More amd more law firms are offering solicitors the chance to work on a flexible, freelance and cost-effective Basis – thanks to the benefits of new technology, reports Polly Botsford


As a lawyer, choosing what work you do and how much is an attractive proposition rarely experienced. The demands of a career in a busy, successful firm mean the schedule is decided by someone else. Fortunately, however, opportunities for lawyers to work on a freelance basis, where the proposition becomes a reality and where they actually have control, have suddenly become greater.



In recent years, alongside the more familiar locum market, a number of new law firms have appeared which offer lawyers the chance to work on a flexible, freelance basis: the lawyers choose when they work, how much they work, and even where they work. At some of these firms, such as Lawyers Direct, Halebury and Scomo, the lawyers are self-employed entities and the firm runs a bit like a barristers’ chambers; others, such as Axiom Legal, still employ their lawyers but let them control what legal projects they work on and, critically, when.



These practices provide legal services in the same way as traditional firms, but behind the scenes their structure is different: there is a central administrative hub, then an agglomeration of lawyers, employed or self-employed, who work according to their own agenda. Crucially, the firms have no hierarchy and no partners. Each lawyer is autonomous. Axiom Legal, originally a US-based practice and extremely successful there, and which recently opened a UK office, employs its lawyers but the employment relationship is fundamentally different: they can turn down work if they want to or they can stop for a short period if they want to; they will not get paid, but they decide.



The central practice is responsible for core administration – insurance, regulatory issues, billing and credit control, archiving and storage – and provides a centralised arena for marketing and branding. The lawyers are responsible for almost everything else, which is, in essence, giving legal advice.



Where they are self-employed, instead of receiving a salary, the lawyers earn fees directly for the work that they do for a client. The practice takes a management fee or service charge from the fee earned. The charge varies between firms, from about 15-40% of the fee billed. It also varies depending on whether the lawyer is working for one of their own clients, or whether the client and the work were sourced by the firm. There are no billing targets, though some firms do have a minimum level of revenue for each lawyer per year, which covers the firm’s initial cost in putting a lawyer on its books.



The firm is cost-effective for clients because the practices have fewer overheads: the lawyers do not, on the whole, have secretaries or other support staff which normally load up the wage bill for a traditional firm. And there is no huge office with orchids in an atrium and fresh water cascading from an arched figurine in the reception. Instead, lawyers work remotely, either from home or at the client’s offices.



Scomo, a firm of 50 self-employed lawyers based in north London, which does legal aid work and is now branching into private work with a new lawyer on board who represents the Royal British Legion, houses many of its lawyers in the same building. But this is the choice of the lawyers who are affiliated to Scomo (choice – that word again).



Finding clients, marketing and developing business is the responsibility of each lawyer, but this, according to Julian Cohen, a freelance employment lawyer with Halebury, a new firm based in the West End of London, is not something to be afraid of. ‘It is an ongoing evolutionary process. Because there is no pressure in respect of billing targets, you can do as much or as little as you want by way of marketing and you can do it in a way you feel comfortable with.’



The lawyer can get assistance in this task as the practices support their lawyers with branding and marketing initiatives. Most of the self-employed law firm models provide an incentive – Lawyers Direct call it a ‘just reward’ – for individual lawyers to refer work to the business for other lawyers to do, of somewhere between 10-30% of the fees generated from the work.



These new practices have emerged partly because the technology has developed that allows them to operate. Freelancers can tap into web-based servers and online document management systems. But they are also driven partly by the fact that lawyers have been ‘overworked and overpriced’, as Mark Rotenstreich, co-founder of Axiom, describes it, for too long.



Al Giles, practice leader at Axiom’s City office, says: ‘It is inevitable when you think that the traditional law firm model has been around for 100 years.’



Janvi Patel, co-founder and a director of Halebury, says these firms are a way of being different: ‘It is getting harder and harder to distinguish yourself as a law firm in a highly competitive market-place.’



