As a 21st century legal professional, gone are the days when you only had your 9-5 to depend on. By making the right moves and investing in yourself wisely, you can diversify your income tremendously.
The most important thing is to focus on the right channels through which to profit and you could make money in your sleep.
If that sounds exciting, stick around as we unpack a few useful strategies that’ll help you make money in different ways using your legal expertise.
- Legal Work
First things first, the traditional way for lawyers to make money has always been doing some type of legal work.
This means providing manual legal services in exchange for money, based on the number of hours required to complete the work.
While legal work can be fulfilling, it’s also time-consuming and it can be incredibly stressful, depending on your specific field.
- Advertising
No matter what profession you’re in, it’s crucial that you invest in your online brand.
You could do a podcast, grow your Instagram following in order to attract advertisers, and even sell merch - the possibilities are endless!
You can use your legal expertise to create valuable content that’ll help you to grow a following and leverage that for earning opportunities,” says Joshua Holt.
- Speaking
If you fancy yourself a motivational speaker but have never pursued that passion, then it might be a good idea to dust off the old mic.
You could earn anything from hundreds to thousands of dollars from doing speaking engagements and you’ll have fun doing it!
Keep in mind though that it’ll take a lot of your time because there are travel and accommodation requirements that must be taken care of, not to mention the logistics and communication requirements that go into each speaking gig.
- Coaching
An effective legal coach is always in demand, especially one that has created a name for him/herself in a specific niche.
For instance, you could dedicate your time to perfecting the art of digital marketing for law firms so that you can exclusively coach law firms in this field.
- Teaching
Another way to add an extra income stream is to become a teacher at a Polytech or University.
There are many different kinds of teaching gigs available out there for lawyers, and most of the time you’ll get paid by the hour for the actual lectures that you give.
But, in most cases, institutions won’t pay you for marking exams and assignments.
- Legal Products
The main difference between a legal service and a legal product is economies of scale.
You can scale a legal product to earn money in your sleep, while a legal service can only be provided for a certain amount of time during the day.
You can create legal products such as e-books, apps, and even online courses that produce residual income.
- Online Solutions
Online legal solutions are a combination of legal services and legal products. A good example would be a process standardization software such as LawPath or LegalZoom.
But, you can do even better than these services because you have the actual legal expertise and can solve pain points that they can’t.