Be the boss

Increasing numbers of CILEX Lawyers are setting up their own firms, but what are the risks and rewards? Dan Bindman hears from members who have taken the plunge

CILEX Lawyers no longer have to swallow their frustration at being employees or contend with the knowledge that they could run a practice far better than their bosses.

Increasing numbers are striking out on their own; at least 16 CILEX Fellows have set up law firms regulated by CILEx Regulation, either by themselves or with other legal professionals, including solicitors and barristers, while others have done so with other regulators for various reasons.

Those who have taken the plunge voice no regrets about their decision. They do not downplay the challenges – both material and psychological – but consider that the rewards make it more than worthwhile.

Practice rights and then the Legal Services Act 2007 ushered in a new era for CILEX Lawyers, opening up opportunities that would have seemed unthinkable in the old days of managing clerks. Whether partners or founders, there is little that CILEX Lawyers cannot now do.

Those who have set up businesses recall that the financial risks and fear of not earning straight away were considerable barriers, but stress that the freedom to be able to run a practice so that client care is put front and centre of the firm’s ethos are a big advantage. The flexibility that comes with owning your own firm is widely appreciated.

In the driving seat

That is not to say there aren’t heavy responsibilities – especially when employing people – in addition to the legal work, which nobody minimises. Not to mention meeting the numerous demands necessary to satisfy the regulator. But achieving those exacting standards is its own reward, particularly if the CILEX Lawyer in question has dreamed for years of how liberating it could be to be in the driving seat.

Patricia White, a Fellow with her own firm, Patricia White Lawyers and Advocates, has a mixed caseload which includes employment law, landlord and tenant, family disputes, personal injury defendant work, professional negligence, construction disputes, and insolvency.

She describes herself as “a risk taker” who felt “quite suffocated being employed by solicitors because I didn’t particularly like the way I had to deliver a service [to clients]”. When CILEX was permitted to authorise CILEX Fellows to run their own entities in January 2015, she jumped at the chance.

I’d never run a business before, never had to write a business plan or devise an office manual, and these were big challenges for me 

For many years, Ms White had been running her own video photography business, so as an already successful businesswoman with a good knowledge of what was required, she had no hesitation: “I started as soon as it was announced… with a view to setting up a litigation and advocacy service.”

Having been one of the first to apply, Ms White was delayed by illness but soon after became registered. The biggest challenge was the financial risk, she reports. “I didn’t really have a big nest egg of capital, so it was a case of taking the plunge and taking a risk because I didn’t really have thousands and thousands of pounds as a back-up.”

She expects this will be a key deterrent to other CILEX Lawyers contemplating setting up alone.

“It’s not having the security of that bit of capital and being quite worried that if I don’t have the sufficient capital to get through and I don’t have the business coming in straight away, how do I manage?”

Claire Holland, who started Holland Family Law in Leicester decades after starting out at the age of 17 as a legal secretary, also found the financial burden daunting. “Initially taking the risk, giving up a full-time job and potentially earning nothing, were the main challenges.”

Another experienced practitioner, Jane Barlow, found the financial risk was mitigated somewhat by the fact that she had run a niche wills and probate practice doing unreserved work in Cornwall for many years after practising in solicitors’ firms. She had left to strike out alone with an established network of contacts made with local accountants, financial advisers and so on while she was employed, so had a ready-made work stream.

Nevertheless, she started small and kept her overheads low: “I took it very steadily at first and set up in the spare bedroom before later moving to a home office in the garden.”

Regulatory challenges

Patricia White underlines the difficulty of satisfying the regulator that she was ready to be authorised to practice on her own account, particularly because she was one of the first. “Obviously I was a ‘guinea pig’ because the regulator wanted to make sure every box was ticked, so they were very, very thorough.

“They wanted everything ready for when I was authorised so that I could open my door and practice on 1 February 2017 and have clients coming in straight away from day one.”

Ms Holland gratefully received a lot of support from the regulator but said it was hard work nevertheless: “This was all new to me. I’d never run a business before, never had to write a business plan or devise an office manual, and these were big challenges for me. But eventually I succeeded, and the rest is history.”

Khyati Joshi, a barrister and Fellow who runs a CILEX-regulated immigration practice in central London, says the regulation is rigorous.

Though things are simpler for her because she does not hold client accounts, she says the regulator even helped to advise on whether new premises were appropriate. This was evidence of how good CILEx Regulation was and how detailed its approach is.

Another challenge is bearing the responsibility of being an employer and setting the business priorities as head of your own firm.

Heavy use of technology helps immeasurably with such things as compliance with money laundering regulations and meeting HM Land Registry requirements 

Ms Barlow observes: “Sorting out the client account and employing people are definitely downsides”.

