There is a version of geographic expansion that firms have been doing for decades: open a new office, hire a few laterals, build from scratch, and spend the next three years wondering why the phone is not ringing the way it did back home. It works, eventually, for some firms. It is expensive, slow, and the outcome is far from certain.
There is another version that more firms are figuring out, quietly and without much fanfare. Find a solo practitioner in the market you want to enter, someone who has spent twenty or thirty years building a client base and a reputation in that geography, and acquire the practice. You inherit the relationships, the referral network, the local trust, and in many cases a seasoned attorney who is willing to stay on during a transition. The runway to market presence is compressed from years to months.
This is not a new idea. But the conditions for it have shifted considerably, and the volume of deals reflects that. According to data from Fairfax Associates, 59 completed law firm mergers were tracked in 2025, an 18% increase year over year. More telling: 76% of those transactions involved a small firm, defined as one where at least one party had between five and twenty lawyers. The solo and near-solo acquisition market is active, and firms that have built a repeatable process for it are using it as a genuine expansion strategy.
Why the Solo Market Has Opened Up
The wave of solo acquisitions being completed right now is not coincidental. It is the product of demographics meeting opportunity. A substantial portion of solo practitioners currently in active practice are in their late fifties or sixties. They built their books during the growth years, they are the primary relationship for every client they have, and they do not have a succession plan. What they have is a practice with real value and no clear path for what happens to it when they step back.
That creates a buyer’s market, in the most practical sense. Not because these practices are cheap, they are not, but because the seller’s primary concern is often continuity rather than price maximization. They want their clients taken care of. They want their staff to have a home. In many cases, they want to keep working for a few years but without the full weight of ownership. A firm that can offer all of that, credibly, has a significant advantage over a buyer who shows up with a purchase price and nothing else.
The Law Practice Exchange’s 2025 Marketplace Insights report noted that niche attorneys are increasingly using acquisitions to grow their books and geographic reach, and that firms with recurring revenue or strong referral networks attract buyers quickly and close at a premium. That observation tracks with what we see in the transactions we advise on. The practices that move fastest are the ones where the solo has a defined client base and a community presence, the two things that are hardest to replicate through organic growth. The full report is available at thelawpracticeexchange.com.
What You Are Actually Buying
The single most important thing to understand about a solo acquisition is that you are not buying a firm. You are buying a set of relationships, almost all of which live in one person’s head and phone contacts. That distinction shapes everything about how you approach due diligence, how you structure the deal, and how you manage the integration.
The revenue number matters, but it is a starting point, not a conclusion. What you need to understand is the revenue’s composition. How concentrated is it? If three clients represent sixty percent of billings, that is a different acquisition than one where the top client represents eight percent. How old are the primary relationships? A solo whose best clients are long-tenured business owners who are themselves approaching retirement carries a different risk profile than one whose book is built on referrals from an active network of accountants and financial advisors. How dependent is the revenue on the solo’s physical presence in that community?
The integration question starts here. Some solos have built practices that are genuinely transferable, where the relationships are with the firm rather than exclusively with the individual. Those are rarer than sellers tend to believe, but they exist. Others have built practices where the trust is entirely personal, where clients chose this attorney specifically and will need to be persuaded, not just notified, that the transition serves them. Both can work. But they require different deal structures and different integration timelines.
Due Diligence for a Geographic Expansion Play
Standard financial due diligence applies here: three to five years of tax returns, billing records, accounts receivable aging, and client tenure data. That is the floor. For a geographic expansion acquisition specifically, there are several additional areas that deserve careful attention.
Market position, not just revenue
You are acquiring entry into a geography. That means the solo’s standing in the local professional community matters as much as their P&L. What does their referral network look like? Are they known in the local bar association, in the business community, in the civic organizations that generate client work in that market? The attorney who has spent thirty years coaching youth sports, serving on the hospital board, and showing up at the chamber of commerce breakfast is bringing you something that has real economic value and that you cannot replicate through marketing spend.
The transition period structure
Virtually every solo acquisition that works well includes a meaningful transition period during which the selling attorney remains involved. The length and structure of that period is one of the most negotiated elements of these deals. Too short, and clients feel the transaction before they have accepted it. Too long without clear milestones, and the earnout becomes a source of tension rather than alignment. The most functional arrangements I have seen involve a defined two to three year wind-down, with specific client introduction and handoff benchmarks built into the compensation structure.
Conflicts and malpractice exposure
A solo practice often has client relationships that span decades and practice areas. Before closing, you need a complete conflicts review against your existing client base, and you need to understand the malpractice history. A solo who has practiced for thirty years without significant claims is a different risk profile than one with open matters on the books. This is not a reason to walk away in most cases, but it is information that should shape the representations, warranties, and indemnification structure of the purchase agreement.
The Gunster Model: Acquisition as Geographic Strategy
One of the more instructive examples in recent deal activity is Gunster, a Florida-based firm that has used boutique and small firm acquisitions as a deliberate geographic expansion strategy across the state. In Q2 of 2025, Gunster acquired Katz Barron, a Miami boutique, continuing a pattern of targeted acquisitions that have extended its presence into markets where it previously had limited footing. Fairfax Associates reported the transaction as part of a broader Q2 that saw most combinations involve boutique and midsize firm acquisitions. The Gunster approach illustrates what a repeatable acquisition strategy looks like in practice: disciplined targeting of firms with strong local presence, structured integration, and a firm wide culture that can absorb acquired practices without disrupting them. More detail on that Q2 activity is available at fairfaxassociates.com.
The firms doing this well are not improvising. They have identified the geographies they want to enter, the practice areas that make sense given their existing platform, and the profile of the solo or small firm that would represent a good fit. They are proactive about sourcing, which means building relationships with advisors who work with solo practitioners approaching retirement, rather than waiting for listings to appear.
Integration: Where Geographic Expansion Actually Happens
The acquisition closes. The press release goes out. And then the real work begins. Geographic expansion through a solo acquisition only succeeds if the integration is handled in a way that preserves what you bought, which is a local practice with local relationships rooted in local trust.
The single most common integration failure I see is the acquiring firm moving too fast to assert its own brand, systems, and culture before the clients and community have had a chance to accept the transition. The solo you acquired spent decades building credibility in that market. If the first thing clients experience after the acquisition is an impersonal onboarding form and a new billing system they do not recognize, you have spent real money to create churn.
The better approach is to let the transition period do its work. Keep the solo’s name visible in the market during the integration window. Make sure the attorneys who will be handling client relationships are physically present in that geography, not flying in for client meetings and then disappearing. Invest in the community relationships the solo built, because those relationships are part of what you paid for.
Geographic expansion through solo acquisitions is, at its core, a relationship acquisition. The market timing is favorable. The pipeline of solo practitioners approaching retirement is substantial and growing. But the firms that will benefit most from this window are the ones that approach it with discipline on the front end and patience on the back end. Both are required.
Thinking About Expansion Through Acquisition?
ExitPath Partners advises both acquiring firms and solo practitioners on the structure, negotiation, and integration of law firm transactions. If you are evaluating a geographic expansion strategy or working through the specifics of a potential acquisition, I am happy to talk through what that process looks like in practice.
Schedule a confidential consultation at exitpathpartners.com. You may also find our pages on attorney transition planning and law firm exit planning useful as context for how these transactions are structured from both sides.