Interview: Steven Poulathas

Growth catalyst

South Jersey’s legal arena is poised to see increased demand in specific verticals, such as insurance coverage

How has demand shifted among your practice areas? COVID-19 created demand in certain practice areas within the employment space and to assist clients with the different governmental relief programs that were essential to keep many businesses running during these trying times. We guided our clients to assure they were able to operate under COVID restrictions, assure client and employee safety and, of course, respect people’s privacy. That has been a very busy area. The government was able to quickly respond and put out a variety of relief programs, such as the PPP loan program, credits and other opportunities to help sustain businesses. We quickly became experts in all those areas to accommodate and help our clients. Likewise, our expanded insurance coverage has been very active in assisting clients with various coverage and business interruption claims arising from COVID. What regulatory or legislative initiatives are you closely monitoring? We’ve been on top of the SAFE Banking Act and marijuana legalization process in New Jersey and surrounding states. Flaster Greenberg has adapted and created new practice areas to be at the forefront of these new areas.

In my particular practice area, in the midst of all of these relief acts and together with the change of the administration, there are significant tax provisions and related planning. In 4Q20, in anticipation of new legislation from the incoming Biden administration and the new Congress, we were extremely busy doing tax and estate planning. In light of significant tax reforms and other infrastructure bills that the federal government is considering, we are working closely with clients to monitor these legislative proposals and pursuing necessary planning and opportunities as appropriate.

What are some of the distinguishing features of operating in the South Jersey region? We’ve been in Cherry Hill for almost 50 years. We are proud of our roots here. We find Cherry Hill strategic because our local contacts for family-owned businesses and even larger publicly traded businesses have roots within our footprint. It’s critical for us to connect to our local roots and give back. We have pursued several initiatives over the last couple of years related to diversity and other local efforts.

What is your outlook for the near term? The outlook seems promising. While COVID presented unique challenges that we had to overcome, with all the changes in the law and different circumstances for lawyers, it keeps us busy. The key point is not just to deal with negative situations and resolve them. It’s about making an effort to create opportunities and ensure positive advancements for our clients.

Steven Poulathas

Co-Managing Shareholder – Flaster Greenberg

Michael Pallozzi

President – HFM Investment Advisors, LLC

Everybody is taking a new look at how much they are investing and what retirement actually means to them. Before it was just a number, an age and how they would be spending their time. I think with a lot of family members or friends being affected or losing loved ones to COVID, they are taking a different approach to life. It’s not about how much money they have, but more about the experiences that they enjoy while they are still here. Many of our clients took advantage of the downtime at home to get in better shape and get their finances in order, because what good is wealth without health, and health without wealth. They really took some time to step back and take inventory of what was important to them and their family.

( ) and insight-rich decision-making, as well as streamlined audit processes, to the benefit of their clients. AI enables CPAs to deploy rules-based systems that can evolve in such a way that it significantly shortens posting time for analyses. Processing a CPA’s workflow via the cloud allows automated updates virtually in real time. In parallel, it provides authenticated users access to this information as it is processed, which they can then translate and analyze as they make business growth decisions and craft new strategies.

Between urgent cash flow needs, dry revenue streams and the need to find SBA-PPP loan processing institutions, COVID-19 truly catapulted CPAs into more of an advisory role than they had pre-pandemic. Moreover, emerging opportunities are there for the taking, such as the cannabis industry.

In 2020 alone, five states legalized marijuana, and sales of the psychoactive drug increased 40%. By 2024, the cannabis industry is estimated to reach $37 billion in value. As cannabis businesses grow, they are expected to require assistance in managing their capital, added to a streamlined understanding of the inherent complexities of Schedule I substances’ tax laws.

Wealth management The ripple effects of the pandemic are not the only challenges that wealth management firms are on the lookout for. Rather, multifaceted trends will dictate the sustainable success of wealth management firms going forward, with those able to navigate them coming out on top. Nasdaq identified that clients of wealth management firms are turning to passive index funds. To avoid customer churn, forward-looking firms are increasingly relying on machine learning to carve out cognitive biases and implement corrective measures to remove emotions from investment decisions. Also, if there is one thing that has prospered throughout the pandemic and will dictate the terms of the recovery, it is digital channels. Henderson’s Wealth Management’s Brett Henderson is categorical: the latest generation of high-net-worth individuals is increasingly likely to opt for digital channels to manage their wealth.

To accommodate millennial preferences, with often marked differences as to what to do with their money compared to older generations, wealth advisers are called upon to leverage technological approaches to changing customer preferences, maximizing customer data value. In parallel, agile distribution models will be paramount to inject responsiveness into the offerings of wealth management firms. In doing so, firms can switch between advancing products and customer service interchangeably and seamlessly depending on the health of the investment landscape. “At HFM, we are embracing the most innovative technology, allowing us to provide timely, valuable information at a lower cost and at a fraction of the turnaround time. The end user, our clients, will be in a better place for these reasons,” said Michael Pallozzi, president of South Jersey’s HFM Investment Advisors, in an interview with Invest:.

Standing out as one of the primary demand shifts in the wealth management space, these firms saw estate planning skyrocket as the pandemic raged on — wills, revocable trusts, powers of attorney, healthcare directives, among many others. In 2021, the federal ( )