue attribution preserved, the 13 associates absorbed into the acquiring firm’s associate tier with their seniority and compensation preserved, the six paralegals and legal assistants and the two office administrators retained their roles and pay structure, the AV Preeminent rating transferred cleanly under the acquiring firm’s partnership umbrella, and Olivia transitioned to an of-counsel role with a one-day-per-week clinical role on her two largest institutional accounts.
The total deal economic value was approximately $13 million, roughly 6.2 times trailing EBITDA, a mid-market law firm multiple driven by the AV Preeminent rating across all five partners, the 80 percent associate retention through partnership eligibility, the diversified practice mix, the 22-year operating history under a single founder, the two large institutional accounts, and the structured succession story Olivia had built during the wait period. About 65 percent of it came as cash at closing, a lower percentage than industries with rollover-equity buyers because law firm M&A involves client-attrition risk on transition that the acquiring firm’s partnership committee underwrites cautiously. About 10 percent was held back in escrow for 24 months, a notably extended escrow window because client retention in legal services is verified over a 24-month horizon (rather than the 12 to 15-month escrow common in most other industries) given the unique loyalty dynamics of attorney-client relationships and the ABA Model Rules around client-notification and client-consent on substitution of counsel. The remaining 25 percent was a rollover-as-partnership-equity stake in the acquiring firm’s holding company, with Olivia’s existing equity converting into the acquirer’s partnership interests on a five-year vesting schedule tied to her continued of-counsel involvement on the two largest institutional accounts. The rollover percentage runs higher in law firm deals than in many other industries (typically 20 to 30 percent) because law firm acquirers specifically want continued partner-of-record involvement on legacy institutional accounts to manage client-retention risk through the 24-month escrow window. Wire hit on a Wednesday morning at 9:14 a.m. while Olivia was at the Uptown Dallas office.
Olivia stayed on as of-counsel and clinical mentor for the acquiring firm’s combined Texas business law and M&A bench for thirty months after closing, dropping to a one-day-per-week clinical role on the two largest institutional accounts so she could personally introduce the manufacturing platform’s CFO and the PE fund’s deal counsel team to Daniel Park as the new lead partner of record, walk through every major engagement letter in the active matter book, lead the integration of two follow-on tuck-in mergers the acquiring firm completed in the eighteen months post-close in adjacent Texas business law boutiques, and shape the regional partner-track mentorship strategy across the acquiring firm’s broader Texas footprint. After thirty months, Olivia stepped back to a quarterly clinical-advisor role that gave her room to spend the bulk of her weeks in Boston with her mother and the philanthropic work she had been thinking about with the Texas Lawyers’ Assistance Program for two years.
What happened to Olivia’s people and her clients.
The people-side of how to sell a law firm usually weighs heavier on the founding partner than the financial-side, even when the financial-side is what triggers the call to a broker in the first place. Olivia cared most about her four equity partners (Daniel Park, Rebecca Holloway, Anson Vega, and Priya Nathani), the four senior associates within 18 months of partner consideration, the broader 13-associate bench across the practice areas, the six paralegals and legal assistants who held the institutional knowledge of the firm’s matter management and document production workflows, the two office administrators who had run the day-to-day operations of the Uptown floor since the firm’s first office build-out in 2009, and the active client roster: about 280 active business clients plus the small ongoing book of high-net-worth individuals on the trust-and-estates side. The Texas-based AmLaw 200 acquirer was a full-service operator that intended to actually preserve the Uptown Dallas office as a standing satellite under the acquiring firm’s brand rather than migrate the bench into the acquiring firm’s existing Dallas office on a tight ninety-day timeline. That made the people part substantially cleaner than it would have been under the higher-headline-price AmLaw 100 deal that wanted to absorb the bench into the acquiring firm’s existing Dallas footprint and shut down the Uptown office.
The merger partner kept all twenty-six W-2 employees, honored the existing pay structure across attorneys, paralegals, legal assistants, and administrators, and committed to keeping Daniel Park, Rebecca Holloway, Anson Vega, and Priya Nathani in their full equity-partner roles with originating-attorney revenue attribution preserved across the institutional accounts. The four senior associates within 18 months of partner consideration mapped cleanly onto the acquiring firm’s structured promotion calendar with their existing seniority and compensation preserved. The institutional-account succession work Olivia had done during the wait period (deepening Daniel Park’s visible lead role on the manufacturing platform’s M&A pipeline, broadening Rebecca Holloway’s contact at the PE fund’s deal counsel rotation, formalizing the client-relationship-transition memos for the top thirty accounts) was preserved with formal partnership-tier promotions and originating-attorney comp protections. The 13 associates were absorbed with their seniority and compensation preserved, and the partnership-track expectations Olivia had structured under the 12-year associate-to-partner track mapped cleanly onto the acquiring firm’s structured calendar. The six paralegals and legal assistants and the two office administrators retained their roles, pay structure, and physical workstations on the Uptown floor. The AV Preeminent rating transferred cleanly under the acquiring firm’s partnership umbrella through the next Martindale-Hubbell peer review cycle. The NetDocuments document management system and the Clio Manage time-tracking and matter-management system were retained for the Uptown office through a 24-month integration window before any consolidation onto the acquiring firm’s enterprise stack. The State Bar of Texas notice requirements, the written client notifications, and the engagement-letter substitution-of-counsel language were handled cleanly through the closing window.
