For firms, chambers & insolvency practitioners
Law Firm Merger, Closure & Administration
Of everything on a closing firm’s asset list, the library is the part that can be turned round in a week.
A merger leaves two of everything. A wind-down leaves an office that has to be empty by a date someone has already agreed. An administration leaves an office-holder with a duty to realise what’s there and very little time to think about bookshelves. Different situations, same shelves — and in each one the library is unusually easy to deal with, because published law books carry none of the complications that attach to client files or work in progress.
Want the background rather than the service? Read closing, merging, downsizing or moving a law firm.
Four versions of the same problem
Which one are you dealing with?
The books are the same. What changes is who signs, what paperwork has to exist afterwards, and how much time there is.
A merger
Two practices, two runs of everything, one set of shelves in the surviving office. The second library is worth money right up until it becomes a deadline.
A closure or wind-down
A planned dissolution with a lease end attached. Usually the most time, and usually the situation where the library gets left until there is least.
Administration or liquidation
An office-holder is appointed and the assets have to be realised. The library is one of the few that needs no marketing period.
An office move
Consolidating sites or taking less space. Books are charged by weight and are the heaviest thing in the building.
Mergers
The duplicate library is the whole opportunity.
It is also the part of integration planning that nobody owns until the smaller office’s lease comes up.
Two firms combine and the merged practice ends up holding two of everything — two runs of Halsbury’s Laws, two White Books, two sets of the All England Law Reports. It needs one. The second set has real resale value on the day of the merger and progressively less as the editions age on a shelf nobody is using.
You do not have to decide which run to keep before speaking to us. It is usually more useful the other way round: tell us what both sites hold, we price each, and the decision gets made with the numbers in front of you. Completeness tends to matter more than age — an unbroken older run is often worth more than a newer one with gaps.
Firms
Where the sets were bought by the partnership, disposal is usually a straightforward management decision. Where a set was bought personally by a partner and simply stayed on the shelf, it is worth establishing that before collection rather than after.
Chambers
Two sets merging produce exactly the same duplication. Ownership is the difference: a chambers library is more often a mix of the set’s own books and individual members’ copies, so whose is whose is the first question, not the last. See selling a chambers library.
Administration & liquidation
An asset that realises in days, not months.
Written for office-holders and the people doing the legwork for them.
When a firm fails, most of what is on the asset schedule is slow. Work in progress has to be assessed and often transferred. Client files are not an asset to be sold at all. The lease is a liability more often than a benefit. The library, by contrast, is ordinary chattels with an established second-hand market — it can be described, priced and collected inside a week, and it clears floor space that is costing the estate rent.
We are used to working to someone else’s process rather than our own. In practice that means:
A figure in writing first
A written offer you can put on file and show to whoever needs to approve it, before anything moves. Normally back within 24 hours of a description or photographs.
Paperwork, not cash
Formal documentation quoting whatever purchase order or matter reference your process needs, settled by bank transfer to the account you nominate, rather than payment on the day.
One visit, several sites
Where a practice had more than one office, we would rather run it as a single job with one set of paperwork than as separate collections. See library buyout and office clearance.
If the books turn out to have little resale value, we will still take them away and recycle them responsibly, at no cost. An empty room is worth something to an estate even when its contents are not.
Worth being plain about
Our figure is an offer, not an independent valuation.
This matters more in an insolvency than anywhere else on this site, so we would rather say it here than have it come up later. We are a buyer. When we give you a written figure, it is what we will pay — it is not an independent professional opinion of value, and we are not holding it out as one.
If you need an independent valuation, because the price has to be evidenced to creditors, to a court, or to anyone who might question whether the estate got a fair number, instruct a valuer. That is a different service from a different kind of firm, and it is the right call in that situation.
We will still quote. A written offer from an active buyer in this market is useful evidence of what the books actually fetch, and it can sit alongside a valuation rather than competing with it.
Books, not files
What we will not take away.
We buy published texts and law reports. We do not buy, and will not knowingly remove, anything with client information in it. In a closure or an administration this is not hypothetical: shelves that have been worked from for twenty years have file notes, attendance notes and correspondence pressed into them.
If we find loose papers of that kind while boxing, we leave them with you. If they only surface once the boxes are back with us, we tell you and return them. It costs us nothing and it is the only sensible way to handle it.
Annotations in the margins of a practitioner text are a different matter and usually harmless, but if a set has been heavily annotated with case-specific material, say so and we will treat those volumes as confidential waste rather than stock.
Common questions
FAQ
We're merging. Do we have to decide which library to keep before you'll quote?
No. Tell us what both sites hold and we'll price each one, so the comparison includes what each is worth. Most firms find the decision is made on completeness rather than value, but it helps to know the number before you commit to a run.
The firm is in administration. Can the administrator sell the library?
An administrator or liquidator generally has power to sell the company's property, and the library is ordinarily part of it. We'll need confirmation of the appointment and instructions from whoever holds it, and we'll invoice and pay in whatever form the appointment requires rather than handing over cash. What we can't do is tell you whether a particular asset falls inside the appointment — that's a question for the office-holder and their own advisers.
Is your valuation an independent valuation we can show creditors?
No, and it's worth being plain about it. We are a buyer, so our figure is an offer to purchase, not an independent opinion of value. If you need an independent valuation to evidence the price, instruct a valuer — we'll still quote, and our written offer can sit alongside it as evidence of what the market actually paid.
How quickly can you move if the lease ends in three weeks?
Valuation is usually back within 24 hours of getting a description or photographs, and collection is arranged around your date rather than ours. Three weeks is comfortable; a few days is usually still workable. Tell us the deadline when you enquire and we'll say honestly whether we can meet it.
Chambers are merging rather than a firm. Is this the same thing?
In practice, yes. Two sets combining produce the same duplicate library as two firms — two White Books, two runs of the All England Law Reports — and the same question about which run is more complete. The difference is usually ownership: chambers libraries are more often a mix of the set's own books and individual members' copies, so it's worth establishing whose is whose first.
What if we find client papers tucked inside the books?
It happens, and it's the one thing we stop for. Loose papers, file notes and correspondence are not ours to take. We leave anything of that kind with you, or return it if it's only found once the boxes are back with us. We buy published texts and law reports, not files.
Working to a date
Tell us the deadline and we’ll work backwards from it.
Four details and we’ll come back with a valuation, usually within 24 hours. Nothing to catalogue or sort first, and no obligation either way.
We’ve got your enquiry.
Your reference is your enquiry. Worth a note — quoting it saves you explaining everything again if you call.
We’ll review what you’ve sent and come back with a valuation, normally within 24 hours. If anything’s unclear we’ll ask — usually just one question.
Got photographs? Send them to info@SellLawBooks.co.uk quoting your reference and we’ll add them to the file.