The day I qualified my CA Exams, I was on 7th heaven and very confident that clients would soon start coming to engage me for my services and there would be a long cue of clients waiting in my office.

But, very soon I realised that this was not the case.

Most clients prefer not to go to a CA who is newly qualified and has only theoretical knowledge. Small clients may opt for a newly qualified CA’s but small clients pay very less fees. It is always the bigger clients who pay good fees.

Anybody who is earning good from his CA Practice/ Law Practice would surely be having a good number of big clients.

But how to get these big clients?

Most big clients prefer to go to a CA who has good knowledge, has practical exposure and has a good brand name.

Infact, if we talk about big clients, most of them already have CA’s who are working on their payrolls as their employees. So why would these big clients come to you when they already have CA’s working for them?

So we have to offer them extra which there existing clients are not offering.

What extra can we offer which other CA’s/Lawyers are not offering?

All CA’s and Lawyers have good knowledge of whatever was taught to them when they were studying.

But all CA’s don’t stay updated with the latest changes. Infact most CA’s don’t even take up complicated cases and take care of simple routine work only.

After a few years of establishing my tax consultancy practice, I realised that I cannot grow my practice by doing this simple routine work. I should take up complicated cases and start providing services to big clients.

I did my research, had a word with my seniors and soon arrived to the conclusion that big clients only go to a CA who has practical exposure and is updated with all the recent case laws. As most CA’s are not updated with the recent case laws, big clients never come to them and they are never able to grow their practice.

Most CA’s and Lawyers are of the view that they will start studying case laws when they have big clients whereas most big clients prefer to go to a CA who has good knowledge and is updated with latest case laws.

It is like a chicken an egg story. Nobody knows who came first. Similarly studying case laws and getting clients for the same is like a chicken and egg story. Nobody knows – what to do first.

While most CA’s and Lawyers wait for the big client to come first, I thought of following the other approach and it worked.

I started studying all the recent case laws and this is what worked. By studying the case laws, I got an insight into 2 things:

  1. How people try to plan and reduce their Tax Liability
  2. The view of the dept on how to treat such cases.

It not only helped me stay updated with the recent case laws but also helped me improve my acumen. And now when I look, I think it is reading of all these cases only which helped me grow as a tax professional.

How to stay updated with the latest case laws?

A lot of people think that everything is available on Google and can be easily found. But this may not always be true in the case of case laws.

To stay updated with the case laws, it is always advisable to opt for a subscription which provides you regular updates about the latest case laws and recent changes in law.

I myself personally enrolled for the Taxmann subscription plan wherein I was able to get access to all the case laws in a properly organised manner.

So say for example, if I have to search for case laws about Section 54, I can simply type Section 54 in the case laws section and it will display all case laws related to section 54.

There are many other features which such subscriptions offer which Google does not offer.

And it is for this reason that most professionals who handle big clients or intent to handle big clients in future enrol for the Taxmann’s subscription.

If you are also planning to enrol for the taxmann’s subscription plan, you can enrol for the same through these links:-