Olivia was at the Uptown Dallas office on a Wednesday morning when the wire confirmation came through. Law firm closings often happen mid-week to coincide with quarterly bar reporting cycles. She walked across the floor to the partner conference room where the four partners were waiting. She said: “It’s done. The merger closes Friday.” All four partners stood up. Daniel Park (the youngest at 38) said: “We could’ve done it without you, but I’m glad we didn’t have to.” Olivia laughed for the first time in three days. Then she called her mother in Boston. Margaret answered, and on a clear morning could still recognize her daughter’s voice. Olivia said: “Mom, I’m coming. I’ll see you Tuesday.” Margaret said: “I’ll make tea.” Olivia drove home that afternoon, picked up Michael, and the two of them flew to Boston the following Tuesday. They spent the rest of the month with Margaret at the family house in West Roxbury and walked along the Charles River late on Thursday afternoon and talked about what the next ten years would look like.
What Olivia told us afterward.
Why owners who sell a law firm with CGK keep coming back
Most owners who sell a law firm do not call the broker again in the first year. The ones who do call usually want to talk about the parts of the engagement that, in retrospect, mattered more than they realized at the time. About six months after closing, Olivia called the Managing Director who had run her engagement. She said two things that the Managing Director still tells new sellers about.
The first was about the four-month wait. She said: “Three of the merger partners who had been calling me were ready to sign LOIs in thirty days, and two different transactional consultants I talked to before you told me they could take me to market right then with the institutional-account-concentration question wide open and the partnership agreement merger-trigger framework still untested. The reason I sold with you is that you told me the truth about how my AV Preeminent rating and my associate pipeline were actually being valued by AmLaw 200 merger partners, the truth about what the loss-of-Olivia institutional-account-succession scenario would look like in a sophisticated acquiring partnership committee’s diligence, and the truth about what restructuring the partnership agreement around a merger-trigger framework would buy me in LOI conversations five months later. You told me what would happen to the price if I went out without fixing those things. I would have left more than a million and a half dollars on the table, and Daniel and Rebecca and Anson and Priya would have folded into a worse equity-partner tier with weaker comp protections.”
The second was about who she sold to. She said: “I almost signed with the higher-headline-price AmLaw 100 firm because the number on the top line was bigger and the brand was more nationally recognized. The fact that you walked me through what each merger partner would actually do with my four partners, my 13 associates, the Uptown office I had built over twenty-two years, and the institutional-account relationships I had built with the manufacturing platform CFO and the PE fund’s deal counsel team, what each merger partner’s brand-and-bench integration thesis would mean for the firm three and five years out, and how a Texas-based AmLaw 200 firm with a satellite-office preservation thesis was structurally different from an AmLaw 100 firm with a single-brand absorption thesis, is a conversation I never even thought to have until you raised it. I sold to a merger partner who is actually going to keep the Uptown floor the floor my partners walk into and recognize.”
This is what we mean when we say we sit with you in the decision, not just the transaction. Olivia is one composite story, but the pattern is real. The owners we work with who decide to sell a law firm usually find their way to us through versions of Olivia’s situation, and the relationships start with a long listening session and a free walkthrough, not a pitch.
Ready to sell a law firm? Where are you in Olivia’s story?
If you are starting to think about how to sell a law firm, we should talk. There is no commitment and no pressure. The first conversation is free. The valuation walkthrough that follows is free when you are seriously thinking about selling, whether that is in a year, five years, or longer. We only charge for formal written valuations, and only when you actually need one for a partnership buyout, estate planning, or another documentary purpose. Submit the form and a senior CGK Managing Director will reach out within one business day.
If you are Olivia at month 1: just exploring
You are not sure if you want to sell yet. The law firm M&A landscape keeps shifting, your partner-comp lockup story is thinner than you would like, your institutional-account succession is still concentrated under your name, your associate-track expectations are not yet aligned for an acquiring firm’s structured calendar, twenty years of partner-track and rainmaker pressure is starting to tell you something, a family transition is now reshaping your geography, your kids are not going to take the firm, you are curious about how a merger partner would value your transactional and M&A advisory exposure versus your commercial-contracts and employment book, or maybe an AmLaw 200 firm or a Texas-based regional consolidator has been calling you. Most of our best engagements start here. Submit the form and we will schedule a working session. You walk away with a real number and a clear sense of what to do next, with no obligation to do anything.
