Can You Practice Law As A ‘Side Dish’?

Can you be "successful" practicing law this way? Columnist Susan Cartier Liebel offers her thoughts.

I have had an ongoing correspondence with a friend whom I’ve never met but feel I can call her friend because we have been exchanging intimate, thoughtful, and fun conversations on the phone and through e-mail for a few years, and she continues to have an interesting professional trajectory. At one point, while doing document review, she was planning to go solo. During the planning and networking phase, a truly fabulous legal job landed in her lap. (Yes, when you start acting like a peer instead of a subordinate, job opportunities surface!)

She took the legal job which offered advancement opportunity, security, benefits, and tremendous flexibility during her work week which dove-tailed very nicely with her life goals. Even with this economic turmoil, she was also just promoted.

When we corresponded recently, she said she was itching to practice the kind of law she really wanted to practice in addition to her full-time legal job. She saw starting her solo practice as a “side dish,” not the main course. This really got me to thinking about how often we tell people to hold onto their jobs until they can go solo as the “main dish,” never contemplating people may very well be happy with their current jobs but want to also have a “side dish” practice.

There are some who would say you can’t have a solo practice as a side dish and do it effectively. They could be right if they saw the “side dish” solo practice as just a stepping stone to becoming the “main course” solo practice. However, this isn’t her goal. She just wants to take a few select cases when she chooses while maintaining her current job. I say, “Why not?”

In her particular situation, she is constantly approached about a niche area of practice having to do with family formation catering to a particular ethnic group and sexual orientation. Couldn’t get nich-ier than that! It is also purely transactional and doesn’t require normal working hours or a court schedule. I personally believe this type of transactional work is best if you’re doing solo as a side dish.

The nice thing about this approach is she will have a built-in Plan B should her job somehow evaporate. But her goal isn’t to build her practice into a full-time operation. Her goal is simply to have a solo practice in addition to her current full-time job and on her terms representing just the people she wants to represent. There are no external pressures other than her desire to have a client base of her choosing in an area of law she is drawn to and will enjoy.

The reality is we aren’t just talking about the attorney who works in a non-legal job 9 – 5 having a “solo side dish.” We’re talking about attorneys working the same way the rest of the world has worked for some time. Shouldn’t they be able to be employed full-time doing legal work and have a “solo side dish”? No one bats an eye at the full-time employed programmer’s “side dish” software development company or the programmer who develops apps. What about the full-time employed accountant who also has an outside practice doing tax returns? What about the full-time, stay-at-home Mom or Dad who wants to have a “solo side dish” practice? Why should it be any different for lawyers?

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What is Success?

This also begs the question “what is success?” I am often asked what success is when it comes to practicing law as a solo. So many equate it with something measurable, and inevitably this is money. Fair enough. If the goal is to build a sustainable business which pays the bills, including outrageous student loans, and allows for comforts in your life, you’re in the majority of those who go solo. Others say satisfaction in servicing clients. Yet others say it is a combination of the two. No one is wrong or right. It’s how they define success.

This example of solo as a side dish is interesting in terms of measuring success because in this particular instance, she is practicing law — just not the type of law that gives her the greatest satisfaction. It pays the bills well and gives her flexibility to try out doing the law she really wants to do. Will her solo practice net her $100,000 a year in legal fees? Not the way she wants to do it. At least I don’t think so. But that’s also not her stated goal. Her goal is to provide legal services to a defined audience on her terms while keeping her full-time job. So, will she be a “successful” solo practitioner? If this is her idea of success, yes. And it’s not for anyone else to tell her otherwise.

What do you think? Do you have a full-time (legal) job but would like to have a solo practice as a “side dish”? Do you already practice “solo as a side dish”?


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Susan Cartier Liebel is the Founder and CEO of Solo Practice University®, an online educational and professional networking community for lawyers and law students who want to create and grow their solo/small firm practices. She is a coach and consultant for solos, an entrepreneur mentor for LawWithoutWalls.org, a member of the advisory board for the innovative Suffolk School of Law – Institute on Law Practice Technology and Innovation, an attorney who started her own practice right out of law school, an adjunct professor at Quinnipiac University School of Law for eight years teaching law students how to open their own practices, a frequent speaker, and a columnist for LawyersUSA Weekly, The Connecticut Law Tribune, The Complete Lawyer, and Law.com. She has contributed to numerous legal publications and books offering both practical knowledge and inspiration. You can follow her on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+, and you can email her at Scl@solopracticeuniversity.com.