Do You Have Enough Experience to Start a Paralegal Business? (You Might Be Surprised)

Speaker A: Do you have enough experience to start a business as a paralegal or legal assistant? I want to dedicate an entire episode unpacking this question that I get asked most commonly, honestly. But first I want to start with the story. By the way, welcome back to the Paralegals in Business podcast. Jaclyn Foster here. I got every job I interviewed for in my entire life, honestly, except for this one paralegal job. I had stepped away, uh, from a transactional firm about two years prior to this interview because it only paid $15 an hour. It was 30 miles away. I became a mom and daycare costs ate everything I made if I could even find a good daycare nearby in this rural place that I live. And quite frankly, I really didn't care for transactional work. It was estate planning and real estate, while I respect it, is not what gets me up in the morning. So I started subcontracting. I uh, only making $12 an hour to start, but it was from home. I subcontracted for two years. We just couldn't afford life anymore like this. Costs were rising, kids were expensive, so, so one day the prosecutor's office had a job opening and well, of course I didn't want to deal with the drive. I really liked working from home. I could take care of my baby and handle the house, the animals, all the things I could make if I got this job. A couple thousand dollars a month after daycare and staring at a negative bank account that made me feel like I was going to be rich. Absolutely rich. I bombed the interview completely on accident. Wasn't intentional, at least consciously intentional. Completely bombed the interview. I froze. I talked about my love for criminal defense work way too much for a prosecutor. I couldn't answer simple confidentiality questions like no brainer ones that I feel like my 12 year old could answer because they're common sense. And ultimately I didn't get the job. It was an ego killer to say the least. But three months later, you know, I still continuing to subcontract. And then three months later I started my own paralegal business while still subcontracting. I hung up my own shingle, so to speak. A year later after starting my business, I was a six figure earner. Two years after starting my business, we built our dream home after having gone through all the foreclosure notices. Two years prior to that, three years later I hit a $500,000 a year. And four years after starting my business, I sold that business. Where now I'm running my second business doing what I truly love, which is helping other paralegals carve their own career paths and start businesses for more freedom, income and career control through what I call the paralegals in business society. By the way, before I get into the lesson of this episode, I'm not sure what you're currently making now as a paralegal or legal assistant, but after this episode, I do invite you to use my 100% free paralegal business rate and revenue calculator. You can get a personalized hourly rate range, monthly and annual revenue projections if you were to start a business based on your level of experience, your specialty and your chosen service lane to see how your business could grow. Whether you say solo, you build a team again, it's 100% free, instant results, no credit card required, and you can find it through the link below. But don't leave me yet. Go to it after, because now let's get back to the story and I'm going to break it apart to really drive home the message that I want you to take about whether you have enough experience to start a business. That's biggest thing that keeps paralegals legal assistance held back, uh, from starting or from taking control of their income, their freedom, their career, which is so amazing, as I just demonstrated in my story of not getting the job and then ended up scaling a business through full acquisition. First, let's narrow in on the part about me subcontracting for two years before I applied for the job that I didn't get quick explanation of what subcontracting is. I know we're paralegals, we're all very smart, but I just want to make sure we're on the same page as to exactly what I was doing. I was subcontracted through a company, an agency that provided paralegals, virtual assistants, bookkeepers, all sorts of different professionals to their clients in a fractional capacity. The client hired the company, the company hired me, and the company paid me a much lower rate than what they were making from the client for my work. Which, no hard feelings there. That's how businesses and agencies are a thing. You know, they need to take a percentage of that. That margin. Right. So that's what I was doing as a subcontractor. I ended up finding a position on, uh, Facebook. I thought it was a scam because remote work was very uncommon for law firms back in 2018. So I was pretty excited I could work from home with my brand new baby. Yes. Albeit it was $12 an hour to start, but it allowed me to avoid daycare Costs, travel, the works. So let's get to the points of those two years of subcontracting. When I started subcontracting, I had just three to four years of scattered unfocused experience. I didn't focus on one practice area or another. We I loved criminal law. I loved going to trial. I loved litigation. But I did a lot of random things during three to four years of my experience and I did not and uh, never have held a certification of any kind. I did not complete any degree. I was in and out of college trying a different career path. I have adhd, I went into nursing, all the things. So I didn't really know what I wanted to be. And then law somehow brought me back. So getting back to this first subcontracting gig I found on Facebook, I was hired initially in this company with a specific law firm to simply schedule IMEs, independent medical examinations. I had no freaking idea what an IME was when I came across this posting. While I had worked in a lot of practice areas, had never worked in work