SYRACUSE — Tully Rinckey PLLC Founding Partner Mathew B. Tully has returned to his law firm after taking military leave in early 2012 to serve as a lieutenant colonel in Afghanistan with the Army National Guard.

Retired Lieutenant Colonel Tully retakes the reins at the multi-million law firm, based in Albany with an office in Syracuse, that is substantially larger than when he left for military duty, Tully Rinckey said in a news release.

Tully’s return to the law firm marks a new stage in his legal career and the end of a distinguished military career that spanned nearly two decades, the firm said. On May 5, he was medically retired from the U.S. Army, following a long recovery from injuries he sustained during a suicide bomber attack involving a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (or VBIED) on Aug. 7, 2012. As a result of his service in Afghanistan, Tully was awarded the Combat Action Badge in May 2012, the Purple Heart in September 2012, and Bronze Star in February 2013.

Having previously been deployed to Iraq in 2005 and Egypt in 2007, this is not the first time Tully has returned to his law firm after completing his military duty, the news release noted. Unlike his prior returns to the firm, he is now among the tens of thousands of veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom who are transitioning back to civilian life while dealing with a service-connected disability. Tully has also permanently returned to civilian life, having ended a military career that began in 1991 when he first put on a military uniform as a part of Hofstra University’s Reserve Officer’s Training Corps (ROTC) program.

Tully has also returned to a law firm that has grown considerably since his departure. In Tully’s absence, Tully Rinckey Managing Partner Greg T. Rinckey handled the day-to-day affairs of the firm. It now has six offices, compared to the three it had when Tully went to Afghanistan. While he was on active duty, the law firm’s revenue grew by 49.1 percent in 2013, the release stated.

In April, Tully Rinckey relocated its K Street office in Washington, D.C. to a recently redeveloped LEED-Platinum certified building a block away from the White House.

Shortly after Tully survived the suicide-bomber attack, Tully Rinckey opened its second upstate New York office in Syracuse on Aug. 30, 2012.

The firm went on to open offices in Buffalo in January, 2013 and Rochester in July, 2013. Tully Rinckey says it plans to relocate its downtown Buffalo location to a considerably larger office within the next two months. This new office is about five times larger than the space it currently occupies in the city. Firmwide, Tully Rinckey employs more than 120 people, including nearly 60 attorneys.

The news release stated that Tully has dedicated his legal career to strengthening the employment rights of service members through his pioneering Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) litigation. USERRA protects civilian job rights and benefits for veterans and members of the active and reserve components of the U.S. armed forces.

Although Tully returned to the United States from Afghanistan in early fall 2012, he remained on active duty as he recovered from his injuries. He initially received treatment at a Wounded Warrior Unit in Fort Benning, Ga. and later at another Wounded Warrior Unit in Concord, Mass. He was prohibited from working in a civilian capacity until his medical retirement took effect in May.

SYRACUSE — Changing estate-tax laws and potential changes to rules on who can own a CPA firm are two topics that have generated some buzz in the accounting industry of late, according to local certified public accountants (CPAs).

Effective April 1, New York began exempting more estates from the state estate tax to get more in line with federal exemptions. Between now and 2019, the state’s exemption will increase in steps from the previous $1 million, all the way up to $5.34 million to meet the federal exemption. New York’s current exemption is now just over $2 million. The move to raise the estate-tax exemption is good news for many New Yorkers, says Steven Stanek, a CPA with Daley, LaCombe & Charette P.C. in Manlius.

In the past, he says, he’s seen people who didn’t owe federal estate taxes often taken by surprise to learn they owed estate taxes on the state level. The new changes should alleviate that for many, especially years down the road as the exemption continues to rise. 

However, there is a fault in the new legislation that could catch estates that just exceed the exemption with a high tax rate, Stanek says.

“Where the problem lies is in the tax calculation,” he says. Estates that are just $1 over the exemption could be hit with tax rates in excess of 100 percent.

According to the New York State Society of CPAs (NYSSCPA), the fault comes from the accelerated phase-out of a tax credit often used to shrink the size of an estate. Estates that exceed the exemption by 5 percent or less will find it increasingly difficult to use the credit, according to the NYSSCPA. 

Ultimately, the estate-tax exemption change is expected to benefit about 90 percent of New York households that would have paid tax under the old $1 million limit.

“That’s a pretty big chunk of New Yorkers,” Stanek says. “For the most part, I think it’s going to offer relief to [many] New Yorkers.”

CPA ownership rules
Another proposed change affects CPA firms directly. Currently, CPA firms must be owned by a certified public account, who is governed by the ethics of the profession.

However, proposed state legislation would open up firm ownership to non-CPAs — something that draws mixed reaction from the accounting community.

The issue is one that the “Big 4” accounting firms have promoted off and on for more than two decades, says Thomas Riley, a CPA and partner with Testone, 

Marshall & Discenza CPAs in Syracuse. The Big 4 — Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young, and KPMG — have long lobbied for expanded ownership options, Riley contends.

Such a change, however, would raise some concerns, he notes. As a CPA, Riley says he is bound by industry-specific ethics. A non-CPA owner wouldn’t be bound by those same ethics, he says, and it raises the question of how non-CPA owners would be disciplined.

“People wonder if it’s going to hurt the profession,” Riley says.

The proposed legislation would amend education law to allow non-CPAs to be minority owners of CPA firms, something already allowed in 49 other states.

However, a licensed CPA must still hold a simple majority of the ownership, be responsible for the registration of the firm, and be in charge of attest services. All non-CPA owners must be actively engaged in working for the firm as passive ownership is not permitted under the legislation.

Connecticut passed similar legislation in 2012.

