Are you exploring becoming a consultant solicitor? Perhaps you’ve looked at the various consultancy model firm’s websites and you can’t decide who to choose. Or maybe you’re only just wondering how it works and whether it could work for you.

I’m Steven Mather, and since January 2020, I’ve been a consultant solicitor and without any doubt becoming a consultant solicitor was the best career decision I’ve ever made. In this lengthy blog post, I want to set out everything I think you need to know about becoming a consultant solicitor, from having the first thoughts to picking a platform, and then doing the work, and living your life.

You’ll forgive me though; I’ve become somewhat of an evangelist for the consultancy model so this article does perhaps have some bias. I’ve tried to keep impartial in some aspects though, I am a solicitor after all and not a salesperson. So what follows here is my personal views and, of course, isn’t legal or business advice. That said, I’d be delighted to have a chat with you at whatever stage of your consultancy career you are at.

Introduction

What’s the difference between a traditional solicitor and a consultant solicitor?

The Law Society in 2025 will celebrate its 200th year anniversary, and of course, the profession itself has been around forever. Literally, forever – even in the Bible there’s a reference to Zenas the Lawyer (Titus 3:13) although he probably wasn’t standing in court over a boundary dispute.

But certainly, since the profession began in the Courts of Equity circa 1850s, the solicitors model hasn’t changed much. Back then, most solicitors would join together in partnership.

These days, of course, you study, you qualify, you become a solicitor; then you’re an associate, a managing associate, a junior or salaried partner and – maybe if you work hard, bill enough, invest a stack load of cash – maybe one day you’ll become an equity partner. Of course, even getting equity doesn’t mean equal – unusually there is a points scoring, lockstep, buy-in model which delays property sharing of profits for many years.

Bitter, me? …

Anyway, the key difference is that is that a consultant solicitor no longer is an employee of a law firm, but a self-employed contractor to law firms (can be one or a few, as we’ll see below). This means you’re free to act for who you want, charge what you want, accept or decline work, go on holiday, do life and work with a true blend and much more besides.

The growing trend of consultancy and consultant solicitors

Reports vary, but suggest that somewhere between a quarter and a third of all lawyers will turn to the consultancy model,

See here: https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/quarter-of-lawyers-could-work-at-fee-share-firms-within-three-years as an example.

Articles suggest consultant numbers have risen at 3 times the rate of normal solicitors and the rise of consultancy model law firms is rising faster than anything.  The Codex Edge report suggests a quarter of all lawyers will be consultants.

We’ll explore why there is this growing trend, why you should get ahead of the curve and jump now, and what it’s like being a consultant solicitor.

1. Traditional Route: Starting Your Own Firm (or Buying an Existing Practice)

You may or may not have thought about starting your own firm. I didn’t to be honest, perhaps because I was previously a partner at equity level with management responsibilities – in other words, been there done that.

But I did look at the option once I’d become a consultant and work/cash was there. I also looked at buying an existing practice from a retiring solicitor (indeed, in my previous firm we acquired several similar practices, so I have some experience there too).

Here are three major reasons why I think the traditional route is fraught with issues and why consultancy is much better.

1.1 Financial Investment

It costs quite a bit to set up your own law firm (vs literally a few hundred quid as a consultant).

You’ll need to consider:

• SRA Application for Authorisation (you may be able to do this yourself, but it is probably best done with the help of an external company. Either way, you’ll have the £200 application fee to pay and once approved the regulatory fee (PC fee) each and every year – which is based on turnover. You’ll have your own practising certificate to pay as well (but you have that as a consultant as well).
• Professional Indemnity Insurance – part of the SRA requirement. When i was obtaining quotes, I was told for a new sole practitioner it would be around 8-12% of turnover. If you think you’re going to bill £200,000 for example, that would be £16,000 to £24,000 plus IPT tax – and that is usually payable upfront so may need finance if you don’t have the capital, so consider the finance costs too.
• Computer hardware – this is probably the same as setting up as a consultant, but you’ll need a decent PC/laptop, perhaps a printer and a screen – suggest a budget of £700-1000 here at least (or if you’re a tech geek like me, more!)
• Computer software – you’ll need Microsoft Office 354 which is only like £10-15 a month per user. You may want extra software like Adobe PDF etc
• Case Management Software – good case management software with accounts is essential if you’re setting up on your own – they cost a few grand a year as a bare minimum.
• Compliance – sure you could write all your compliance docs, AMLO/COLP etc, or you could outsource – I’m led to believe this could cost between £3-10k
• Cashier outsourcing – I guess initially you could learn how to do solicitors accounts but just the thought of that makes me wince, so lets say you’ll outsource this or employ someone from the start.