comp. So I had to quick do a Google search what is an ime? And then when I found out it was simply scheduling medical exams for injured workers. Very administrative, very basic. Definitely something that I could handle with my experience. And so I got this job $12 an hour. And as I continued to keep that company's clients happy, I got more gigs if you will, different law firms. I worked for a family law firm drafting slash handling clients. I worked in exhibits and at tables of authorities, et cetera for an appellate attorney. I did discovery management for an employment plain tips firm. I did file organization and admin support for an entertainment lawyer. I did both drafting and internal filing E filing type work for a personal injury firm. And through all those different client demographics and needs and what I was there to do, my rate varied between them all between $12 an hour and then all the way up to $20 an hour for the more paralegal drafting stuff through that whole conversation, what I really want you to notice is that I was working with a variety of attorneys across the US in a variety of capacities. And this is the best example I can use of the question of do I have enough experience to start a business as a paralegal? Isn't an easy to answer question because it's not just a you need five years of experience, you need three, you need 10, you need seven, you need 14. There's no magic number. Okay, so what do you need to start a paralegal or legal assistant business first and Foremost you're going to be identifying what are you going to offer and are you solving a problem a, um, law firm has, whether that be a simple problem such as scheduling IMEs or E, filing or organizing files, managing emails, calling clients, doing intake. Is it that type of problem you're coming in to solve for a firm in a fractional capacity, or is it a paralegal? Drafting, case management, trial prep, discovery management? What are you actually doing? Providing the attorney that has a very specific problem that they need solved and problem plus solution equals business. So the point is that it isn't about the singular years of experience you have, it's about the lane of your service and what lane of service you've identified for yourself and business. Can you deliver the service competently without too much oversight? No micromanaging. You know what you're doing. You can hit the ground running with a little bit of nuance into each firm's way of doing things, that onboarding piece of it. And can you package and position that service in a solution forward way where an attorney comes across it and they say that's the exact solution I need for the problem I'm experiencing in my firm. You could start a business with two years of solid admin support, a year of solid admin support that you're really good at, especially depending on your background. I've seen people that used to be in real estate and they were in real estate for 15 years, switch to legal assistant for a year or two, you likely can go support a real estate practice. I've seen legal assistance naturally really great at the admin function, the organization, the clients intake that go on to create incredible businesses and they maybe only have a year or two of experience. The point is, is that nobody gets to determine, uh, black and white. You need 15 years as a paralegal in order to start a business, or five or 10. Nobody gets to claim that right. Quality over quantity comes into the conversation here too. Let's get back on track. I have bullet points here. You would think I would follow them to keep me on time and keep this episode flowing. But just for further validation on what I'm saying, it's not theory, it's not like a hypothesis that I have. It is that I am seeing specific companies scaling to multi 7 and 8 figures, offering admin type support, CRM organization, M Assistant work companies also scaling, offering complex practice, specific drafting, case management if you will. I'm seeing professionals, paralegals, even legal assistants that are really good at tech for for instance, are really good at client Relationships, hanging a consulting hat on their career and commanding thousands per engagement. And again, this is not theory. If you need to fact check me, just go to Google and search e filing, outsourced, uh, company search exhibit, organization, outsource company of some sort. You will find big box names creating these service lines because LPO is growing. I think it's like Times had said, like 20% per year legal process outsourcing. And I am of the belief that paralegals and legal assistants are the best positioned to create these companies again, whether they stay solo and offer their services or scale into a team and get bigger and bigger, but still with that paralegal founder base because we actually get what it is to run a law firm, to work a case, to do the thing that we're saying that we're going to do. Right? So again, point is, it's not about the singular year of experience. It's about the lane of your service. Can you deliver the service competently without too much oversight? And can you package and position it in a solution forward way? Because problem plus solution equals business. Right? Okay, second point. And I will make this brief, but it is an important point. Back to my story. I waited two years. I was subcontracting for two years and I had the proof in front of me every single day of actually working with the firms that I worked with that my experience in a variety of capacities was valuable. It was something firms were seeking even back in 2018. And we know freelancing, quote, unquote, has been around for decades. Paralegals have been in the freelancing game some, not many since the 90s, you know, so it was there and since, you know, Covid really expedited it. And now just the change of tech and law firms being able to work smarter in remote capacities and leverage fractional support, from CFOs to uh, marketing experts to paralegals, it's really boomed. But then even in 2018, I had all