To jack it all in and become a freelance writer?

[Elsia]

This really.

I’m a solicitor. My job is awful. I hate it. It has completely and utterly taken over my life. The stress and anxiety has been terrible for the past year and I am utterly done with it. I am a crap parent and a crap wife because of it.

I have been looking for a new job but opportunities are thin on the ground. My skills and experience are fairly niche and nothing seems to be the right fit.

I’m also struggling for time to apply for jobs because all I do is work. Lots of late nights and missed opportunities.

Anyway. I’ve seen a few adverts on Indeed for freelance writers. £25-35k (although from looking into it a bit further I think you pick jobs you want and so your earning capacity is in your own hands - I would guess you’d have to write a LOT for £35k!)

I’m a good writer (when I set my mind to it). It’s probably the only thing I’m good at really. I’m seriously thinking about jacking in my job, applying for a £20k receptionist job in the NHS (or whatever) and doing freelance writing to supplement my income and build experience.

Is this a terrible idea? We have just reached a place where we are financially secure, we’ve just moved house and my husband (while very supportive of my need to find a new job) is concerned about a big big drop in income.

I’m just getting to the stage where I can’t do it any more.

I get it OP I'm a solicitor too and hate it for all the reasons you list. Nothing else to add so not helping you at all other than to say you're not alone

OP I'd focus on building up some savings first. Then take a 2 week holiday but use it to research alternative careers. Find a good career coach if you want but you could also just use your professional network to ask for advice. Savings can be used to fund training or a career transition.

I moved from financial services to something much less lucrative and stress and pressure can follow you unless you practice dealing with it. A lower salary or smaller doesn't necessarily equate to less stress.

Although not a solicitor I retrained in my forties. Half the income but 1000% job satisfaction. I was happy going to work. May I suggest you focus on what you enjoy. If you love writing training courses or presentations then can you focus on that? Or lecture in your area of expertise. Decent money can be made in T and D. I know! It's just identifying the right gap in the market and the right niches. You could even set up your own buisness organising training events. Good luck in any future endeavours .

in house legal jobs

I still think you can combine part time teaching to Law students with writing for legal publications l.

I don’t live in London. Or anywhere near London.

I have applied for a few in house roles. They all need commercial contracts experience. I have a bit of that but I haven’t done it for five years so I’m getting nowhere with it.

If this is your dream, give it a try. But I would personally focus on your expertise and get writing or editing jobs around that. I tried working freelance as an editor, but didn't find I was getting a lot of money for the amount of work I was putting in. It is also not fun fitting it around a full time job, but part-time would be OK. Admin work can be quite stressful, I wouldn't underestimate that! Can you not just get a lower stress legal job, like at a local authority which may be more flexible?

Are there any universities near where you are. They employ in house legal people as well as lecturwrs/tutors to teach in their LLB/LLM courses. They usually advertise now for sessional tutors to teach the weekly hourly tutorials. Worth looking, sometimes you need to look at a problem sideways.

I wouldn't give up a secure profession to be a freelance writer. Fees are being slashed left, right and centre and you'll be up against people with 20 years' experience and a wealth more contacts. Are you prepared to write 2,000 words for £50? That's how little some outlets will want to pay you - if they don't expect you to do it for free. I speak from experience: my OH was a FW, highly regarded in his field, but he's now retrained as a teacher for the job security.

You could though, start your own legal blog, writing pieces in response to cases in the news or changes in the law. Once you've built it up, you could put yourself forward as a legal expert for the media, either writing pieces or giving comments or even doing TV and radio interviews. You've got solid career experience in law - if you love writing, combine the two.

I’m a good writer

How do you know?

I have to write as part of my job. In my field, I write well, but it’s effing hard work.

What have you written outside your job? What is your approach, your expertise? What sort of research do you do?

Those adverts are mostly shams, by the way ...

If you didn't need the money then I'd say go for it! But since your husband will be unhappy about the drop in income then I'd look at other options as freelance writing doesn't pay unless you really graft and even then there's no guarantees.

I'm a freelance writer but not copywriting. I do it for the love of the job as it's something I've always wanted and I'm lucky enough to have a husband who is happy to be the main earner. I get to write about the things that really interest me and don't have the stress of churning out rubbish to deadlines. It's an indulgence but I'm very happy. I also teach journalism and creative writing at a university part time so that's extra pennies and an area potentially worth exploring?

My friend left her job as a solicitor and teaches at an adult further education college. She loves it and makes decent money.

I am a freelance writer and I do earn 35k a year! It took me 5 years to build up to that though and I am, though I do say so myself, a world-class hustler and extremely good at what I do.

You need a niche. Starting from zero and chasing general web and content jobs is a recipe for a broken heart - and it's also incredibly stressful. But you're a lawyer so you come with a ready-made niche.

I'd start by brainstorming a list of every single thing that is written in your line of work. Then (obviously) knock of the stuff that is actually practicing the law. You'll probably have a decent list of stuff though - websites, blogs, press releases, internal comms stuff, training, reports, etc etc. I imagine there's probably some editing work around your industry too.

Then work out who is writing this at the moment, whether it's staffers, freelancers or agencies. Then from there you can develop your hit list and start targeting them looking for work.