In the round, I thought about £20,000 might be the bare minimum that I’d need to start my own firm up.

Of course, on top of that you have the day-to-day, monthly and annual running costs.

When I looked at buying an existing practice (sole practitioners, couple of part-time staff, billing circa £500k) – the core costs to run the practice were about 20-25% of the turnover. Ok that might be a little less than a platform law firm might charge you as a consultant solicitor, but it is money well spent in my opinion as it meant I didn’t need to do a stack load of admin in ‘running the business’.

What’s worse, however, is when you look to retire. Having your own firm means having so-called run-off cover on your PII. It costs about 50% of what your PII cover was at the time of closing, and you need it for 6 years. That noise dear reader is your retirement fund slowly draining away.

1.2 Operational Challenges

And that is a key distinguishing feature.  Starting your own law firm is a major operation and requires you to be all things:

• get the work
• do the work
• admin
• compliance
• AML
• insurance
• etc

And your dream was that you’d be working *less* and earning *more*?? Come on, let’s be real. Running a law firm will require you to be on it almost 24/7.

If you’ve been at partner level, it’s likely that you’ll appreciate at least one aspect of running a business. Perhaps you were COLP or AMLO. Now you get to wear all fifty hats at one time. You’ll have to manage staff, manage compliance, ensure compliance, handle finances, and much more besides.

Operationally, there is a huge difference between your own firm and consultancy. With consultancy, I do not have to do maybe half of what I was doing as a partner – freeing up my time either to bill more, enjoy life more, or write long articles on being a consultant solicitor – but ultimately it is the extra time that I really value the most.

Of course, with both options you’ll be chief Business Development Manager and Client Manager too – you have to get the work, do the work, bill the work – but we have to do something to earn our crust right?

1.3 Time and Stress Factors

For me, looking at all of the above, the massive time commitment was off-putting.

I set up as a consultant solicitor because I wanted to see my kids grow up, spend time with them, work hard and earn good money, but ultimately to see that I wasn’t doing 60/70 hour weeks any more. Taking away commuting helped increase time, but I found that being a partner took up most of the day in the office, so the work would need to be done at other times (early mornings usually and some late nights, and weekends).

On top of the management, you’ve got the BD etc – so time quickly goes.

And boy is it stressful! There’s always something to do, something weighing on your mind, keeping you up at night. Moreover, trying to do everything can lead to burnout. There’s only so much energy and so many plates to spin.

1.4 Pros of Setting up Your Own Law Firm

There are advantages to setting up your own law firm of course. Let me just list them for you:

• erm
• your name above the door?
• prestige?

Yep, sorry couldn’t think of too many. But the solicitors with whom I’ve spoken about consultancy who’ve gone on to set their own firm up gave a few reasons:

• To say they’ve done it – they never really got to ‘running a business’ part of partnership like I did, and so they want to scratch that itch;
• To create their own brand – despite platforms like Nexa, Excello and Carbon Partners permitting you to operate your own brand, they wanted to do their own thing;
• Control – they wanted ‘full control’ over everything,  how they operate, the terms, the software etc – which to some extent is limited when you join a platform law firm.

2. Consultancy: A Flexible Alternative

The Consultancy Model for Solicitors offers a true alternative to traditional routes, either becoming a partner or starting your own firm. It is flexible and works to suit whatever your requirements and lifestyle might be.

2.1 Lower Initial and Ongoing Costs

To get started as a consultant solicitor, generally, all you need is a computer – probably a laptop, but you could have a desktop. Either way, it will most likely need Windows 10/11 Pro as that is what most case management software requires. Some CMS are browser-based, so can be used on a Mac.

When I started out, I bought a new Dell laptop for around £600. I also got a Voip phone to give a “landline” number for giving out to clients and for the website – which is like £10 a month including calls.  And that’s about it.

Since then, I’ve brought:

• a laser printer
• a massive screen
• faster internet via Starlink
• the latest iPhone
• iPad Pro

and probably a load of other gadgets that are absolutely ‘wholly and exclusively’ for the business. The point is: when you’re starting out as a consultant solicitor your outlay is minimal!

There are minimal overheads in being a consultant solicitor. Any decent firm will probably not charge you for onboarding you, or ask for a payment on account for insurance excess for instance. You don’t immediately need office space unless you want it, and you don’t need staff immediately as the head office function should cover most things.

When I started up, I was answering all new enquiries directly and personally myself. But as I got busier and the enquiries increased, I now have a call handling service to pick up new enquiries. I get around 100 calls a month on average, and it costs me £1.35 a call I think, but it is worth it for me to save time.