the proof I needed. This company were able to get all these clients to source to me. So why with all that proof did I not just start my business? Why did I wait two years? Why did I stay broke for two years? Why was I looking online for the next $20 an hour job when I had the opportunity to charge back in 2018, 40, $50 an hour, right. It's because I felt too comfortable hiding behind the agency name that was contracting me out. I had severe imposter syndrome. Could I really do it? I know nothing about business. Who will laugh at me? I don't want to be seen trying and fail publicly. Old colleagues are going to laugh at me. My family is going to be like, God, get a real job. I had so much imposter syndrome and so much negative self talk. And also I felt like I need money fast. And because I don't know what I'm doing in business, I don't think I'm going to be able to get the money that we need to stay out of foreclosure, to get my account out of the negative, to pay our bills on time, to put the groceries on the table, so on and so forth. I didn't think I was going to be able to do it fast enough to stick with it. So I had all of these limiting beliefs which kept me stuck and broke for two years. And now before we end, I want to give you a quick conversation about the first client. When I finally said, okay, screw it. March 23rd, 3rd, 2020, I was desperate enough I didn't get that job. I was still subcontracting. Three months have went by, we were still struggling, still struggling. Went through a horrible, not a horrible Christmas, very blessed for everything I have. God has always provided me with what I need when I need it. But it was a struggle Christmas, you know, I, my baby was two at this time and I wanted to get him toys and it was just tough, right? So I launched the business. Desperation, pure desperation drove me to file my LLC, posted a couple of blogs on LinkedIn, uh, over the course of a couple of weeks and I was posting here and there, 200 connections, if that. I didn't really know any attorney that I could ask to work for considering all the attorneys I worked as a subcontractor for. I was under a non solicitation agreement. So I was starting from scratch and lo and behold, I received this voicemail from an attorney needing help and I almost threw up. I remember sitting on my back deck having a cup of coffee. I just gotten Jack, my son down for a nap, was having a warm cup of coffee for a change and uh, there's a voicemail from California in my phone and I'm like, is it a bill collector or is it an attorney? And I listened to it, lo and behold, it was the attorney asking for they needed help. And I almost threw up. I was like, oh my gosh, I didn't have my contracts made, I didn't have my rates figured out yet. I desperately needed this income so I wanted it to work really bad but didn't feel ready. And I also thought, well, if I don't call back right here, right now, I will lose the opportunity 100%. So I left the cup of coffee on the deck and I ran to my desk. I wrote down $50 an hour question mark, scribbled it out 45, scribbled it out 60. No, absolutely not. Imposter syndrome. No way I can charge that. And then I quick google searched independent contractor agreements. I'm like anything I can find. Took a breath, swallowed the frog in my throat, called him. It was lucky for me that he was the nicest attorney I could have ever imagined. For my first time on a sales call for my first client on my own where I'm unprepared, shaking, clearly nervous. It ended up turning into a couple of project based stuff but it was a one time project so we kind of figured out my fees together. I agreed to way too low of an amount of a flat fee for the project and ah, if I broke it down I went on to more than triple those rates for my next client and then the next one after that. And the point is to all of this is this second story I told you about my first client. You don't have to have it all figured out when you start a paralegal business. You absolutely don't. In fact, you're just not going to. And if you try, you'll never get it started. You'll never send that first private message to the attorney that might need your support because you're just going to get into your own head way too much and imposter syndrome will keep you stuck. You do not have to have it all figured out, but it does help when you have someone in your corner who has been there. I've been through all the stages of scaling a business guiding you and that's what my membership the Paralegals and Business Society is for for. So I encourage you to come join us. Especially before this month's bonus expires. I introduce one bonus per month that only comes once per year. So the bonus that's currently there will not be back again for another 12 months. So you'll learn about what the current bonus is on my website. Depending on when you're watching this episode. I would love you to come join us. Not only do you get access to a 21 day paralegal business design, you get access to a training vault. Any question you could possibly imagine answered. Live power hours and an incredible, incredible community of paralegals doing the same thing. Putting themselves out there, figuring out business, navigating all there is to it. But again, if you're just starting to explore what you could create for yourself you're not quite ready to jump into. I'm going to try to do the thing you even though my membership is incredibly well affordably priced, still head over to my website and grab that free paralegal business rate and revenue calculator. You're going to love it. It's going to open your eyes again. It's based on my experience. I've worked with over 500 attorneys. I've coached over a thousand paralegals into business in my career. I know what I'm talking about when it comes to the market rate. So go check it out and explore and have fun. Fun and get excited. Anyway, as always, thank you so much for tuning in to this week's episode and listening all the way through. Until next time, have great days ahead of you.