While acknowledging concerns, Stanek points out that the change could also help the profession.

“I think it’s a good thing,” he says, particularly at a time when more and more small firms are looking for merger options. Businesses today need to merge resources 

in order to be competitive, he says, and this change would open opportunities for a small CPA firm to join forces with, for example, a financial planner to create a jointly owned firm that can now offer more services to clients.

This would allow two professionals to merge their businesses without one having to give up all ownership rights, Stanek says. It gives businesses more options.

The bill, sponsored by State Sen. Kenneth Lavalle (R–Long Island), is currently before the New York State Legislature’s Higher Education Committee.       

Contact The Business Journal News Network at news@cnybj.com

The New York State Bar Association has named David R. Watson to serve as the next executive director of the 75,000-member association.

Watson, who is currently executive director of the Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, succeeds Patricia K. Bucklin, who stepped down in March after nearly 13 years as the New York State Bar Association’s executive director.

As executive director, Watson will oversee the day-to-day operations of the association and help implement policies approved by its House of Delegates and Executive Committee. The association says it has 125 employees at its Albany headquarters and nearby print shop.

“We are delighted that Dave Watson has agreed to join us as executive director. He is a highly regarded bar executive with excellent management skills and experience in business and in the legal profession, including as a practicing lawyer,” the association’s immediate past president, David M. Schraver of Rochester (Nixon Peabody LLP), said in a news release.

Watson brings to the New York State Bar Association his experience as a manager of three law-related associations and a legal technology company, as well as a practicing attorney and financial advisor, according to the release.

Since 2010, he has been executive director of the 6,000-member Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association.

The 75,000-member New York State Bar Association says it is the largest voluntary state bar association in the nation. It has members in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and 120 countries. It was founded in 1876. 

Leadership is critical to successful strategy implementation and execution. In my work with CEOs, I’ve found that leaders often appreciate tips and techniques on how they can best lead a new strategy. Here are 10 of the most important leadership factors to lead a strategy implementation and ensure its success.

Take the lead
Be visible. Communicate all the time, both formally (presentations, intranet, etc.) and informally (when you’re meeting with employees.) The most effective leaders are continually talking about the strategy, providing insights about what the big picture is, and using the strategy to make decisions. When you implement a strategy, you are taking your organization into the future, so give your people a very clear picture of where you are headed, get people to buy in and change how the organization thinks about itself. Employees want to hear strategy directly from the top. I’ve seen CEOs of Fortune 500 companies and leading professional firms talk with small groups about strategy; it has a very strong impact. Projects and timelines are critically important, but don’t confuse those with leadership.

Prioritize
Strategy is about making choices about what you will do, and equally important, what you won’t do. If you’re trying to be world-class in everything, then it’s highly likely that you don’t have a god strategy to begin with. Focus on the few most important initiatives and drive them forward a mile instead of trying to move everything forward an inch.

Build strong buy-in among your top team
Heads nodding in agreement during a strategy session are not a measure of buy-in. You need every senior leader to be strongly advancing the strategy by publicly (and privately) supporting it, and by demonstrating support through their actions and behaviors: How they communicate and make decisions. This is the number one reason why strategies don’t get implemented successfully.

I was retained by a gas and electric utility to help them understand and overcome employee resistance to a major organizational change. Here’s what the problem was: Members of the senior leadership team, all of whom supported the change, were directing their people to tackle immediate needs within their functional organizations before working on the change. To employees, that meant that the major change wasn’t a priority, so they resisted it.

Allocate resources to achieve the strategy
Similar to the previous factor, make sure the key strategic initiatives are adequately staffed and given the appropriate resources to get the job done. If you don’t, the strategy will go on the back burner or be seen as an add-on to everyday tasks.

Objectively assess the skills needed
You have to be very tough on this one. If the skills aren’t there, you need to take action to correct it, or change the strategy. A consumer-goods manufacturer I worked with formulated a strategy that called for a continual stream of new products. That required top-notch product development — beyond the capability of the current organization.

Don’t underestimate the importance of implementation skills
There are effective and ineffective ways to drive change in organizations. You want an organization that embraces change and is eager to make it happen. But all too often, change is ineffective and the result is short-term and superficial with an alienated workforce. You’ve got to have the right implementation skills, and they are not normally found within most organizations. This is the number two reason why strategies don’t get implemented successfully.

Make the strategic tactical
Drive strategies down to individual performance objectives and decision-making. Foster both accountability and transparency. You want everyone accountable for their part in achieving strategic objectives, and you want everyone to know how well they are doing. This usually means that jobs will have to change to reflect the strategy. If you have a new strategy, and people’s jobs don’t change, or if the strategic tasks are additional work, something is wrong with the implementation.

Strategic focus
Keep its attention on achieving strategic objectives and head-off the tangents and diversions that are all too alluring to organizations. Functional groups are constantly coming up with their own projects that may meet their own agendas, but which distract from the strong focus on the strategy. It’s up to the leaders to watch for this and head it off, even if it feels like “Whack-a-Mole” at times.

Be personally involved in moving forward the few most important strategic initiatives
Not running them. And certainly not micro-managing them. But making sure that everyone knows which initiatives are most important and that you are closely watching the progress.

Engage the organization
Both intellectually and emotionally. Slide presentations about strategy rarely connect. A good story will.

Robert Legge is president of Legge & Company LLC, based in Lyons in Wayne County. He assists organizations to significantly improve outcomes with changes to strategy implementation, leadership, and organizational focus. His clients have included United Airlines, Paychex, Rich Products, the American Hospitals Association, and the Rochester-Genesee Valley Regional Transit Authority. Contact Legge at boblegge@boblegge.com