Admin is one area where support might be required, but again, overheads are low. Many consultant solicitors engage with Virtual Assistants to help with admin, and the going rate is circa £30-35 an hour. They help with file set up, ID checks, typing perhaps and much more besides.

So…

Traditional Route £20,000+ vs Consultancy Route £600

No brainer to me.

Of course, with consultancy, you’ll be paying your platform law firm somewhere between 50 and 20% of your billings. Now, just between you and me, if you’re paying anything more than 25% then you’re with the wrong firm, just saying.

So if you bill £100,000 in the first year, it is £25,000 to them – so perhaps the overall costs will not be dissimilar – but as set out above, for me at least, I much prefer a) not having to find that cash from my savings at the outset and paying as I go, and b) I don’t have to do all that extra work or have all that extra stress, so its worth it for me.

As for ongoing costs, here’s what goes out of my business account monthly to give you an idea (after 4 years):

Now I’ve set out the above in the interests of transparency, but in reality, you don’t need a call handler immediately, don’t need to invest what I do into my website immediately, and don’t need to have some of the software I have. You probably dont immediately need health insurance, but I had it as a partner and so wanted to continue that on.

In addition to the above, of course, there are LOADS of extras as your business grows. Like a company car and fully financing that, practising certificates, tax, VAT, giving, marketing, networking, travel costs and so on.  All of that comes as your business grows, and it will.

Of of the BEST things about being a consultant and having your own limited company is that your business expenses will be tax deductible – meaning that you pay them BEFORE tax and not after tax, reducing the amount of tax you pay (hence me the new iPhone!). If you don’t know about accounts and what to claim or not, then I’d recommend buying Putting It Through The Company (or another guide from Tax Cafe) and then getting an accountant early on. I use Xero now, because my accountant prefers it, but even when I started out I had QuickBooks which is a bit cheaper, but turns out it misses some transactions but anyway, some accounting software would be useful I think.

2.2 Increased Flexibility and Autonomy

I coined the term “free-range lawyers” around consultancy, and I believe it is spot on.

Free-range lawyers have space to roam, are happier and healthier and produce tastier creamy yolks (work).

As a consultant solicitor, you can set your own hours. For some people, that might still be 9-5 to keep you ‘on track’. For others, they prefer to get up and start at dawn. Others might work 12-hour days, while some might do 2 or 3 hours. Ultimately, you get to decide. You do not have anyone asking you for timesheets, how many hours you’re recording, and what you’re going to bill this month (except maybe your life partner!).

For me, as a work-a-holic (he says, writing this section on a Saturday) who wants to achieve a genuine life-work balance and spend time with my young kids – I work from about 8am to 2.50 pm generally, and then I’ll pick my boy up from School if I can. Most of the time, I will then spend time with him (with the occasional email in between) although if client demands are there, I may return to my desk.  Once the kids are in bed, I may lay on the sofa with my phone or iPad and respond to some emails missed during the day while pretending to watch TV.

In addition to the day-to-day work, there is of course still some “running the business” – so accounts, marketing, social media, networking etc – will all help to fill your day. But again, it’s entirely your choice.

The other major benefit of consultancy was fully digital fully remote working. I’ve worked from many a different country while on holiday (ok I get some people might say holidays are for holidays and not work, but I do a little work while away – as Nexa MD Eliot Hibbert said, “If you take one holiday a year and you have to do some work, it’s annoying, but if you take six holidays a year and do some work, you’ve still taken six holidays”).  The systems for most consultancy firms should permit remote working.

For some people, totally remote working is a downside and I understand that. I know some firms are offering city centre shared offices, but obviously that comes at a cost. If you’re in London, Nexa has a shared office which a number of consultants attend regularly and there’s a good social feel to it. For me, I’m at home all the time, in my little study/home office, and my social time is with my kids!

The other crucial factor for consultancy work is that you get to pick and choose what work you want to do and what clients you act for. In most traditional firms, you have to do whatever comes your way, even if the client is an idiot or not your cup of tea. In smaller firms, you also end up doing anything and everything. As a consultant, you can decide what work type(s) you want to do.

Another amazing feature of consultancy is: that you get to decide how much you charge!

Ok, so you have to remain competitive and you probably cannot start charging £1000 per hour if your geographic location and client base are used to paying £250 per hour BUT you can charge a proper amount for the work you do.

If you’re in conveyancing, you don’t need to charge £600 plus VAT for a conveyancing sale/purchase. Because you offer exceptional service now, you take on less work but charge more. You may be able to charge £1500-2000 (trust me!) – get your personal branding right (see below) and the world is your oyster.

