Perhaps you’ve noticed that there’s a growing demand for the kind of work that you do. Maybe you’ve decided you could do better work with the help of a team. Perhaps you just want to hire a staff so you can occasionally enjoy a vacation without having to worry about your business. Or maybe you just see the potential for bigger earnings. All of these are great reasons to expand. However, growing your firm too quickly without a thoughtful plan can have disastrous results.

CREATE EFFICIENT SYSTEMS

Lawyers know all about the importance of documentation when it comes to their legal cases, but they don’t always take the time to keep a record of their internal business practices. Instructions for oft-repeated tasks like filing documents, contacting clients, signing in visitors, and scheduling meetings should be clear and easy to access for everyone on staff. Established procedures for these kinds of tasks remove friction and enable the work to happen quickly and easily. Written procedures also enable your business to operate smoothly when you’re not there. Optimizing all of your procedures accomplishes several things like ensuring that you have a solid procedural foundation to build on (your processes will only get more complicated as additional people, places or subject areas get involved). PracticePanther sells law practice management software that helps firms leverage the benefits of automation, helping them accomplish more in less time.

ADDITIONAL LEGAL WORK

As an attorney, your most obvious and lucrative side-hustle assets are your education, skills, and experience as a lawyer. So, consider looking for ways to take on additional legal work in your field. Before taking extra legal work as a side hustle, ensure there are no conflicts with your current role and that you’re properly insured. To find additional legal work more easily, you can turn to technology and an established platform for help.  For example, UpCounsel is an online legal services marketplace that lets lawyers choose the projects and clients. UpCounsel connects businesses with legal services and attorneys on demand, making finding legal work easier for you. As a result, clients can also find lawyers more easily. 

EDUCATIONAL INSTRUCTION 

Do you have a lot of valuable advice for new lawyers or law students? Are there things that you wish you were taught in law school that you can pass onto the next generation of lawyers? Do you have experience or interest in teaching? If so, sharing your knowledge can be a rewarding side hustle both intellectually and financially. Law students preparing for the bar exam often need help. An experienced lawyer can help guide them through the process with paid tutoring services. From creating bar exam prep materials to law-related courses, you can create and sell courses on an online course delivery platform like Thinkific and Udemy. While developing course materials may require a more significant initial time investment, the one-time investment can continue to bring in income.

TRANSCRIPTION

As a lawyer, your training and experience with legal documents make you uniquely equipped to efficiently and effectively transcribe audio into well-written legal documents. These legal documents include legal pleadings, motions, or video conference depositions and interviews. Again, online platforms can take the work out of finding side hustle gigs: companies like SpeakWrite, and Cambridge Transcriptions offer remote work for legal transcription.