Accounting for legal firms

Larking Gowen is a premier provider of accounting and business advisory services for legal firms, having supported legal practices with all aspects of their business for many decades.

Our services to legal firms include:

Full compliance services, including accounts production, taxation and statutory financial accounts tax planning
SRA client money audit, with full disclosure of all issues identified and tailorable work programmes to fit your needs
Strategic planning - eg mergers, acquisitions, corporate structures, capital retention
Partnership benchmarking with our own benchmarking report (so we know all the underlying data).
Profit maximisation
Cloud Software and practice management systems
Business advisory
Budgeting, charging rate calculation and management information
Management and outsourcing services
Client money systems advice, fraud prevention and investigation

In addition, we support legal firms through:

Technical support for complex trust accounts and tax returns
Client support - tax planning
Expert witness and forensic accounting.

Business advice

As well as handling all aspects of accounting for professional services, we also provide specialist advice. Current developments within the legal world are complex and add to the burden of practice management.

Our business advice service helps take the pressure off, providing a sounding board for new ideas and a valuable outside perspective on the issues facing the practice.

Solicitors’ Account Rules

While most firms achieve basic compliance, inaccuracies and irregularities do sometimes appear. We'll make sure your client money is appropriately ring-fenced, and that you have the right systems for recording transactions. We can also help you tighten up your processes to reduce the risk of errors.

We can carry out an audit of your systems and processes for handling clients’ cash and will always provide a detailed report of all issues we find. In a limited number of cases, we'll submit a report to the Solicitors Regulation Authority on your behalf.

Business structures

As more legal practices are becoming LLPs (Limited Liability Partnerships) or limited companies, the legislation constantly changes, and the advantages are less obvious. Some firms regularly move between the two structures. Revising your business structure can give you more freedom in terms of ownership, making external investment easier and freeing up partners to focus on client work.

As with tax structures, we'll advise you on the options and give you a complete assessment of whether it’s worthwhile. If you decide to go ahead, we’ll guide you through the process of making the switch.

We can also help you get external finance, including developing business plans and projections for potential investors.

Personal tax

As well as handling all your business tax affairs, we can take care of the personal tax arrangements for partners in a legal practice. We undertake a regular review of the partners' tax affairs to keep them efficient and in line with future developments.