I Am Not a Lawyer

It’s rare that the lawyer blogs and freelance writer blogs that I read intersect. But today, on Freelance Switch, they did. They published an interview with a woman named Melody Kramer down in San Diego, who describes herself as a “legal freelancer.” In fact, she and a colleague have started a group called the National Association of Freelance Legal Professionals, which encompasses paralegals and court reporters and so on as well as lawyers.

In lawyer parlance, it looks like what Kramer does could be described as a mix of contract attorney work from her own office and work as a solo practitioner. So while it’s not exactly a new type of work, I like that she’s willing to rethink and fight the labels. Lawyers seem to view contract legal work as a ghetto for new grads who can’t get “real jobs” — low-status. And you know some lawyers looooove status. But as Kramer semi-says in that interview, “real jobs” in the law have some big downsides. If you’re willing to trade job security and status for more control over your working life, this could be a way to avoid those downsides, or at least own them. (This is probably a better choice for older lawyers; I expect younger ones who went straight from undergraduate schools to law school will need a few years to get comfortable in the work marketplace.)

I also liked that she recognizes that industry-wide change in work-life balance issues ain’t gonna happen through law firms:

However, we are not calling on large law firms to change, we are encouraging lawyers themselves to make a change in their own lives and how they work. I believe that the legal profession is more likely to change one lawyer at a time than trying to convince the hierarchy of law firms to change.

True DAT. I wish NAFLP luck.