For me, it was because I got bored with being in the same place. I had a couple of conventional jobs where I was employed. I knew the ropes. I got on with my co-workers, it was a long time ago, but I do not remember feeling unhappy. Back in the early 1990s, there was […]
What should you be discussing when you chat with a Firm for the first time, either in response to an advert posted by them or where they have contacted you, having seen your profile? Obviously your hourly rate. If they are calling you about your profile, you may well have included this information in one […]
It all started in 1991. I have been at my new firm for about 2 years. The people were nice and polite, the work was challenging and therefore okay, but I had already started to get “itchy feet”. I had realised that being in the same place indefinitely was not for me. One day a […]
This article compares self-employed locums and staff lawyers, discussing differences in tax status, responsibilities, and integration into the work environment.
Back in the 1990s, when I started locumming, Locums were a new breed, often regarded with suspicion and curiosity by Firms and fellow lawyers. I was asked more than once in the early days whether I was a Locum because I couldn’t hold down a ‘proper’ job. Up until around then, Firms had tended to […]
I like being self-employed! The thing I like the most is not being tied to a particular firm or office. The freedom of movement is what first attracted me to being a locum. Over the years I’ve worked with well over 100 different Firms, not to mention the Firms I’ve been back to on a […]
When I tell people what I do, I still get some blank faces, even amongst fellow lawyers. When I first decided to give locumming a go, over 30 years ago, it was even more unusual, paternity leave hadn’t been invented back then and many Firms still tried to make do when one of their fee […]
I’ve been a locum for almost 32 years, except for a couple of years at the turn of the century when I accepted an offer of paid employment following the birth of my son. It was local and the money was good, that’s my excuse. It’s not for me to judge myself but I have […]
I’ve just sat through another whistle-stop overview of yet another case management system which is supposed to be the fee earner friend. If it is a friend, it’s a very needy one. It does lots of things. But is that what we really need? The practice management team clearly think so. Largely consisting of non-lawyers, […]
The term ‘Fee Earner’ is becoming a misnomer. Firms are increasingly expecting lawyers to do everything, their point being that they have paid for and installed expensive software to enable this. They have got a point, but they are wrong. It is a false economy to require (so-called) fee earners to log their own time, […]