At first, it can be very hard to leave the law, or continue to practice law and leave your current job. The unknown is very hard to grasp and confront.
So how do you bridge that gap? How do you get the wheels started on a new career, on a new day-to-day schedule, on a new you? One way is contract legal work.
Now, before you succumb to the traditional reservations about contract work (the work is not stimulating, it will blemish my resume, I can’t stoop that low), do note that along with all of the major shifts in the legal industry, contract legal work is becoming its own practice area. As an example, my friend Onna Young (whose coaching practice Life After Debt is a must for anyone wrestling with debt issues) forwarded me a Meetup group in Los Angeles of contract attorneys. They meet once a month, share stories, a drink and referrals.
And with today’s technology, being a contract attorney is much more than working in your pajamas from your dining room table with a Yahoo or Hotmail email address. Today, you can so easily throw up a nice looking site, print up business cards and marketing collateral, find effective networking channels and outsource work to other attorneys that contract legal work is really just another term for . . . starting your own practice.
Who’s ready?