Lawyers in the gig economy

The gig economy is taking hold in the legal sector, with more than 1,000 lawyers now working remotely at ‘platform’ law firms.

Platform firms—such as Keystone Law, which recently listed on the London Stock Exchange, Excello Law and gunnercooke—allow lawyers to step outside of the traditional firm structure and have more choice in how they work. Lawyers at these firms are usually self-employed and work remotely using shared services such as accounting, IT, marketing and compliance provided by a central hub.

According to research by accountants Hazlewoods, the number of UK lawyers working for platform firms has risen 29% to 1,035 in 2018, up from 803 in 2017.

The advantage for lawyers is they can work flexibly, avoid the legal profession’s long hours culture, choose how much attention they pay to marketing versus fee-earning, and keep a higher percentage of the fees they charge. It’s a model well-suited to parents or those who don’t want to commute.

Platform firms usually have fewer overhead costs on rent and on-site IT staff, which they argue means they can offer high-quality services at lower rates. They can also expand into niche markets or into geographical regions without a large presence of traditional law firms.

Jon Cartwright, partner at Hazlewoods, said: ‘The continued growth of platform law firms reflects the enthusiasm in the legal sector to adapt to new ways of working.

‘It is also part of broader trend amongst lawyers to be more entrepreneurial, to strike out on their own. Some because they want to do things their way, some because they feel big law firms involve too much politics and others because they feel they are getting enough out of the fees they earn.

‘Platform law firms are also tapping into the trend of placing greater importance on the work/life balance across many sectors, not just in law firms.’