Episode 17-Taking Your Law Practice Abroad

For most of us, once we are in the working world, travel is something to do on vacation.  Academics have the opportunity to take a sabbatical and live and work in another country with their families. As the world economy continues to become more integrated, many lawyers and other business professionals end up finding themselves on international business trips.  Some in-house lawyers have the chance to spend time in other countries when they are temporarily transferred to international offices. Lawyers who work for large international law firms, also have this chance.  But for most lawyers in private practice, international travel is limited to vacations and the occasional business trip.  Robert Finkel, is a lawyer who figured out a different path. For many years, Bob had been in private practice at a mid-sized firm; but he and his wife had a strong desire to spend time living in Israel with their three children.  They had visited the country many times, but they knew living there would be different. Since they were not independently wealthy, they knew that at least one of them needed to continue to work. One option was for Bob to leave his role partner of a law firm in the Boston area, Morse, Barnes-Brown and Pendleton and find a legal job in Israel.  This presented some challenges. So Bob came up with a creative solution. He would continue to work for his firm but work remotely from Israel.  In this episode, I speak with Bob about how he made living abroad a reality and what were some of the challenges and benefits to him professionally and personally. Bob is a partner at the New York firm Moritt, Hock and Hamroff. Bob has over 30 years of experience as a tax and business lawyer. His practice focuses on the areas of individual and business taxation including tax controversy and tax litigation.