I would say though that you really need some cash behind you to build things up. I started freelancing after redundancy so used my payment to finance really the first two years.

NHS receptionist jobs can be extremely stressful - not just a case of a heavy workload for low pay. I speak from experience! Certainly in general practice you have a lot of responsibility and not a job you can just go home and forget about. The consequences of making mistakes can be huge. There's a lot more to these jobs than many people realise.

Have you thought about staying in law but in the public sector - civil service or local authority?

@Ileflottante

If you hate money and love grafting, by all means, become a freelance writer.

Haha, this.

By all means go for it, OP, I love writing for a living - but it's hard work and (generally) the pay isn't brilliant all things considered. I have a decent handful clients who I can charge £500 a day and then other months there's nothing except a glut of tiny 2 hour jobs that aren't worth the money and make me hate it all haha.

Like others have said if you can specialise in a particular area you'll fare better, and building up a network of contacts/some word of mouth recommendations/some testimonials and a portfolio are key. I started by doing it in evenings and weekends for a couple of years, and by the third year I could afford(ish) to do it full time.

Freelance writing is hard as prices get pushed down a lot

@QueenoftheAir

I’m a good writer

How do you know?

I have to write as part of my job. In my field, I write well, but it’s effing hard work.

What have you written outside your job? What is your approach, your expertise? What sort of research do you do?

Those adverts are mostly shams, by the way ...

Yes to the sham part re those adverts

You’ll need clients as pp have built up

What about looking at PSL jobs or marketing/communications in law firms? I suppose a lot of these jobs will be at big firms in big cities though.

• Freelance writer here (copywriting, marketing and some specialisms).

It’s a tough market at the moment for writers. I’ve got 20 years’ experience and I’m struggling for work.*

Same here. Coming up to 10 years now and I’m looking at a career change. Things were going downhill pre-Covid anyway, and I’m just so tired of chasing clients and dealing with ridiculous expectations. I became a freelancer because it used to fit in well with family commitments. But now I just feel I have no work/life balance at all because I’m so scared of missing out on work. Although I don’t know if I’ll even get a permanent job at this point because recruitment people seem to think freelancing is code for unemployed and are always quizzing me about the ‘gap’ in my CV.

If you have law experience then you may find it a little easier as you’ll be a specialist, and I’ve certainly seen roles for legal content writers. But it’s a slog.

If you’re struggling with stress, do you think you’ll be okay with the unpredictable nature of payments when you’re freelance? It felt a bit like a permanent target for me, as I knew how much I needed and how much I wanted.

I loved it but I got out a while back. I still love writing but I love doing it much more when I’m not being paid for it, and I didn’t like the anxiety of not knowing what work there would be/how much I’d earn/etc.

I'm a copywriter for a content marketing agency. Used to be a lawyer among other things. Law was hell, glad I got out of it.

I wouldn't launch yourself as freelance unless you can afford to survive on not much for years while you build up a client base. Either reduce your work hours where poss or twilight a bit in your current role, or look for an agency to take you on.

If you're freelance, the writing is a tiny part of the work. You also need to be schmusing, networking, marketing yourself, doing your own admin and invoices and chasing unpaid ones etc. Agency work is way more compatible with having a family.

You need to be quite targeted about which clients you take on, small fry is often more hassle than it's worth.

I switched from S/E to PAYE after about four years. I did S/E when the dc were young but the unpredictable nature of it made me switch. It was hood to begin with but I didn’t feel very free at the end I felt more on call and responding to every request as they came in.

I also got fed up with trying to get ad hoc childcare which was a pain. I wasn’t doing a lot so ft nanny didn’t make sense.

I’m back to S/E again now and building back up but there’s something to be said for predictable nature of employment.

I can see good and cons in both.

I switched law for freelance writing 10 years ago and would never go back, not for all the proverbial tea in China. I swapped a bunch of constant stress and no life outside work for work I love, on my terms.

I have taken a COVID hit with clients needing to pause contracts and so on, but generally, I have a core of 5 or 6 clients and plenty of work. I barely work at the moment through choice - maybe 6 - 8 hours per week, so I'm earning about £10,000 net pa.so I can be a decent home educator etc. Most years, I aim to bring in around £30,000 and I haven't had any problems finding/keeping clients.

If you're used to the stress of juggling being a solicitor, wife and parent, then chasing a few invoices and building up work will be extremely manageable for you.

There are loads of content writers out there, but like in any job, loads of them aren't amazing at it. Be reliable, be brilliant at what you do and never miss a deadline.

Join Upwork - there's less rubbish on it than many others. I get the odd decent job through that website, but I only do long term work as a rule. Don't charge too little.

Do it! Good luck. Ask me any questions by pm (I'm a regular with a nc today to post about something else) and I'll try to help (although I'm off again now, so might not be straight away!).

Do it!

Thank you. I am struggling for time to write around my job right now. I barely have time to shower. I also have the issue that everything I write on law just now is going to belong to my firm. I can’t really do that stuff without their permission.

Unless I write under a pseudonym 🤔

As others have said, worth a go if that’s what you want to do but just be aware it’s a very saturated market and even very experienced writers battle for commissions. But if you can handle that then it’s worth a try.