Whatever the reason these practices have emerged, the benefits of working to this model are many. Choice means flexibility, as Mr Cohen explains: ‘For me, I have always worked hard, and been well rewarded, but I now prefer the flexibility to take time off if I need it.’



Being flexible does not equate to working part-time – a common misconception. ‘Out of Axiom Legal’s permanent staff, only 25% work part-time,’ says co-founder Alec Guettel.



‘Most people work hard if not harder than before, but to their own agenda’, agrees Lucy Scott-Moncrieff, who runs Scomo.



With no office as such, ‘there is no office politics’, she adds, a boon to many freelancers. The flip side, of course, is that lawyers will never make partner, because there aren’t any. But, as Mr Cohen says: ‘I don’t need partnership as I get much more pleasure out of building my own practice.’



The benefits are shared with the end-user, the client, too. The client is getting experienced, usually ex-City lawyers at a drastically reduced hourly rate. But, says Denise Nurse, a director at Halebury: ‘They are also getting a more personal service. The client doesn’t have to jump through hoops to get to people.’



Certainly all these practices have an impressive client list: from Sky at Halebury through to a number of investment banks with Axiom Legal. For Axiom, much of the work is in-house projects. Mr Guettel explains: ‘In-house work has peaks and troughs, and a firm like Axiom can help an in-house team manage those peaks.’



There is a view that freelancers do not earn as much as regular lawyers, but this is another misconception. The word ‘freelance’ actually derives from medieval times when a ‘freelance’ meant you were a mercenary. Freelancers can, in fact, reap substantial financial reward. Ms Patel says: ‘Your leverage is much better. Most fee-earners at a traditional firm will take home 20-30% of their billing target. Being a freelance lawyer means you set your own target and keep about 85% of it. You are, in fact, potentially better off.’



James Knight, who founded Lawyers Direct over five years ago, agrees. He strongly believes the earnings potential is limitless: ‘Some of our lawyers are earning five times as much as they were earning as junior partners in a law firm. They are not earning the £800,000 figures you read about in the press, but perhaps half that.’



A more established way of working as a freelance is as a locum. Positions for locums are still very much part and parcel of the legal market and are booming, as Charlotte Butterfield, senior manager in the private client division at recruitment agency Badenoch & Clark, explains: ‘There has always been room for more locums in the market. Clients are more educated now in what locums can offer. People used to think that locums were one type of person doing one type of work, but that has changed. Each firm has different needs – they understand that locums can be a good way of retaining staff (by helping out), as well as for doing specific project work.’



Freelancing as a locum is popular with a number of diverse and differently motivated lawyers, as Ms Butterfield demonstrates: ‘Locums tend to come in about four or five guises. There are those who have come to the top of their profession or retired at a young age, and want to go to the south of France for half of the year; professional locums who don’t want to be bogged down in office politics, and, of course, a number of foreign lawyers on yearly visas. It is also an excellent way of seeing what other employers are like, even experimenting with working in government, and in the public sector.’



Penny Mackinder, a family law solicitor, and acting manager of the Legal Aid Practitioners Group (LAPG), has been working as a locum for more than ten years. She obtains temporary work either through an agency, such as Badenoch & Clark, or through personal contacts or advertisements. She chooses to work as a locum because of her myriad different commitments (she does separate consultancy work running training courses, and is involved in groups such as the LAPG) and because it enables her to be more selective about the work she decides to do.



Locum work has been given a bad name, and is considered by some to be low-quality work, something Ms Mackinder flatly denies: ‘I take over the cases that the person I am replacing was doing. I charge what they charged and step into their shoes.’ Also, locum work is hugely varied and covers all practice areas, from corporate support and transactional work, through to major pieces of litigation where more hands are needed. ‘You could be working on something really very interesting,’ she adds.



The trend towards greater opportunities for freelance work is likely to continue as the legal market changes in the wake of the Legal Services Act. It may well lead to increased demand and supply for different patterns of working. The choices for lawyers will be there for the taking.



Polly Botsford is a freelance journalist