Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Family Business Succession Planning for Lawyers: A Staged Framework - Preparation to Implementation, Stakeholder Roles, Timing, Resistance and Pitfalls

Published by a LexisNexis Corporate expert

Practice notes

In family enterprises, succession is a complex, multi-faceted journey, not a one-off moment. The enduring challenge is to balance the interests of the owners, the business itself, and the wider family and its interests. It requires input from advisers with diverse technical specialisms and backgrounds; to help them collaborate effectively in the family firm's best interests, it is useful to view succession as moving through a series of distinct, successive stages over time. If any stage is overlooked or poorly handled, the transition may stall or prove unsuccessful. The phases are preparation, disengagement, exploration, choice and implementation, and the tasks within each are set out below.

Preparation

In readiness for transferring the family business:

the family must acknowledge and accept that change is unavoidable
they should invest in learning from what other families have done and gather information and insights on the latest thinking relating to planning and family business governance; there is a great deal of exciting work being done in this field at present
identify the events that will trigger the transition process and seize them as an opportunity to start the work

...

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Ken McCracken

Ken is recognised as one of the leading family business consultants in Europe. His work focusses on helping family businesses and family offices create the type of governance that will help them to achieve their version of success. Ken is also actively involved in advocacy to improve the overall awareness of the economic and social contribution made by enterprising families. He a Fellow of the Family Firm Institute (FFI), the leading international organisation for family business professionals and academics and is the author and teacher of the Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising for the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP). He is a past recipient of the FFI Award for Outstanding Interdisciplinary Achievement and the STEP Award for Family Business Adviser of the Year. ...

Web page updated on 22/05/2026

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