Tag: Solo Practice

Going Solo – BLS Reports More Americans Quitting Their Jobs For The Freelance Economy

More Americans going solo in the Freelance Economy as culture shifts from “get comfy job” to “I’ll make my own job.”

Noting recent Bureau of Labor Statistics reports, Bplans reports that the number of Americans quitting their jobs is at a 5-year high.  This is related to a reported rise in entrepreneurial activity.

I am not surprised, as the Freelance Economy offers great opportunity and flexibility to the ambitious and talented.

While the economy was hurting, people were staying in their jobs as fear kept them in place.  People now feel more confident about landing well if they quit, whether it is for another job or to create their own job.

“We’re currently in the midst of a major cultural shift—48 percent of Americans want to be entrepreneurs today. While past generations believed that the best and safest path was through a long career at a big, stable company, those in the workforce now don’t see it that way at all. The financial crisis called into question the entire notion of job security, as “stable jobs” were lost and “stable companies” turned out to be anything but.

Nowadays, many people are of the mindset that entrepreneurship is actually the more secure path. Instead of putting yourself at the mercy of layoffs and watching the heads of the company you work for make bad decisions, entrepreneurship means taking your fate into your own hands.”

According to Bplans, this is a trend that spans generations.

“A whopping 63 percent of 20-somethings want to start their own businesses, according to a recent survey…

According to the Kauffman Foundation, the 55+ age group is the fastest growing demographic of entrepreneurs. “Encore careers” are becoming more and more common, as retirees want to stay active and supplement their retirement income at the same time.”

“Encore careers.”  I like it.

Spanning the divide of the millenials and the AARP set are the  baby boomers under retirement age, and the 25% of them who want to go entreprenurial.

Is it just economic conditions that are pushing folks into the Freelance Economy?  Nope.

Technology is making entrepreneurship accessible, from reducing cost to promoting ease of use.

“It costs almost nothing to build a basic web page, and you can set up a whole business infrastructure for under $100 a month. Virtual help desks, for example, allow small companies to offer world-class customer service without adding a whole customer service team to the payroll.”

In this regard, Bplans believes that “we are entering into a new golden age of entrepreneurship in America.”

From this solo practitioner, it is hard to argue.

Law Grad Working In Retail Seems to Miss Some Opportunities

Law Grad Working Retail offers cautionary tale of bad decision and bad attitude.

Business Insider recently highlighted the “Law Grad Working Retail” blog about a hard luck law school graduate without a job forced to sell cologne in some kind of department store.  He clearly feels the job is beneath him.

“I am too good for this job. You know who else is too good for this job? EVERY SINGLE OTHER PERSON THAT WORKS HERE. Retail jobs fucking suck. What’s up with all these idiots white knighting minimum wage retail jobs? If you don’t think this work is dehumanizing then you are insane.”

He says that he’s “liveblogging the loss of my last shred of dignity” and discussing his job and coworkers.

He claims that he went to a top 50 law school, was on law review and had a second year summer associate position, but he did not get a job offer.

It is both difficult and easy to feel sorry for anyone who went to law school in or after 2009.  It is easy because they are entering the worst long-term job market for attorneys that many of us have known or will know.  It is difficult because after the disastrous 2007 and 2008 economies, it should have been clear to anyone being honest with themselves that the market for new law school grads would be extremely difficult.  Even now, there is still a huge glut of legal talent that will take years to balance.

If we assume that even part of his writing is honest, there is a personality issue at play.  A combination of a bad job market and a personality case make for bad job prospects.

Here is something all law students should understand when interviewing.  If your school is good enough, and especially if you got the summer associate position in the first place, it is assumed you have the intellectual ability to do the job.  However, the interviews and summer associate position test your personality.  If working with you is miserable because you are annoying, lazy, ethically questionable or otherwise unpleasant to be with, people will NOT want to spend hours upon hours with you in a conference room reviewing documents.  People will NOT want to take the chance that they will get excuses instead of work product.

He said in his blog that he hasn’t taken the bar exam.  However, he has co-workers asking legal questions.  It seems he is missing an opportunity to rise above a job he feels is beneath him.  Get a license and a laptop and you can be in business.  You do not need the other trappings of an office in a high rise.

“This blog is not about complaining that I can’t get a legal job. Where in the fuck did I ever say that? I haven’t taken the bar so I’m not even trying to get a legal job. But up until the bar exam I applied for thousands of legal jobs and couldn’t get shit. Since the bar exam I’ve applied for hundreds of non-legal jobs and have come up empty. It’s not like I’m gonna pass the bar and suddenly everything is going to be fine. I have plenty of friends who did pass the July bar and don’t have jobs. Stop saying “he hasn’t even taken the bar!” like you found some kind of gotcha against me.”

Here is where is he so misguided.  No, getting the license is not going to make everything “fine.”  However, it is a prerequistite to the practice of law.  Since he did not get hired out of law school, he needs to pass the bar to even be considered for any type of legal job.  He had a probationary period with a law firm that may have carried him through the exam, but for some reason it did not work out.  I seriously doubt anyone else will take the same chance.  No one is going to hire him as an attorney without it.

My guess is, even if his stories are true, he is really an aspiring writer.  Fine.  However, there are a number of red flags here for anyone who would consider hiring him, and it makes his lack of job offer from the firm where he spent his second summer understandable.

That said, his writing is somewhat entertaining.  His co-workers sound like interesting people, and their stories will make you continue reading through the various posts.

In any respect, I wish him the best of luck.  For aspiring lawyers, use it as a cautionary tale. Credentials are just the beginning. Personality and attitude also matter.

My Favorite Apps For Work – LectureNotes

I never used a tablet at The Big Firm.  I had the firm-issued Blackberry and my own iPhone, but I was not a fan of integrating my personal electronics with the firm’s system.

I was also not an early adopter for tablets.  However, since I went solo, I started using a tablet frequently.  I tend to use it for reading articles and as a replacement for printouts.  This leads me to LectureNotes.

LectureNotes is an Android app for taking notes on the screen.  Simple enough, as there are many apps that do this, including the native apps that were pre-installed on the tablet.

LectureNotes is great for the note-taking function, but what really sets it apart is when it is paired with PDFView.  PDFView renders .pdf documents for viewing and marking on LectureNotes.  You can import .pdf’s to have them available to mark them up as if they were paper documents.  You can customize the size and color of the “pen” you use and note deletions, insertions and notes.  It also allows you to organize your documents in a customizable way.

You may say that Adobe Reader does the same thing, and it does.  However, I found that there is far less latency in LectureNotes when I am marking up a document than when I use Adobe Reader.  The fraction of a second latency in Adobe Reader is enough to catch my attention and break my concentration as I stop to make sure the program recognized that I was writing.

LectureNotes is priced at less than $5.00 at this writing and worth it.  PDFView is free.  Paired together, they are responsible for a great deal of changing how I interact with documents.