How to Handle a Departing Partner's Financial Exit in 2026: The 12-Step Capital Account, WIP, Trust, and Client-File Workflow

A partner leaving is simultaneously an ethics event, an accounting event, and a cash-flow event — and most firms only handle the first one well. This step-by-step workflow covers client notification, matter transition, work-in-progress and receivable splits, capital account settlement, trust balance transfers, guarantee releases, and the final K-1 — with the records you need to keep so the departure doesn't resurface as a dispute two years later.