Excited about flexible work and being your own boss? Then freelancing could be it! It may seem a bit confusing at the beginning since you become in charge of everything, starting from administrative tasks to finding clients. However, the game is worth the deal. Freelancing is becoming a hot trend in the economy. Some 36% of the US workers (57.3 million) are freelancers who work from home. Lawyers are among those that choose to freelance over the traditional jobs. Only Montage Legal Group has a little over 200 lawyers on the provider side. But to keep steady cash flowing when you are a freelancer, you need to be educated on some nuts and bolts of this type of work and this article may be handy perfectly well.
1. Freelance Lawyer: Area of Service
At a law firm, lawyers normally focus on a specific practice area. There is more space for flexibility with freelancing. It’s best to think about the practice areas that are most demanded in your market place otherwise you may expect to go out of business pretty quickly. Read “7 Hot Law Jobs For the Future: Emerging Practice Areas in the Law.”
2. Administrative Tasks
This may seem like a load of work but it shouldn’t be if you take the right attitude. The market is full of apps that help you manage your administrative matters from time tracking to invoice to document management. Read “10 Apps to Save Time on Administrative Tasks.”
3. Freelance Lawyer: Legal Apps
Don’t forget that the market is abundant with legal apps specifically designed for lawyers. You can find anything like client communication, legal research, note taking apps that will save you time and make you more efficient. For legal apps, have a look at “Best Apps in Law.”
4. Networking
You need to build a strong network with other attorneys to get clients. If you research a bit you’ll find a lot of attorney networking agencies but we recommend one application that is currently used by thousands of attorneys in 10 different states. Sign up to AppearMe – a huge portal of attorneys where lawyers post jobs and even refer entire cases.
5. Coworking Spaces
You should definitely know about coworking spaces. These are essentially shared workspaces that offer office-like amenities such as hot-desks, private meeting rooms, kitchens, coffee and more. If you want to escape the isolation of a home or just have an important meeting with a client, these spaces are perfect and are rather affordable. Read “Top Coworking Places For Law Firms and Individual Lawyers.”
6. Attorney Case Referrals
You may be amazed at how much work you can get with attorney case referrals if you have the right approach. And don’t rely on friend recommendations or agencies. Time has changed and legal practice has changed too. Try AppearMe. Just sign up and become a user for free. You’ll get notifications when you sign up. Read the article “Refer a Case” to find out more.
7. Right Attitude
Our final advice is to develop a patient and determined attitude. You do gain with freelancing but it does come without some inconvenience. Once you get used to this new lifestyle, you will not want to do in-house work and be dread of Monday mornings! Have a look at the article “Attitude is Everything: The 5 Secrets to Success for Freelancers” to tune-up.