Does buying out a partner in a professional practice work differently than in a regular business?

Often yes, because professional practices — law, accounting, medicine, and similar regulated fields — typically operate under additional rules from the relevant regulatory body governing who can own shares in the practice, how clients or patients are handled during a transition, and sometimes how the buyout itself can be structured. Ownership in many professional corporations is restricted to licensed members of the profession, which limits who can actually buy a departing partner's interest compared with an ordinary business, where any buyer could step in.

Client or patient files and confidentiality obligations also add a layer that doesn't exist in the same way in a typical business sale, since the departing partner's professional obligations don't simply end because their ownership does. If you're buying out a partner in a regulated practice, check your governing body's specific rules on ownership and transition alongside the usual corporate and purchase-agreement mechanics, since professional regulation can override what would otherwise be a straightforward buyout.