With the economy being what it is these days, more and more people are feeling the pinch. Many lawyers are feeling the pinch, as more and more students graduate from law school and enter the super competitive legal field. Some are even considering making a career change. Fortunately, there are a wide variety of alternate careers lawyers can get into. Here are three easiest alternative careers lawyers can break into:
1. Freelance legal work. If you’ve just been laid off from your big firm, you may not need to make an actual career change at all – a lateral move can often be just as satisfying (and lucrative!). This is an especially simple way for lawyers to break into different legal specialties, too. If you’re tired of working with tax law 60 hours a week, try devoting 10 to personal injury. Why not?
2. Freelance writing. There are all kinds of journals, papers and magazines that could use a fresh legal perspective – your legal knowledge could earn you money, without having to do any actual legal work. Write up some query letters and send them off to as many editors as you can find. With such an advanced degree, lawyers doing freelance writing work can command a high per-word fee.
3. Consulting work. This is one of the easiest career change moves for a lawyer to make. There are lots of businesses, both large and small, that are in need of legal consultants. This work can often be rewarding, and is a fantastic way to break up the monotony of day-to-day legal work. As an added bonus, contracted consultants usually are able to charge significantly more per hour than their salaried counterparts. The hardest part of making this kind of career change is finding the actual consulting gigs, so having above average networking skills are important.
