Family Legal Aid: a good way to go solo?

[FiguringItOut]

Hi everyone,

I haven't posted in a while here. I've just finished 2L and started a summer gig at a small litigation boutique.

My goal (actually, dream)? To go out on my own as a solo! 

I really like family law and would like to do that, plus wills/estates perhaps.

My question: is it a viable path to article at a family firm, then branch out and do just legal aid family work?

Is there enough of those contracts to sustain a fulltime practice? If so, is that a good way to start off a solo?

Any advice against it?

I just love the thought of doing it all on my own and every penny I earn stays in my pocket (yeah taxes, I know, but at least it doesn't go to the firm owner/partners).

I'm in BC, if that helps.

Thanks for your input and time. Much appreciated!

[Lawstudents20202020]

I wouldn't do it, because I tried something similar and it sucked.

My first year of practice I was at a small firm that had some mentorship on the wills and estates side, and none on the family side.

On the wills and estates end, don't do this on your own, wills and estates is more complicated than it seems, and it's easy to miss the nuance without someone more experienced.

As for the family law end, if you go into legal aid practice thinking it's going to put more money in your pocket than being in a firm, you are not going to like it. The first year or two maybe, but your hourly rate at a good firm is quickly going to go up, and you will get a cut of those billables, or have some other compensation package that takes into account the money you bring into the firm. In BC your legal aid hourly rate will be be about half of what you would bill as a first year associate, and never meaningfully increase. 

The other, and in my opinion bigger, issue, is mentorship. Legal aid does not mean easy or simple files. Litigation is more like a trade than a job, you only learn by doing and making mistakes, and you will learn faster and catch far more mistakes, if you have good mentorship.

After a year of legal aid I switched to a litigation firm with excellent mentorship. In the first 6 months at that firm I progressed more than I had in an entire year of legal aid. My billable rate, and the actual dollar amount recovered for my work, is much higher. I really don't have an issue with the partners taking a cut of my billables because I get something valuable in return.

That's not to say it can't be done, but if you want to go solo you will be in a much better spot to do so after 5 years of practicing with others.

[Phaedrus]

There are two paths for legal aid family work.  In Nova Scotia, for example, they have a staff lawyer legal aid model and 90%+ of their family lawyers practice it exclusively. They have pay parity with the Crown so starting salary is $83k/yr and caps at $164k/yr. Not sure about BC, though. You'll carry a high caseload, work a lot of hours, but your pay is guaranteed and - in some ways - you're not hamstringed by the constraint of only pursing applications/motions the client can afford. 

I'll be blunt, private practice taking on mostly legal aid certs is not advised: (1) cert are shitty, and (2) the hours are capped absurdly low. Absent a miracle, you will not encounter a file that runs less than the time allotted. You have to meet with the client, listen to their story, draft your materials, meet with the client to review, attend your Chambers appearance (depending on the jurisdiction), have a ton of phone calls with the client, draft and file supplementary materials, then attend your contested hearing or settlement conference, draft any resulting Orders, etc. and you might only have 12 hours, for example. In the first few years, you'll probably blow through those hours by the end of the first Chambers appearance. 

Another consideration - cert clients will bleed your time. They just do because they aren't paying for it out of pocket and their problems are consuming for them (and, by extension, you). In private practice, you can better protect against becoming a stand-in therapist by explaining the sheer cost of coming to you with every angry text they receive when they could spend 1/3 of the price and talk to an actual trained therapist. That argument doesn't carry as much weight when you're being paid no matter what. Oh, and cert clients think you're getting paid great money, are a fancy private lawyer, and they deserve your time. 

Let's talk about that money, too. In BC, you'll make $113.39/hr if you have <4 years' experience. You're going to blow past your hours for awhile, so assume your effective rate will be much lower than that. You'll need to do the math to figure out how many certificate hours you'll need to bill to make a living and keep your practice afloat. I think @Diplock can speak to the challenges of going solo early on better than most (and relying on certs). 

I'm not saying it's impossible to live off family certificates, but at best I'd say you're going to scrape by and work insane hours. Alternatively, you'll cut far too many corners and jeopardize your clients for the sake of being "efficient". The redeeming factor is that certificates are more or less guaranteed income, albeit with a few week/month delay between submitting the bill and getting paid. They're a great way to cut your teeth and dive into practice, but I cannot see someone having anything close to financial comfort if that's their only/primary source of income. 

I appreciate this is bleak, but people should know what they're getting themselves into here. 

Edited May 22 by Phaedrus

[FiguringItOut]

Many thanks to both of you for your time and thoughtful answers. I really appreciate it.

My goal is to go solo and set my own hours basically. The harder I work, the more hours I can bill. If I want, I take a month off in the summer. Or not. That's where I'm coming from.

My thought is to gradually decrease Legal Aid work and replace it with private clients. So if LABC can keep me going for a year or two, then I'll be happy. Even if I would be getting paid more at a firm somewhere.

I have a very large personal network and am well-connected in my ethnic community (I'm a mature law student, coming from a profession that made me sort of well-known). I can leverage that pretty well. But: I'd be quite happy if I can bring in around $110k gross as a solo, give or take, to start off. I've always been a solo of some sort in my professional life. I would love to have that in law as well.

A close friend is a crim defence lawyer who does only Legal Aid work. I'm just in awe of the flexibility he has in terms of hours and scheduling. And he's his own boss. But I don't want to do crim work. Family, however, I'm very interested in.

Is there a better way to go about what I'm trying to achieve? Or, rather, what's the best way?

Again, I'd really like to thank you for your time.