When it comes to providing financial education for employees, don't neglect your firm's legal team. Your lawyers value intelligence and success and have often sacrificed a lot to use the former and achieve the latter. But when it comes to retirement, they could be in the same boat as many other workers.
According to an article at a sister site, American Lawyer, titled "Top 10 Money Mistakes Boomer Lawyers Make," lawyers have been making many of the same mistakes the rest of us have made. These include not starting to save early enough, investing too conservatively, and carrying too much debt.
Recommended For You
Add to that their longer lifespan than lawyers in the past, and pressure from firms to retire (this obviously isn't restricted just to law firms), and "It really is a perfect storm," says Michael Nathanson, a former senior tax partner at Hale and Dorr (now Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr) and chairman and chief executive officer of The Colony Group, a Boston-based wealth management firm.
Here are just a few of the mistakes lawyers make in saving for retirement:
Underestimating their life span and overestimating investment returns.
You might not have thought you'd make it to the age you currently are, but here you are. So it's fair to assume your legal team might have been thinking the same way.
And since they likely make more money than most of your employees, they will likely live even longer. (It's been proven true — Americans who make more live longer).
Many lawyers who are of the baby boomer generation set aside money but investment returns didn't grow as high as they originally thought. Longer life span plus not enough investment returns spells trouble. Sure, it's first-world trouble but it's trouble nonetheless.
Underestimating retirement costs.
Dental care and prescription drugs are often mentioned as taking a chunk out of retirement money. But taxes too can be a pain point when on a fixed income.
Yes, the fixed income of your firm's lawyers when they retire is perhaps going to be higher than most of your other employees' fixed incomes, but why add to dental pain by not preparing for dental costs?
Not diversifying enough.
Truly, a little knowledge might be a dangerous thing, even for lawyers. Or maybe we should say 'especially for lawyers.'
Lawyers are at risk of "becoming enamored of an asset class they think they know well because of their work. Being intelligent and well-informed, lawyers sometimes get carried away with investments that they think they are more informed about than most people," the American Lawyer article says.
Whether your employee is in a frontline service position or poring over contracts and representing your company in court, that worker has more responsibility for their retirement success than their parents or grandparents ever had.
And whether they acknowledge it or not, they might need help with retirement saving and investing.
If you're still not convinced, check out more articles in the American Lawyer content package, including these:
Retiring Boomers Pose Big Challenges for Firms – Poor succession planning can lead to the loss of substantial client relationships, among other problems, experts say.
Pensions Pose an Increasing Threat for Some Firms – Payouts of retirement obligations are on the rise. Some firms are moving to limit liability.
Eight Ways to Win at Succession Planning – Eight tips from law firm leaders on how to hand over the reins to the next generation.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
