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Nobody prepares you for the day the firm becomes yours.
I did not build a law firm. I built an insurance brokerage. But the jump from practicing a craft inside a big system to owning the whole operation is the same jump, and the risk that comes with it surprised me the same way it surprises the firm owners I work with now.
The answer
Going from lawyer to law firm owner is a risk transfer. Every invisible system that protected you as an employee, the coverage, the payroll, the lease, the procedures, becomes your job on day one. The fix is not working harder. It is asking five questions early, while they are still cheap to answer.
The center sees the front
I played center at Nicholls State, number 52, and started all eleven games my last season. I tell that story not because football credentials mean anything in insurance, but because the position taught me the job I do now. The center reads the front, identifies the pressure, sets the protection, and then does his work so someone else can succeed.
That is the whole profession, honestly. See the pressure before it arrives. Set the protection. Let the family, or the firm, run the play.
Still protecting the middle. It has been the job my whole life.
Inside a big system, someone else carries the weight
After an early internship at State Farm, I built my insurance career at Liberty Mutual, where I became a nationwide Rookie of the Year and a lead sales representative. I say that with gratitude, not as a setup for criticism. Big systems are excellent at what they do, and the people inside them are some of the best in this business.
What you do not see from inside a big system is how much invisible protection surrounds you. Someone else carries the errors and omissions decision. Someone else reads the lease. Someone else worries about what happens if an employee is hurt, or a wire goes to the wrong place, or a claim arrives that nobody priced. You practice your craft, and the building holds up the roof.
Lawyers at established firms live inside the same kind of building. The malpractice program, the office package, the payroll, the procedures. All of it is somebody else's job, right up until the day it is not.
The day the door closes behind you
I launched McDade Insurance Brokerage Group in 2020, here in the Houston area, because I believed families whose lives had outgrown one carrier's appetite deserved a wider bench. Today that means access to 50+ top Texas carriers through direct and network relationships we know well. But the decision itself was the same decision every new firm owner makes. Leave the building. Build your own.
And the first honest lesson of ownership is that nobody hands you a risk department on the way out the door. The day the door closes behind you, every invisible system becomes visible, and every one of them is yours. The coverage decisions. The lease clause you signed quickly. The wires. The people who now depend on your judgment for their paycheck.
You become the leader you wished you had. That is the good part, and it is also the weight. Protecting what you built stops being a line item and becomes part of the job description.
The five questions I would ask early
When I review a growing firm's program now, the gaps almost always trace back to questions nobody asked in the first year, because in the first year everything is urgent and insurance is quiet. These are the five I would put on the calendar early, while they cost a meeting instead of a crisis. The American Bar Association's own technology survey found about 1 in 3 firms have already experienced a security incident, so the questions are not hypothetical.
Ask these before year three
- Where does my malpractice policy stop and my cyber policy start, on paper, in the actual forms. The boundary is mapped at law firm cyber insurance.
- Does the cyber policy carry a social engineering fraud endorsement, and is the sublimit sized to the wires we actually send. The anatomy lives at social engineering fraud for law firms.
- Do my employment practices limits match the headcount I have now, or the headcount I had when the policy was written. The pattern is at law firm EPLI.
- What does my lease actually require me to insure, and does my office policy match it.
- When is the one meeting each year where every policy gets read together as one program. The whole coordinated picture is at Houston law firm insurance.
None of these questions requires you to change anything. About 40 percent of the time we tell clients to stay with their current carrier because that is the right answer. The point is to know, on paper, before a claim runs the test for you. That is what I would tell any lawyer making the jump I made. You built something worth protecting. Read the protection like you would read a contract for a client, because now the client is you.
You become the leader you wished you had. Protecting what you built is part of the job now.
Charles McDade, LUTCF, Founder, McDade Insurance Brokerage Group
Sources worth opening before you decide.
This article uses public source material from the American Bar Association and the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center.
The purpose is to help you ask better questions in the first years of ownership. The statistics describe the pressure. What your firm carries is answered by your documents, your headcount, and your wires, which is exactly what a review reads.
Questions firm owners ask.
What insurance changes when a lawyer becomes a firm owner?
Almost all of it changes hands. As an employee, the firm's malpractice program, office coverage, and employment protections surrounded you invisibly. As an owner, every one of those decisions is yours, plus the ones employees never see, cyber, social engineering fraud, workers compensation, the lease requirements, and the coordination between all of them.
Does a solo or two lawyer firm need all of this on day one?
No, and pretending otherwise would be selling, not advising. Legal professional liability and a cyber policy with social engineering coverage belong on day one, because client data and client funds arrive on day one. The office package follows the lease, workers compensation follows the first hires, and employment practices coverage follows headcount. The sequence matters less than someone reading the seams as you grow.
What does a McDade commercial review cost?
Nothing, and it comes with no obligation. We read the policies you already carry, tie the limits to the firm you actually run, and tell you plainly if the program holds up. About 40 percent of the time we tell clients to stay with their current carrier because that is the right answer. The decision stays with you.
How is an independent broker different from the agency our firm has always used?
It is a difference of bench, not of character. A captive agent, often excellent, ultimately works inside one primary carrier system and its appetite. An independent brokerage places your program across many markets, which matters most when a firm's growth outruns a single carrier's comfort zone. Your life changed. The insurance deserves another look.
What Houston clients say.
You built it. Now read the protection.
Send us the policies you carry today. We will read them the way you would read a contract for a client, show you where each one starts and stops, and walk you through the seams in plain English. The decision stays with you.
Commercial reviews route to our commercial desk and follow your calendar, not ours. Local broker. National infrastructure.
