When a professional partnership breaks down — a firm of solicitors, accountants, architects, engineers, doctors, dentists — the assets in dispute are unusually fragile: client relationships, a reputation, and a group of people who have to keep serving clients while the argument runs. Public proceedings damage each of them, permanently, before anyone reaches a hearing.
What Actually Has to Be Divided
More than a balance sheet: clients and files (who goes where, how clients are told, who handles the transition — with professional obligations to clients governing throughout and outranking every commercial preference); work in progress and billed-but-unpaid fees, which in professional practices is frequently the largest disputed item; the practice name and goodwill; premises, leases and staff, whose positions are affected and who deserve a decision rather than a rumour; capital accounts, drawings and current accounts; run-off and professional indemnity arrangements, which have to be resolved properly rather than assumed; restrictive covenants and their reasonableness; and any partnership deed provisions — where one exists, which in older practices it often does not, or it does and nobody has looked at it since 1998. Each of those is negotiable in a room and expensive to determine in a court.
Why the Room Is Better Suited
Three reasons. Confidentiality: partnership litigation is public, and in a professional market where everyone knows everyone, the reputational cost lands on all the partners equally — including the one who was right — and follows the practice into recruitment, referrals and client retention. Speed: practices cannot function for two years in dispute; clients notice, staff leave, and the value being argued over erodes while the argument proceeds. Range: the workable outcome is almost always a package no court could order — a phased separation with an agreed transition period, clients allocated with agreed communications, covenants narrowed to what is genuinely needed, work in progress split on an agreed basis, capital repaid over time, run-off cover arranged and paid on agreed shares, the name resolved, and an agreed statement to clients and the profession. Underneath, the same disciplines as every business separation apply: the settlement binds as a contract, the implementing documents are drafted alongside, and the tax treatment goes to your accountant before signature. The fuller treatment is here, and where the partners are also family, the second file applies too.
The clients come first, and that is not a platitude: professional obligations to clients constrain what any separation can do — files, notice, continuity and confidentiality are not bargaining chips. A mediation that starts by settling those obligations tends to move faster on everything else, because the negotiable set becomes clear.
A practice separating? 01 5827148 — confidential, and the conflicts check runs first.
Richard O’Shea — Solicitor & Mediator
Solicitor at Mary Molloy Solicitors (established 1981), holder of the Law Society of Ireland Diploma in Mediation and a TEP of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners. Mediations are conducted at The Ormond Building on Ormond Quay, at the firm’s Kilkenny office, at neutral venues, at the parties’ own premises — or fully online. Fees are agreed in writing with all parties before any mediation begins. 01 5827148 · richardoshea@marymolloysolicitors.com · LinkedIn
General information, not legal advice. The content of this website is general information about mediation and Irish law. It is not legal advice and does not create a solicitor—client relationship. Every dispute turns on its own facts, and advice on yours requires a consultation.
The mediator is not your legal adviser. Where Mary Molloy Solicitors is appointed as mediator, the mediator is neutral: the mediator acts for no party, advises no party, and does not decide the dispute. All parties are encouraged to take independent legal advice, and in particular to take advice before signing any mediation settlement. The firm does not act as mediator in any dispute in which it acts, or has acted, for a party — conflicts are checked before any appointment is accepted. Where the firm is instructed as solicitor for one party in a mediation, it acts for that party alone and does not act as mediator in that dispute.
Fees. Fees for mediation are agreed in writing with all parties before the mediation begins, and fees for legal services are agreed in writing with the client at the outset. In contentious business, a solicitor may not calculate fees or other charges as a percentage or proportion of any award or settlement.
Tax. Nothing on this website is tax advice. Where a dispute or its resolution has tax consequences — succession, business transfers, property, compensation payments — those questions belong with your accountant or tax adviser and with Revenue’s own guidance, and are best addressed before any settlement is signed.