If you want to have both the benefit of working for the law and also not working for a boss, then being a freelance lawyer might give you the best of both worlds. You won’t have the power of a law firm on your side and you will be doing most of your work yourself, but you can also charge your own rates and get a lot of experience as well.
Still, before you renounce all law firms and brand yourself as an amazing lawyer, you need to know what being a freelance lawyer actually means for you, and whether it will fit your lifestyle and your needs.
The Pros of Being A Freelance Lawyer
You Get To Pick What You Specialize In
Whenever you work at a law office and work with a team of lawyers, you don’t get a ton of leeway in what cases you work on and what you get to do. If you work at a law firm that specializes in Auto Insurance, then all of your cases will be inside the auto insurance niche. If your true passion is white-collar crime, however, then you might need to branch out into freelancing.
Being a freelance lawyer will allow you to pick and choose cases that you want, rather than the ones that are handed down to you by a boss or are a part of the niche you have found yourself in. You might even be a jack of all trades or learn a specific field of the law for a specific client.
You Can Be Involved In All Parts Of The Law
From research, to preparing pleadings, to running disposition, and even trial prepping and appearing in court, if you love all parts of the legal process then being a freelance lawyer is for you. While you might do one or two of these things at a law firm, eventually the baton passes to another member of the team and it is out of your hands.
But if you care about your clients and want to be with them every single step of the way, then going Freelance allows you to follow their case through the entire process. Plus you can use your in-depth knowledge of the law as SEO for getting new clients.
The Cons Of Being A Freelance Lawyer
It Takes More Time
Going off of the above point, while you can go through the entire legal process with your clients to take their case from start to end, it does take a lot of time and you are all alone in this unless you hire help. So unless you are a very fast and effective lawyer, then you will be taking on fewer cases on your own.
You Need To Market Yourself
The other disadvantage of being a freelancer lawyer is that you have to market yourself. Instead of having a large law firm to do all your marketing for you and draw customers in the door, you need to market yourself.
If you aren’t familiar with how to do that or simply don’t like the idea of selling yourself, then you might need to spend some money on having people who are experts in that line of work with you. Click here to check software for lawyers.
There are a lot of pros and cons to entering any freelancing line of work, and being a freelance lawyer is no different. Make sure that you understand those pros and cons, and then you can choose if branching out to become a freelance lawyer is going to be the best for you.
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