Guns for hire

Not all solicitors need the comfort of familiar surroundings.

Freelancing is a rewarding career for those who take the plunge, writes stephen ward

No longer is the typical solicitor on a short-term contract a superannuated retired high street partner who dusts off his suit and returns from the golf course every summer to cover for somebody's holiday.

Now they have been recast not so much as locums, but as freelances, or even in the latest management parlance, as 'interim solutions'.The image of the contract solicitor has been steadily improving for several years, especially given the shortage of solicitors in many fields.

Most freelance solicitors in the pool of perhaps 300-400 are now freelance by choice; it is a career move which suits their personalities and aspirations better than working for single firms in single offices, surrounded by the same people every day.

Earlier this month, on-line legal venture Lawgym.com set up with a panel of freelance solicitors providing the advice (see [2001] Gazette, 3 May, 14).

When Natalie Siabikin chose to go freelance six years ago, after ten years as a solicitor - and having more than once turned down the opportunity to be a partner - she was considering other careers, and intended to stop practising as a lawyer.

'Then I needed to earn some money while I was thinking about it, and I started freelancing,' she says.

After a while she realised that being a freelance solicitor was a change in itself, and has never looked back.Her specialism is family and matrimonial, and she works for varying lengths of time.

'I have done a two-week holiday cover, or six months for maternity leave or a sabbatical,' she says.

She is now in the middle of a long contract.Other solicitors have become freelance for different reasons, Ms Siabikin says.

'Some embark on freelance career after redundancy, or between jobs.

Others like to be able to take long summer breaks,' she explains.Miles Kentish, who freelanced for several years in the 1990s before joining London firm Stanfords, says of the other freelances he met: 'I remember they were a really interesting bunch of people, many of them with serious hobbies and interests outside their work.

There's one who likes to go off and sail his boat every couple of months, another who goes fishing.' They were the ones who did not have large mortgages, he adds.For others, freelancing is a halfway house on the route back to a permanent job.

Charlotte Butterfield, manager of temporary contracts at the legal recruitment firm Badenoch & Clark, says firms like to recruit this way, as an added insurance that they are hiring the right person.

At the end of the contract the firm can cut its losses with no harm done if the person has not fitted in; if all has gone well, it can convert the temporary position into a full-time job offer, if it is what the solicitor wants.Freelances are used by everybody, from local authorities and in-house in commerce and industry to private practices, from sole practitioners up to magic circle firms, according to Ms Butterfield.The number of freelances - well below 1% of the profession - may be low because the typical solicitor remains a conservative person.

Ms Siabikin says: 'It is sometimes surprising to me how people get very concerned about where in the office they are sitting.

Where I'm working at the moment they are talking about moving offices, and everybody is finding it unsettling.'Pay rates vary.

Freelance solicitors, for all their enhanced status, have not yet matched their position to that of management consultants, whose high costs are generally justified to compensate for the lack of security.'But if you are a City tax specialist, then you will be snapped up whenever you are available,' says Ms Butterfield.

At the top end, solicitors can earn 100,000 for six months, while for routine domestic conveyancing the rate can be 100 or 150 a day, she says.

The Freelance Solicitors Group, a networking and advisory association, aspires to 200 a day as a basic wage.

The big fear of freelances is not knowing how to form links with employers.

One of the answers is agencies.

Another is the Freelance Solicitors Group, which sells lists of members to potential employers for a small administrative fee.Word of mouth is also important.

'A firm which wants a freelance will often take one from another firm when a contract ends,' Ms Siabikin says.

She sometimes approaches firms advertising for permanent staff, and suggests they hire her on a contract instead.One of the necessary qualities is adaptability.

Ms Siabikin, who is chairwoman of the Freelance Solicitors Group, says.

'The first day or so is difficult.

You need to find out which people you need to talk to, even where the kitchens are, how the phone systems work.

You have to be able to get the hang of these things quickly.'She also makes sure she establishes the areas of responsibility and job description carefully in advance, so there are no misunderstandings.One of the pitfalls for freelance solicitors, and other employees, is that they can be held liable if anything goes wrong.

For a long time there was a tacit assumption that employers would carry the can in the event claims resulting from the work of employees.

But Peter Miller - a solicitor who chairs CROSS, the Campaign for Regulations to Outlaw Solicitors Suing Staff - says that from the recession of the late 1980s onwards, firms have increasingly passed the liability downwards.Mr Miller, a former freelance turned sole practitioner, says the cases demonstrated the weakness of freelances' legal position.

'There were instances of people being sued, or action being threatened.

Other ways of recovering money were being applied, such as setting off the claims against wages.' Many, faced with threats, simply cut their losses and paid up, because at that time they had little choice.Last year, the Law Society finally announced a proposed rule change, to pass liability in most instances to the employing firm.

This change still awaits final approval.Ms Butterfield says freelances she sees are both experienced and capable at their jobs.

'They tend to be extremely good at what they do,' she says.

Otherwise it would be difficult to overcome the antipathy of law firms to the idea of bringing in outsiders to do important work.

She says she would not be able to place inexperienced solicitors.

'Firms don't want to waste time training them - they want them in and working straight away.'Because hiring on a short-term contract is less of a commitment, and firms can worry less about the impact on the career paths, power structure and salary differentials of existing staff, they will be more flexible about who they take when it is a freelance they are considering.'Sometimes they are prepared to take somebody who is 12 years qualified, when what they were looking for was eight-year qualified,' Ms Butterfield says, 'because to the person joining them it doesn't make any difference.

Similarly it matters less if the person is older than a partner they will be working under.

We can explain to them that the freelance will be used to that, and it really won't be a difficulty.'Although respect for freelances has risen, Ms Siabikin says, permanent people in an office still worry when a freelance first arrives.

'But if they see you can cut it, then it's fine.

I'm left to my own devices, which is how I like to be.'Solicitors thinking of taking the plunge need not be put off by the possibility of recession.

Mr Kentish says: 'It's always useful to have a CV with freelance work on it, because when things get tough, firms think you can be flexible.

Obviously, in recessionary times, they need flexible people.'l For more details on the Freelance Solicitors Group, contact Ms Siabikin, tel: 020 8992 3885.Stephen Ward is a freelance journalis