I’ll give you an example from my experience. I got a lead for a job early in my consultancy career; sale of a business for a million pound. The truth was, at that stage, I’d have done it for a few grand, but I knew that wasn’t market rate. So I quoted £8k, and lost the job. Asked why, the prospect said I was the cheapest and so he discounted me as being an option. I later spoke with some of my Nexa colleagues and they suggested it might have been a £30-40k fee. Roll on a month down the line, I had a similar job come in and I quoted £20k for it, and landed it. Since then, I’ve never looked back. Knowing your worth, and charging the right amount of money is a life changer.

So:

• Work the hours you want
• Do only the jobs you want
• Charge the price you deserve.

Yeah, I reckon being a consultant solicitor is pretty special.

2.3 Focus on Legal Practice

I’ve got this down as a positive, but it can also be a negative. What I mean by it is that as a consultant solicitor, all you do is look after clients. I genuinely feel much more like a relationship/client manager now, getting to know clients and working closely with them, more than ‘just’ their lawyer. Perhaps it is my work type and client base though.

It’s when I compare my day to my old partner life, that I realise the massive changes.

• No more management meetings.
• No more staff appraisals
• No team meetings
• No disciplinary meetings to run
• No commuting.
• No handling complaints from 50+ staff.
• No compliance roles (eg AMLO/COLP/COFA etc)

These things took up many hours in the day and were on top of my being a fee earner.

Now, all I do is look after clients and enjoy my life.

Ok, that last bit isn’t totally true! There’s a lot to setting up a business and running it, but nowhere near as much as a whole law firm because you’re effectively outsourcing it back to the platform to do for you.

There is still admin to do. These days I get a VA to help with some tasks, but in the early days, you’ll probably be doing them yourself. Things like:

• Opening a matter
• Client care and terms
• Risk assessments
• ID checks
• Invoicing
• File closing
• Audits

But none of this is difficult stuff, of course. Moreover, if you’re starting from scratch with no clients, then you’ll have the time to do it anyway – and as you get busier, you can recruit someone to help.

2.4 Work-Life Balance

Fundamentally, the very best outcome for me becoming a consultant solicitor was the work-life balance (or, life-work balance, since life should come first). In actual fact, experts are now talking about a Work-Life Blend – mixing the two together seamlessly. For me, consultancy allows that.

As mentioned above, you get to decide the hours you want to work, and so you can limit the jobs you take on, if you only want to do 3 days a week. Or if you want to earn loads, you can work all the hours. But most consultants want to achieve a real and genuine balance between work and life.

Consultancy has given me that flexibility. I work really hard, and still get to enjoy spending time with my kids during the week. I don’t generally work on the weekends. I work reasonably long hours, but it doesn’t feel like it!  It doesn’t feel like it, I think, because I’m not spinning a hundred plates (matters) at any one time, not pulled pillar to post, I have time for hobbies and rest, if I’m not busy, I’ll take a day off, I holiday a lot, I’ll play Tennis during the day and do other stuff to break up the working week.

I have a chronic illness too – Meniere’s Disease and Vestibular Migraine since you ask – which means some days I really don’t feel like working much or at all – and that’s fine too with consultancy. Sure, I’m beholden to clients to some extent, but generally, they are all ok if I need to postpone a meeting and rearrange.

Having a work-life balance has been fundamental to my overall happiness. If I’m honest, with the work I have now 4-years down the line, I’m working 40-50 hour weeks minimum, but because it doesn’t feel like a slog, I’m not tied to my desk between 9-5 or longer, and I get to enjoy life too, then I’m overall happier with life. And happier lawyers are better lawyers!

3. Options for Consultant Solicitors

There are a couple of options one can take as a consultant solicitor. Primarily, you’ll be working through a platform law firm – by which I mean a firm which is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. You will most likely have your own company (often referred to as PSC – professional service company) which contracts with the law firm as a consultant. You may decide to choose multiple consultancies (I’ll tell you why below I think that is a terrible idea). Or you may be more ‘freelance’ and do contract-based work.

3.1 Platform Law Firms

There are a number of platform law firms. They have been known by different names over the years. I think they started with virtual law firm. Perhaps they are a fee-share law firm, alternative law firms, dispersed law firms, hybrid law firms – I think I prefer the name platform law firm, because in an ideal world, they should be providing YOU with a platform to launch your own business, rather than it be about them.

