Financial Planning FOR ATTORNEYS
Financial strategies tailored to the demands and opportunities of legal life.What’s Financially Unique About Attorneys?
As an attorney, your financial life likely includes student loans, unpredictable income, equity buy-in and cashouts, and complex tax considerations. Standard advice often doesn’t reflect that.
At SideBar Advisors, we specialize in helping attorneys make informed financial decisions that align with their unique career paths and personal goals—without adding to their already demanding schedules.
Our advisors, Niraj Chhabra, CFP®, MBA, CLTC®, CRPC®, BFA™, and Ian Murray, CFP®, CSLP®, take a behavior-first approach to financial planning—designed to simplify, not overwhelm—so you can feel confident about your future while staying focused on your career.
1. CASH FLOW PLANNING
Your income is one of your greatest tools, but especially for attorneys, it can be unpredictable. We help you design a system that supports the life you want to build, even when cash flow varies due to equity distributions, contingent work, or compensation weighted heavily in bonuses or stock. Our goal is to help you stay in control of your spending, saving, and giving—even as your income grows or changes.
2. INVESTMENT MANAGEMENT
For attorneys whose compensation includes large bonuses, deferred income, or irregular payouts, we help position investments to complement your income structure and build long-term flexibility. Our investment strategy is designed to reflect your goals, risk tolerance, and values—not market trends. We build diversified portfolios to help support short-term needs and long-term priorities, with a focus on tax efficiency and the potential to sustain multigenerational wealth.
3. Student Loan & Early Career Planning
Attorneys often enter the workforce with significant student loan debt. Whether your plan is to qualify for Public Service Loan Forgiveness, stay in big law long enough to pay it off, or find a middle ground, we help you navigate the options. Our team includes a Certified Student Loan Professional™ (CSLP®), enabling us to design strategies that evolve with your career and integrate seamlessly with your broader financial plan.
4. TRUST & ESTATE CONSIDERATIONS
Whether your goal is to provide for family, support a cause, or simply leave things organized, we collaborate with your legal and tax team to implement strategies that reflect your intentions. For clients in blended families, or experiencing a second marriage, we help navigate the complexities of providing for a spouse while honoring commitments to children from prior relationships. From trusts to charitable structures, we can help ensure your wealth transfer plan is as thoughtful as it is tax-efficient.
5. TAX-AWARE PLANNING
We can work closely with your tax advisor to integrate tax considerations into your broader financial plan. Whether it’s liquidating your equity stake, timing large distributions, or evaluating different income structures, our focus is on maximizing after-tax outcomes and reducing surprises.
6. RETIREMENT & LONG-TERM PLANNING
We help you define what financial independence means to you and map a path toward it. Our team is trained in incorporating tax-efficient strategies into retirement planning—optimizing across IRAs, 401(k)s, brokerage accounts, and projected income needs. For attorneys who hold equity in their firm or have deferred compensation arrangements, these distributions can play a major role in retirement funding. We plan around their tax implications and timing so they support, rather than complicate, your transition out of practice.
7. Values-Based Planning
Strong planning starts with clarity—on what matters most to you. That’s why we use a Behavioral Financial Advice (BFA™) framework to help clients uncover their core values, reduce internal conflict, and make more confident decisions. This work isn’t theoretical—it’s practical. When your financial strategy reflects what you actually care about, it’s easier to follow, easier to adjust, and far more meaningful over time.
Before diving into the numbers, it can be helpful to understand the deeper values that influence your financial decisions. We recommend this quick Values Quiz from Think2Perform, a sorting exercise that helps you identify your core values.
By the end, you’ll have a clearer sense of what matters most to you, which can support more aligned financial planning and goal setting.
What’s Next?
If you’re ready to take control of your finances with less stress and more clarity, we’d love to help you get started.
We make it easy:
1. Fill Out a Quick Form
Tell us a little about yourself so we can understand your background, goals, and what’s on your mind.
2. Join Us for a No-Pressure Consultation
We’ll walk through your current financial picture, talk about what’s working (and what’s not), and identify the pain points holding you back.
3. Decide If Financial Planning Is Right For You
By the end of the consultation, you’ll have all the information you need to decide if Sidebar’s financial planning process is right for you. We’ll discuss what the fee structure and relationship will look like going forward.
Asset allocation, diversification and other invetment strategies cannot ensure a profit or protect against loss in a declining market. Investment involves risk, including the potential loss of principal. There is no guarantee that any investment or planning strategy will be successful.
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