It is one thing deciding to go solo and another deciding on which practice area to venture into. When venturing into solo practice for the first time, most lawyers are usually at a crossroad trying to weigh whether they should chase their passion or go after the money.
This can be such a challenging step to go through but with the right research and planning, you will be able to make strategic decisions that will well set you up for success.
There are several high paying opportunities for you to venture into as a solo lawyer (how to make money as a solo lawyer). Below, we are going to highlight some of the best practice areas for a solo lawyer you should consider.
Employment Law
As an employment lawyer, your main focus will be to help clients with their relationship with their employees. You need to have great mediation and negotiation skills. This job mostly involves evaluating contracts, negotiating settlements as well as filing any form of complaints on behalf of their clients.
Immigration Law
An immigration lawyer needs to be someone who cares about their clients and can give them their absolute best. This can never happen in an office full of other immigration lawyers all competing on getting clients. For this reason, solo lawyers become the most preferred choice to clients who are seeking help with immigration issues such as deportation, fighting to keep families together etc.
Personal Injury Law
Personal injury also known as tort law is meant to protect an individual by allowing them to file civil lawsuits. This will help see to it that the affected party can get a legal remedy for the losses inflicted from an incident.
There are several instances where this type of law applies and it includes;
Accidents: when someone acts in a careless manner that leads to harm to another person. For example, medical malpractice or car accidents.
Intentional Acts: where one intentionally conducts themselves in a way that causes harm to another person.
Defective Products: this occurs where someone is harmed by using a product that is defective or dangerous.
Defamation: when one makes a statement that causes harm to anothers image.
By choosing to work as a Personal Injury Lawyer, you automatically can set yourself apart. To be able to provide your clients with the best service, you need to have patience and empathy with your clients. Most often than not, you will find that these clients will now also be dealing with emotional and psychological traumas from their experiences.
Complex Litigation Law
Companies, at one point or another, will often find themselves facing lawsuits either from clients, vendors or real estate companies. These are easy, quick to handle and any experienced lawyer can help resolve these issues. However, with complex litigation it is different.
Complex litigation usually involves lengthy and complex court cases with several parties in many jurisdictions. Most times, you will find that such cases even tend to draw the attention of the media and in the long run, despite how the case will turn out, companies usually end up spending a lot of money in the process.
This therefore makes this practice area among the most lucrative practice areas for a solo lawyer. These types of cases can usually go on for a long time hence it can turn out to be a significantly large payoff.
Sports and Entertainment Law
If you love the sports and entertainment industry, then this is a perfect option for you to venture into as a solo lawyer. Imagine your favorite athletes and artists confiding in you and trusting that you are going to advocate on their behalf. There are so many areas of law incorporated in this practice area hence you might find that you need to specialize first.
The type of work you will be involved in as a sports and entertainment lawyer include following up on compensation and royalties, IP laws as well as contract and dispute negotiations.
Real Estate Law
Real estate law is a branch of civil law that governs the control of ownership and use of land. As a solo real estate lawyer, your focus will mainly be on matters related to property issues such as title issues, landlord and tenant disputes, mortgage documents, property sale and purchase transactions amongst many others.
Real estate is a growing sector of the economy making it a good venture for a solo lawyer. Also, if you like to work with transactional legal work, you will enjoy working in this line of work.
Family Law
Family law involves child support, divorce, adoption, juvenile cases, domestic violence, separation and a lot of other drama that occurs within families. These types of cases are quite popular and can sometimes turn ugly. Bet you have on many occasions had many inquiries from friends and family or even referrals about this area of practice
As a solo lawyer, family law can become a great area of your practice if you want to. Even if it is not your cup of tea, as a lawyer venturing into solo practice, you might want to incorporate this in your list of services in the meantime.
Tips on how to ensure your private practice is successful
Work With the Right Clients
Finding the right clients for your firm requires a lot of networking and marketing (how to make money as an attorney). The simplest and most effective way of marketing your services is by asking your clients to leave you reviews on your social media platforms as well as refer you to potential clients.
Streamline Your Working Processes
These can sometimes be very time consuming and costly. As you know, not every client that comes knocking at your door will be a good fit for your firm. Without proper pre-screening processes, you will end up spending a lot of resources on dead-end projects. Thanks to technology, there are now various online tools and resources that will help you with ensuring the efficiency of all these processes.
Have Efficient Payment Processes
Receiving a paycheck at the end of it all is the most important aspect of working to make money. To ensure that this is possible, you need to make sure that you diversify your payment options. This makes it easy for clients to pay for your services almost instantly to avoid waiting for maybe up to months to receive your paycheck.
In Conclusion
Regardless of which best area of practice you choose, you need to make sure that your solo law practice is differentiated from those of your competitors. Advertise your services and let clients know how your services are unique from those of other firms offering the same legal services.