The Codex Edge Alternative Law Firms Report is worth reading. They looked at all of the major platform law firms, and it might help you pick a home. Here’s some of the names and my thoughts of each:

Nexa Law – I’m biased, as I chose Nexa. They have circa 130+ lawyers on their books now. They have a market-leading offer including:

• no start up costs, no insurance excess payable
• up to 85% of your billing (depending on annual amounts billed – amounts over £500k are at 85%, overwise it is 75%)
• 15% on work referred in to other lawyers
• quick payments – when the client pays, you get paid usually same day
• senior support team are all ex-lawyers
• excellent service from head office functions
• can use your own brand
• integrated IT support, including Office 365, Practical Law, LEAP
• can on-board your own VA and staff if required
• Office facilities in London only

Setfords – possibly one of the biggest consultancy firms (this put me off as I wasn’t clear what quality control they had for new consultants and I want to be comfortable referring to a colleague):

• Earn up to 80% – my understanding is that their ratchet actually starts at 55% and goes up from there
• marketing and business development team to bring in work – I’ve heard this can drop off after your first year or so, but it is certainly an advantage (you pay for) if you cant bring in your own work so easily.
• large support team / head office function
• provide you with a dictaphone and desk phone

Excello – I spoke with Excello and know a couple of people there. I liked them. The only reason I didn’t end up with them is that they wanted me to ‘prioritise’ Excello work over other consultancy and other businesses. Not sure if their position has changed since, it was 4.5 years ago, but otherwise they offer:

• selective recruitment of lawyers
• apparently, 45% of work is from internal referrals
• 70% of billings
• 15% referral fees
• physical offices in London, Liverpool, Leeds, Nottingham and Chester.
• administrative and paralegal services included

Taylor Rose

• a top 60 firm with 1500 staff – part traditional and part consultancy model
• up to 75% of billing, but realistically 70%
• a minimum level of billing required

Keystone Law 

• one of the largest consultancy firms in the UK
• average billing of £160k (based on 1/2 year published accounts)
• primarily seeking to attract City level lawyers with a following
• £50m professional indemnity insurance
• employs paralegals, trainees and assistants to provide support
• 75% billing
• 15% referral fees

Parity Legal 

• owned and set up by solicitors, based in a local high street practice in Leicestershire.
• nice guys
• minimum of 70% of fees billed, up to 80%
• back office support for file opening, ID checks etc as well as invoicing and accounts

Spencer West

• minimum of 10PQE to join
• ‘typically’ 70% revenue share
• office life including ‘partners meetings’ if that’s your things

Carbon Law Partners / Bamboo Platform

• up to 70% of billing
• Bamboo platform allows a fully own-brand approach

Aria Grace CIC

• up to 90% fee share
• profits donated to charity
• unregulated – although solicitors are SRA regulated, the firm is not, so cannot do regulated work (although its founder tells me they are approved by the LSB, Legal Services Board, I’ve not seen it explained how that is compliant with LSB rules and SRA rules).

4. How to Transition to Consultancy

4.1 Is being a consult right for you?

Being a consultant solicitor is not for everyone. If you’ve never done any kind of business development work and have just sat behind the scenes and processed work that other people have got in, then full consultancy isn’t for you (you may still find a suitable role as a sub-consultant mind, where you do work others have).

But in my opinion, to be a consultant you’ll need:

• your own client following, or if you don’t have that you’ll need:
• the ability to market yourself, which may include networking, meeting contacts for coffee/lunch, having a website, spending time on social media, and much more besides (see 4.3 below).
• to be happy to work in silo – while there is some collaboration (eg I’ll get a property lawyer involved in my corporate transactions) I’ve found that generally i sit in my office and work on my own. Sure, some of the consultancy options do provide some office locations and having been to the Nexa one, there is a nice feeling to it, but ultimately you’re working
• to get stuck in; there’s quite a difference between being a partner in a law firm with paralegals, trainees, and associates on hand to delegate to. While some platforms do have support built in, i believe most consultants will end up rolling their sleeves up and doing the work – and guess what, you might enjoy it! I did. You can, of course, employe your own paralegals if you want (you will most likely need consent from your platform and agreements in place etc)

4.2 Practical Steps to Take

• Networking: Join professional groups and connect with other consultant solicitors.
• Platforms: Sign up with virtual law firms or freelance platforms.
• Legal Considerations: Ensure compliance with regulatory requirements, obtain necessary insurance.

4.3 Building Your Brand

• Discuss the importance of establishing a personal brand and online presence.
• Offer tips on marketing and business development.

Conclusion

• Recap the benefits of consultancy over starting a firm.
• Encourage solicitors to explore consultancy as a viable and rewarding career option.
• End with an inspirational note on the potential for personal and professional growth.