Partner Article

Online auctions: the future of partnership exits?

A well-known auction website has dipped its toes into the world of legal services with the first ever sale of a law firm partnership to be conducted online.

The disgruntled partners at A. Prill, Furst & Co. took the unorthodox decision to sell the practice online following protracted internal wrangling regarding the future of the firm.

Senior partner Arthur Prill, who is now 83, said: “There’s no denying that the partners can’t stand the sight of each other anymore. We couldn’t come to an agreement about who to bring in to the firm and frankly a quick sale was more important than making a decision about the long-term future of the practice.

“My great-grandfather, Arnold Prill and his friend Ebenezer Furst set up the practice on 1 April 1898, calling it A. Prill, Furst & Co. Arnold and Ebenezer grew to hate each other as I now hate Ebenezer’s great-grandson, Freddie Furst. Back then, they did not have online auctions sites to solve their problems. Luckily we do.

“Filling out the online form was pretty painless, although it was a tough decision which category to list ourselves under – Antiques seemed to be the most obvious. Although we only just beat the reserve of £50, we did quite well to find such a good fit and it took under a week, which was a great result. It’s frankly better than buying run-off cover and paying redundancy costs – some of our staff are ancient. Some wag asked if we had to post the firm to the buyer! That’s ridiculous; we told them they had to collect it themselves.”

The successful bidder, law firm Gull, Hibble & Co., based in Barking intends to expand its UK network with the purchase. Commented Sarah Hibble: “Yes, it’s an unusual way to grow, but we believe that we can be the new broom A. Prill, Furst & Co needs. Buying the practice on an auction site was easy and did away with the need for all that tedious due-diligence. The site terms included some standard warranties and we asked them some questions about their claims history in an online forum.”

Said partnership law expert Mark Briegal of Aaron & Partners: “This is possibly an exciting new way to conduct law firm M&A, although we can see some potential issues. If Latin had not been banned in the law we would say ‘Caveat Emptor’.”

Added his colleague Paul Bennett: “Is this the shape of things to come…?”

For more information about Aaron & Partners’ partnership law team, please visit: www.aaronspartnershiplaw.co.uk

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Elle Brunton .