Navigating Firm Crossroads: Startup, Client Relationships, and Ownership Transition
Small architecture firms face recurring crossroads: starting and organizing the practice, defining firm focus and marketing/business development strategy, choosing work and clients, managing difficult conversations before they become disputes, and planning for ownership transition or succession. This AIASF Small Firms program brings together legal, practice-management, and architect perspectives to discuss what firms can put in place ahead of time and how to respond when a key issue is already underway. Using practical scenarios and questions from the Small Firms community, the moderated discussion will focus on planning for better outcomes, avoiding common traps, and making more intentional decisions at important moments in a firm’s development.
Learning Objectives: (2 LUS)
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Identify key business, legal, and practice-management decisions that arise at common small-firm milestones, including startup, firm focus, marketing/business development strategy, client selection, client relationships, and ownership transition.
- Evaluate how early decisions about ownership structure, business planning, firm focus, contracts, communication protocols, and documentation can affect future outcomes.
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Recognize common warning signs in client relationships, client selection and fit, internal management, and ownership/succession planning that may require proactive communication, renegotiation, documentation, or outside guidance
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Use practical small-firm scenarios to compare what to plan in advance with how to respond when a client issue, dispute, ownership transition, or other firm crossroads is already underway.
- Develop practical next steps for improving firm resilience, including clearer agreements, better client-management practices, stronger decision records, and more intentional transition planning.
Moderator
Howard Blecher, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP
Principal, Blecher Building + Urban Design
Chair, AIASF Small Firms Knowledge Community
Howard Blecher, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, is principal of Blecher Building + Urban Design, a San Francisco architecture practice focused on complex project delivery for residential, commercial, and community projects. He chairs the AIA San Francisco Small Firms Knowledge Community and is a member of AIASF's Public Policy and Advocacy Knowledge Community. He develops professional programs and moderates discussions on practice, permitting, project delivery, and emerging issues affecting small firms. His work combines design, regulatory strategy, agency coordination, and practical implementation. As moderator, he brings a small-firm practitioner's perspective to the opportunities, risks, and professional responsibilities involved in running a small architecture practice.
Panelists
Verita Molyneaux
Molyneaux Law
Molyneaux Law represents a variety of clients involved in the design and construction industry, with a primary focus on providing small- and mid-sized architecture firms with practical counsel. Verita Molyneaux counsels clients on contract negotiations, corporate law, employment practices, dispute resolution, and general risk management. As a litigator, she brings a defense perspective to implementing practical business strategies. Because these strategies are developed in partnership with counsel, the result is streamlined processes, improved employee morale, time and cost savings, and effective mitigation of the risks inherent in this industry.
Laura Terry Howard
Partner
Fox Rothschild LLP
Co-Chair of the Firm's Architecture, Engineering & Design Professional Firms and Business Succession Planning Practices, Laura is a trusted adviser to corporate clients, including engineers and architects, working closely with them to identify and resolve legal issues involving employment, contract and ownership transition issues. She assists clients through the corporate life cycle, addressing formation issues in the start-up phase through developing and implementing an exit strategy. She possesses extensive experience in general corporate counseling, Board governance, mergers and acquisitions, corporate finance and ownership transition and provides results-oriented and practical solutions to her clients’ legal challenges. During her career, she has handled large and small transactions, including a single transaction in excess of $300 million in enterprise value. Laura served as the co-chair of the firm’s Partnership Advancement Committee and as Office Managing Partner in San Francisco from 2021-2024. She is currently a member of the Firm’s Legal Practice Committee.
Mark Cameron, Hon. AIA
Principal Consultant
Cameron MacAllister Group
Mark Cameron established Cameron MacAllister Group in 1986 to provide marketing advice and strategies to design firms. Prior to that, he was Director of Marketing for NBBJ and The Architects Collaborative and Managing Director for Anderson DeBartolo Pan’s San Francisco office.
His expertise includes strategic planning, leadership development, and ownership transition, including mergers and acquisitions.
He has lectured on strategic planning and marketing at the University of California Berkeley School of Architecture, the University of Washington School of Business Administration, the American Institute of Architects national convention and local chapter events, and the Society for Marketing Professional Services national convention and local chapter events.
He was a member of the AIA/San Francisco Board of Directors between 2021 and 2025.
In 2016, the AIA conferred Honorary Membership upon him in recognition of his pioneering contribution to the profession. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Milligan College, a master’s degree from Harvard University (The Divinity School), and also studied at Boston Architectural College.
Support Small Firms Efforts
The AIASF Small Firms Knowledge Community fosters community and provides resources for a diverse network of small firm architects who work on a wide variety of project types. AIASF Small Firms KC encourages a collaborative and collegeial environment where we can share knowledge and experience relevant to our businesses, design work, and the challenges unique to working within the San Francisco Bay Area.