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Fall is the best time of year. The weather turns crisp, the leaves turn color and the sports calendar turns to football season.

No well-coached football team would ever consider heading into a season without a detailed playbook. The playbook sets the overall strategy for how the team will attack its opponents and provides the tactics for how to accomplish the team's goals. A painstaking amount of time is spent devising the playbook and practicing the plays over and over until the team operates like a well-oiled machine. All of this for a game.

In contrast, it's striking how many lawyers approach their retirement with very little preparation. Unlike football, retirement is not a game, and the consequences for lack of preparation are much more significant.

So, what should you be doing while you're still working to make sure you are well-prepared and ready for retirement whenever you decide to hang up your proverbial cleats?

Start early. If you're still in the early stages of your career, take advantage of the fact that time is on your side. The lowest-hanging fruit is to work your way toward maxing out your firm-sponsored retirement plan, such as your 401(k) plan. The power of investing early in your career cannot be overstated. Currently, you are allowed to contribute $19,000 per year to your 401(k) if you're under the age of 50. This amount does not include any matching contributions or profit-sharing contributions you may also get from your firm, depending on your firm's plan.

The $19,000 per year may not sound like much, but it adds up very quickly. Let's assume you're 27 now and you plan to work until age 62. If you contribute $19,000 every year from age 27 through 62 and that money grows by an average of 6% per year, you will have over $2.2 million at retirement!

Seems hard to believe, but that's the power of compounding interest working for you. This only works however, if you have the discipline to forego some spending now in order to save for the future.

Manage housing costs. Spending is the single largest driver that will determine how successful your retirement will be. With the way compensation often works at law firms, where your income goes up in lockstep with your advancement at the firm, the temptation is for your spending growth to match your income growth.

That phenomenon makes it very difficult to ever truly get ahead and create a healthy amount of financial white space or margin. However, if you intentionally let your spending lag your income growth you can make some serious progress toward setting yourself up for a comfortable, secure retirement.

In my experience with lawyers, the biggest culprit for driving spending to an unhealthy level is housing. It's very common to either overspend on your home or start to collect homes and end up with two or three homes. One of the keys to keep in mind with homes is not just the debt service from your mortgage, but the ongoing maintenance and real estate taxes. In my home state, Illinois, annual real estate taxes can be upward of $40,000 to $50,000 per year, depending on the value of the home. And unlike a mortgage payment, those tax payments never go away, and usually go up over time.

Those fixed expenses become a huge burden in retirement when you no longer have firm income to rely upon and you must pull from your retirement accounts to fund those ongoing costs. There's certainly nothing wrong with having a beautiful home or even more than one beautiful home, but just make sure that you understand the all-in costs and that your income well exceeds those costs so that you're still able to save significantly toward retirement during your peak earning years.

Catch up, if needed. If you're in the later stages of your career and you feel like you haven't planned sufficiently for retirement, take heart. There's hope. The measures you may need to take will likely be more substantial since you don't have as many years to let the power of compounding interest work on your behalf.

First, you have to get a very clear handle on what it costs you to live your desired lifestyle. Armed with that information, you need to get a professional financial planner to help you figure out two critical data points:

1. How long do you need to work in order to maintain your desired lifestyle through retirement?
2. How much do you need to save each year between now and retirement in order for your money to last throughout retirement?

One of the great things about being a lawyer is that you can work for a long time. So, if you are a bit behind on retirement savings, you can always work for a longer time than you'd originally planned, provided you continue to be healthy.

That's not true of all occupations. I've met with a number of lawyers over the years who plan to work until they're 80. This certainly makes retirement planning a lot easier if you plan to work for that long. If working longer is not an option, or is at least a very undesirable option, then it really comes down to either saving much more aggressively or finding a way to dial back your lifestyle during retirement in order to make the money last. I've been doing this for a long time and I've yet to meet the client who is willing to cut their lifestyle during retirement, so figuring out how much you need to save now becomes paramount.

Lawyers are very good at being prepared. When you walk into a client meeting you have done your homework and are ready to give your best advice. Can you say the same thing about how well you're preparing for retirement? Hopefully these tips will help you put yourself on the right path.

Important disclosure: Investments involve risk and past performance may not be indicative of future results. Balasa Dinverno Foltz LLC (BDF) investment and wealth management strategy recommendations may not be profitable, suitable or equal historical performance. BDF does not provide legal, tax, insurance, Social Security or accounting advice. The information herein is provided solely to educate on a variety of topics, including wealth planning, tax considerations, insurance, estate, gift and philanthropic planning. BDF's current written disclosure statement discussing advisory services and fees is available for review at www.BDFLLC.com or upon request.

Justin Peacock is an owner and wealth manager at BDF, a fee-only wealth management firm based near Chicago with assets under management in excess of $4 billion. BDF serves clients nationwide and Peacock provides financial planning services specifically tailored to addressing the distinct needs of lawyers. He can be reached at [email protected].