Leaving the Firm: The Attorney’s Playbook for Departures, Dissolutions, and Everything In Between

David Lefkowitz | The Lefkowitz Firm, LLC

David Lefkowitz of The Lefkowitz Firm, LLC concentrates his practice on attorney liability, legal ethics, and risk management for lawyers, fields in which he has practiced for more than 25 years. From offices in Atlanta and Athens, Georgia, he represents individuals and companies, from multinational, publicly traded corporations to small businesses , in claims for legal malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, and ethical misconduct, and counsels attorneys and law firms on risk management, law firm dissolutions, law firm divorces, and attorney’s fee disputes. An adjunct professor at the University of Georgia School of Law, where he teaches Legal Malpractice Law, lectures frequently at continuing legal education programs, writes regularly on legal malpractice and legal ethics, and serves on multiple committees at the State Bar of Georgia.

• Education & Credentials

Mr. Lefkowitz holds a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University and received his law degree from the Emory University School of Law.

• Recognition & Leadership

Mr. Lefkowitz holds the AV rating from Martindale-Hubbell, the directory’s highest, reserved for lawyers who demonstrate the highest legal ability together with adherence to professional standards of conduct, ethics, reliability, and diligence. He has been named a Super Lawyer on the strength of peer nominations and evaluations, and his profile carries recognition from Best Lawyers along with a “Superb” rating from Avvo.

• Professional Involvement

Mr. Lefkowitz serves as chairman and moderator of the annual seminar “Professional and Ethical Dilemmas in Litigation,” which brings Supreme Court Justices, Court of Appeals judges, trial judges, ethics experts, and practicing attorneys together to work through the ethical and professional challenges lawyers routinely confront. He is a frequent faculty invitee at continuing legal education seminars on legal malpractice, ethics, and professionalism and contributes articles on legal malpractice and legal ethics to legal publications.

• Experience

Mr. Lefkowitz counsels attorneys and law firms on law firm dissolutions, risk management, and attorney’s fee disputes, and consults on matters such as conflicts of interest, billing disputes, and law firm divorces. Over more than 25 years handling legal malpractice claims, he has represented multinational, publicly traded companies, small businesses, and individuals significantly damaged by the errors or omissions of their lawyers, in matters spanning legal negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, and trustee, executor, and attorney ethical misconduct. At the University of Georgia School of Law he teaches Legal Malpractice Law, a course that pairs civil liability claims with approaches to managing risk, avoiding malpractice lawsuits and bar complaints, malpractice insurance, and defenses to malpractice claims. He practices from offices in Atlanta and Athens, Georgia.

SESSION I – Your Clients, Your Files, Your License: The Duties That Follow You Out the Door | David Lefkowitz | 12:00pm – 1:00pm

This session walks attorneys through the duties that attach before anyone knows they are leaving, beginning with permitted preparation versus improper pre-departure solicitation, confidentiality while interviewing under Rule 1.6, and conflicts screening at the receiving firm. It then turns to telling the firm and telling the clients, the notice sequence, and joint letters under ABA Formal Ops. 489 and 99-414, the client’s absolute right to choose counsel, and what to do when the firm will not cooperate or no longer functions.

From there, the session addresses the file and the money: who owns the file and what travels, copying costs, retaining liens, trust-account transfers under Rule 1.15, and matters with imminent deadlines. It closes with withdrawal and transition mechanics, applying Rule 1.16 across the scenarios, from clean substitution in a lateral move to court-supervised withdrawal in a collapse, along with the diligence and supervision duties that govern during the transition.

BREAK | 1:00pm – 1:10pm

SESSION II – Your Money and Your Exposure: What You Take, What You Owe, What You Sign | David Lefkowitz | 1:10pm – 2:10pm

This session covers the financial and liability side of departure, starting with what you may take with you, client lists, contacts, forms, and work product and where copying becomes conversion or trade-secret misappropriation. It then examines what you might owe the old firm, including capital account recovery, unfinished-business claims and what survives, and clawback exposure when a departure precedes a collapse under the Dewey precedent.

The session addresses what you must not sign: Rule 5.6 limits on practice restrictions in separation and wind-down agreements, non-solicits dressed as transition agreements, and vetting the new firm’s partnership agreement. It concludes with your malpractice tail, prior-acts versus tail coverage, who buys it in a merger or dissolution, and the uninsured-gap scenarios.