If you are Olivia at month 4: ready to go
You have done the work to clean up the firm. The financials are tight. Your institutional-account succession story is documented across the top thirty accounts. Your partnership agreement has a tested merger-trigger framework. Your associate-track expectations are mapped onto a structured calendar. Your originating-attorney revenue attribution by partner is documented across five years of trailing data. Your AV Preeminent rating is current across all partners. Your matter realization rates from NetDocuments and Clio Manage are pulled into a buyer-grade report. Your State Bar of Texas section memberships and continuing legal education compliance documentation is current. Maybe a merger partner is already in the conversation. You want to run a real process. Submit the form and we will be in touch within a business day to talk about timing, scope, and what your first 30 days as a CGK seller would look like.
If you are not sure where you are
Most owners are not sure. Submit the form and start with the conversation. We will figure out together where you are. We are equally happy to tell you to wait twelve months as we are to take you to market in five weeks.
Or call us directly at (888) 858-7191.
Start your own story
A senior CGK Managing Director will respond within one business day. Strictly confidential. For owners of law firms doing $1.5M+ in annual revenue, including business law boutiques, M&A and transactional firms, commercial-contracts and technology-licensing firms, employment law firms, litigation firms, and full-service mid-market practices. The first conversation and the valuation walkthrough that follows are free for any seller seriously thinking about selling, on any horizon.
Confidential. No obligation. Direct routing to a named CGK business broker, not a junior screener.
One of these eight people would lead your engagement.
When you decide to sell a law firm with CGK, one named senior Managing Director stays with you from the first call through the wire transfer, just like Olivia’s Managing Director stayed with her for four months and then for the engagement that followed. Our Managing Directors come from Wall Street investment banks, hedge funds, Fortune 500 corporate finance, and operating-business leadership. Cornell MBA. U Chicago Booth MBA. CFA. CMT. Naval Academy. Goldman Sachs. Merrill Lynch. Deutsche Bank. AIG. T. Rowe Price.
What sellers say after they sell a law firm (and other businesses) with CGK
I could not be happier with the experience I had selling my business with CGK. Greg did a detailed analysis of my business and helped me price and position it right for the market. After receiving multiple offers at full asking price, the rest of the process went very smoothly, and we closed in less than two months.
Hanna M.Selling my business was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and I’m incredibly grateful to have had Wes by my side throughout the process. He brought perspective, pushed when necessary, and always had my best interests in mind. His experience and strategic approach allowed me to maximize the sale price while minimizing long-term risk and obligations. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose him as my broker.
Adam NevilleDerik located multiple interested strategic buyers that produced more than one serious offer. The negotiations were tough but Greg and Derik’s experience helped us overcome. We got a great result for our employees and for the owners. We would recommend them without reservation.
Bob TaylorWe sold a business that was 47 years old and being run by second generation within a year of working with Wes. CGK has a system that attracts serious prospects to review opportunities. Wes was able to make the overwhelming feeling of selling easy and to a certain extent enjoyable. I never felt alone or in the dark throughout the entire process.
Jennifer WilliamsWe decided to sell our company in 2025. Talked to another M&A company in the Houston area. We felt very comfortable with Greg and Matthew at CGK. Could not have made a better choice. From day 1 till final closing and even after 30+ days, they have been here helping us with documents and support during the transition. Thanks can not be said enough.
Rickey ThomasInside the Blueprint, on Bloomberg TV and Fox Business News.
Olivia’s husband Michael, a retired Dallas commercial real estate developer, was the one who first sent her a clip of CGK on Bloomberg. He had been watching the segment in their kitchen on a Saturday morning and recognized the firm name from a Texas Lawyer trade article about how to sell a law firm he had clipped a few months earlier and slid across the kitchen counter to her. He sent her the link with a note that read “This is the firm we’ve been looking for.” CGK Business Sales is featured on Inside the Blueprint, the syndicated business television series. Our episode aired on Bloomberg TV and Fox Business News. Watch the segment, then start a confidential conversation.
The CGK office Olivia called was the CGK Dallas office. Yours might be one of these.
When you sell a law firm with CGK, whichever office you reach, you get the entire firm. Olivia worked with a CGK Managing Director based out of the firm’s Dallas office, but her merger benefited from a partner pool we sourced firm-wide, including the Texas-based AmLaw 200 firm that ultimately won the engagement. Click any city to learn about our local presence and the named Managing Director leading that market.
Other Questions Olivia and Other Law Firm Sellers Ask Us
Practical answers to what comes up before, during, and after the kind of engagement Olivia went through, when you sell a law firm with CGK.