Ms Holland, who now employs two solicitors and a paralegal, and is soon to take on another one of each, said she was fortunate in that every member of staff shared her views on the importance of client service. She acknowledges, however, that being responsible for employment and retention of staff was hard work.

Ms Joshi points out that managing the firm and deciding on its direction as well as doing the accounts, and ensuring that marketing, tax declarations, indemnity insurance and so on are arranged, on top of practising law, is not to be underestimated. “I have to oversee everything and it adds work.”

Beverley Sheehan, who qualified with CILEX in 2009 when she was 49 and a mother, qualified as a conveyancing practitioner and runs her own CILEX-regulated entity. She says the heavy use of technology helps immeasurably with such things as compliance with money laundering regulations and meeting HM Land Registry requirements.

Meanwhile, using cloud technology helped provide a good service to clients. For her, an added headache in common with all conveyancing practitioners has been securing professional indemnity insurance, the price of which had recently gone up “considerably”.

Combating inequality

Although being a CILEX Lawyer and not a solicitor has never been much of an issue for most self-employed law firm owners, Ms White says it has been an issue for her. “One of the biggest difficulties once I was set up was getting beyond the ‘are you a solicitor?’ question”, [followed by] ‘if you’re not a solicitor, you can’t provide me with the service I’m looking for’. That sort of thing.”

She continues: “I do explain to people what my qualifications are and people ask me whether I am a solicitor and of course I tell them I’m not, but I’m regulated and authorised to act to do exactly what they do.

“Yet there is a problem on the branding because nobody knows who CILEX is and that is something to overcome.”

Ms Sheehan also complains: “There is a level of discrimination in the workplace and a sense of inequality with other practising lawyers providing the same service”.

She says she has tried to mitigate this disadvantage “by practising law to the letter and with high morals and an ethos of courtesy to other practising lawyers and their staff”.

Relatedly and similarly carrying a danger of “taking the shine off” the pleasure of running your own firm, Ms Sheehan points out that practice as a conveyancer is made more difficult because CILEx Regulation uses a single insurer which makes obtaining insurance expensive and difficult.

Freedom and flexibility

Despite all the challenges, none of these Fellows regret taking the leap. All suggest that on balance, the rewards of self-direction and freedom from supervision have been liberating.

Ms White adds that, although setting up was draining, she “loves” what she does: “I’ve never looked back and would definitely recommend it to all CILEX Lawyers to do it if they can.

Freedom from supervision has been liberating for many

“One of the main rewards is I get the results for clients and it’s me that does that, with my firm and my name.”

Ms Holland concurs: “It’s been very challenging but very rewarding. I never thought I would own and run a successful business and employ the number of staff I do. I feel quite humbled that I’ve managed to achieve it.”

Ms Sheehan says her business is “going from strength to strength” and she intends to take on paralegal and administrative staff shortly.

Ms Joshi highlights the freedom to steer her business in the direction she wanted as a key reward: “You have much more control and you can guide the progress of the firm.”

Ms Barlow, who after more than 40 years working in the law – starting off as an office junior in 1975, at the time believing chartered status was “a mere pipe dream” – has moved from running her own wills and probate business to become a law tutor.

Looking back, she says: “For me there was the sense of satisfaction of doing a job well, in the way that I knew clients would appreciate. It was all based on service to the client.”

She particularly enjoyed the flexibility: “If I wanted to leave for a couple of hours in the middle of the day, I didn’t have to ask anybody as long as I was satisfied everything was covered.”

Ms White agrees: “I can work when I want to. I put in 18 hours a day, then maybe I can have two or three days off.”

Ms Barlow underlines how winning rights of audience was a vital part of showing the world she was equal to the lawyers she worked with every day. In the days before them, she recalls it was so obvious that she was qualified in court that one of the senior judges in Leicester gave her a certificate to say she had the right to appear before the local magistrates.

She said: “I felt like a poor relative years ago when I was training and also when I didn’t have rights of audience in front of a magistrate. It used to really upset me.”

Speaking to CILEX Lawyers who have branched out, there is no doubt that the achieving entity regulation is arduous and time-consuming. There are no shortcuts when it comes to satisfying the regulator.

This is even before taking on board the responsibilities that come with being an employer as well as an approved manager and legal practice owner in a heavily regulated sector.

The path of least resistance is to remain an employee. Many CILEX Lawyers will find satisfaction in doing so, but some will always wonder what it would be like to start up their own independent firm and long to be their own boss.

It has never been easier to do so and there are plenty of successful examples to draw on. The doors are now open. What’s stopping you from walking through?