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Ask about good leaver and bad leaver provisions
Ask about drag along
Ask about vesting periods and dates
If it’s k1, and you’re coming from W2, make sure to ask for cash flow analysis and not just earnings. Huge difference.
Partnership tax rates are considerably higher so you need to compare not just earnings but cash flow, if coming from w2, to ensure that you’re comparing apples to apples.
Are you at the point of discussing remuneration? The way partner drawings work is quite different across firms so I would ask for an idiots guide to how they do it and how transparent a process it is.
Ask to see the last 3 years of accounts. You will be a ‘shareholder’ so you should understand how they have been stewarding the firm.
You should also understand how units/shares are distributed yearly, what’s a typical scenario for someone starting wherever you are starting. In B4, terms of partnership contracts are largely non-negotiable but in a smaller firm who knows. Best is for you to read it in detail, or ask for a lawyer to read it to make sure there’s nothing off. Sometimes the by-laws of the partnership are also key and subject to change over time. Might want to read those too.
Ask if you can still hold shares in your soon to be previous employer
I briefly went to a non-B4 with the lure of building my own business. Then the second month there was a note that Partner draw payments for the month would be delayed due to AR delays. That was when I realized they were operating hand-to-mouth. No thanks, I dipped at the first opportunity.