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The New Zealand Bar Association is pleased to invite barristers and sole practitioners to the first of an ongoing series of Business Basics programmes. 

The first seminar within this series "How to make your practice more profitable" will be held on Thursday, 11 March 2010 at the Northern Club.  Led by Richard Burcher, a legal practitioner of 30 years experience and CEO of pricing consultancy business “Validatum”, and Sam Basset, director and head of the SME consulting team at Markhams Accountants and Business Advisors, “How to make your practice more profitable” will be an invaluable opportunity to assess the commercial fitness of your practice for the financial year ahead.

Session 1:  What am I worth? - Pricing for Profit                     (Presented by Richard Burcher)

• The three profit drivers – cost, sales volume and price

• Results of the initial Validatum Barristers Fee Survey

• The Reasonable Fee Factors under the Lawyers & Conveyancers Act/Client Care Rules

• Setting an hourly rate

• What is value billing? Hourly billing versus value billing (the pro’s and con’s of each)

• Providing estimates and quotes

• Conditional fee agreements under the Lawyers & Conveyancers Act & maintenance and champerty

• A recent High Court decision impacting litigation costs

Session 2:  Taxation & Accounting - Improving your Return   (Presented by Sam Bassett )

• Income tax/GST requirements and what works best

• Common income tax deductions and how best to account for these

• To Incorporate or Not? – Is it worth it from a taxation viewpoint?

• Efficiencies that can improve owners return