VFLS Has Hit a Perfect Storm

Even as specialized as practitioners have become, nearly all their work has one of three fundamental drivers:

Taxes (or the avoidance thereof)

Buying and selling business assets

Litigation

Historically, two of the three could usually be counted on as reliable sources of practice revenue, and today, it’s three out of three.

1. Anticipated changes in tax law have always made the phones ring. Recent changes in Washington have put tax attorneys—and, by extension, their clients—on alert. Tax moves that may have sat on the backburner have become a priority.
2. Billions of dollars are sloshing around in the economy, looking for better returns. When you layer that over the boomer exit from businesses that is already underway, you have plenty of firewood for the blaze of transactions.
3. People will never stop fighting, and they will continue to use the courts as their arena. Covid may have slowed the roll. Once judges figured out virtual testimony, though, we were back. Some argue that the more money at stake (see #2 above), the bigger the fight.

Naturally, this perfect storm of demand for service has led to unprecedented demand for talent to get the work out the door even while the supply of talent shrinks. We have counted sixty young professionals who have left VFLS from May through September this year. Some have gone to BV-adjacent roles in Wealth Management or Investment Banking, but each has left a hole in a practice, somewhere.

There’s no telling, of course, when a perfect storm will end. Barring an unforeseen circumstance, we think it will be with us at least through mid-year of 2022.