Freelance secretarial temping?? Good idea?

[TackyChristmasLights]

Thinking of offering my services as a freelance secretarial temp to firms of Solicitors (to start with) as my background is in Law.
My idea is to write directly to firms and undercut the agencies.
Can I do this?

You can.

It is not easy though.

I found it quite hard finding work. Although I eventually did.

HTH Good luck.

Cheers.
I have a large family and really want to work but not permanently . Can work some of the school hols but would like to pick and choose (obviously can't be too choosy as will be penniless).

A few years ago I wrote to some local firms and the response was good but got offered a permanent job which was hard to turn down so my temping never really took off.

I know I will have to deal with NI and tax but do you know if I should have insurance? Anything else I need to think of?

Dont think you'd need to have insurance? It's them that'd need insurance, if anything! I think you'd get more response from local firms rather than, say, City firms. I think that some bigger firms tho will be reluctant to use somebody who hasn't come via an agency as they will not know if you truly meet with their criteria, if you know what i mean.

Good luck with it tho - hope it works out for you.

Good point thanks - was thinking of targetting more local smaller firms who may be less demanding and just need help for sickness and holidays. Just need to be available I suppose but can give a good ref from the biggest local firm to back me up.

Taking a career break so actually a bit over qualified for this - hoping that will work in my favour??

The smaller firms are deffo more likely to grab you for help in holidays/sickness etc. In fact i think i did this sort of thing myself many years ago when i was looking for permanent work. I got a call from a local firm who wanted me to temp with them so i did and ended up staying there for a good few months!

Hopefully the over-qualification will be in your favour - what do you normally do? If you're normally a legal exec or solicitor or something they'll have you in their offices being a fee earner in no time, especially if it's property! having said that, no one is moving house at the moment so that statement could actually be invalid.....

I have been working as a paralegal for the last three years mostly in commercial property (so fairly wide area of law) and later in probate.

I have done my LPC though so have covered civil and commercial litigation etc etc.

Feel I could be a useful temp but as you said Pargy the last time I did this I was nabbed to work as a fee earner which is not the end of the world as long as hours suit me and not 'slave' hours?

That's exactly what you'll have to look out for TCL - Slave hours!! I work in the City and most of the lawyers are there til silly o'clock at night. Not good if you have families or even have a life!

Perhaps you should stipulate in your applications that you're looking for some work more on the secretarial side of things for now so that they dont think "aha! a fee earner in our midst!" when they see your CV and application.

yes definately aiming at a secretarial level.

I have just finished paralegal-ing because of the silly hours. We all stayed until at least 7pm every night and others stayed much later. Became quite competitive.

I'll try and go back and qualify when the kids are older but still have my doubts if there will ever be a good time to work these sort of hours!

DCs seem to need me more as they get older on more of a guidance level rather than for the physical care they needed when they were little.

How do you combine work and DCs? What sort of hours do you do?

Being a lawyer is never ever easy (apparently!). most of the lawyers i have known in the past have all had nannies to bring up their children. I'm a legal secretary so have never had such a luxury, although i would prefer to bring up my own child, personally!

When DS was young (he's 18 now), i was working every hour that God sent. i was doing my normal 9.30-5.30 job then grabbing every bit of overtime i could get because the money was good (i was a single parent for most of his childhood life). It meant that DS was with my sister alot tho, often over night. As he grew older i found that he too needed me there for guidance but it wasn't until he was 15 and fast approaching GCSEs that i did something about it and gave up work completely for a while. A bit like closing the stable door after the horse had bolted type of thing. he did poorly in his exams and has no real drive in life. I often wonder if i'd have been there for him more than i was whether he'd have been a bit more motivated in life or whether he'd still have turned out the same.

Now, however, i only work 3 days a week and it's great. When i went back to work after Mat leave (DD is 1 now) i was only working 2 days (thurs and fri) and it was more like i was popping into the office for a chat with the girls than working. it was great. now i'm doing 3 days a week i find the extra day a bit intrusive on my life with DD but needs must and i have to do it for the money, at least for another year. I have a fairly standard commute so it's a long day. I leave the house with DD at 7.30am but dont get home and in the door until 7.15pm (DP picks up DD around 4ish).

So anyway, rather than me waffling on and on (sorry!), i would say you just have to work how and when suits you. Dont get caught up in the money side of things and dont let them bully you into doing longer hours or a fee earning job that means your hours could spiral into the late evening.

Not sure if i've helped you there!

very interested to hear about your experience with your DS.
I feel that my 13yo DD1 could do with me around even though she wouldn't admit it.
I would be happier to see them after school so I can pick up on anything that may or may not be going on. I know you can't be there all the time but I felt as though I was not there at all even though I only worked three days like you, but spent the rest of my time trying to get on top of housework, do homework, squeeze in extra activities for the DCs (I have four). Never mind a bit of down time for me and DH.

Just knew I couldn't go much further as I needed to go full time to qualify. Feel lost now as given up work and really need something for my own sake never mind the money. thought I could temp and DH could cope with the odd week of childcare (all DCs at school).

Really would love to run my own business but struggling to think of a really good idea. Probably just fallen in love with all the articles you see in mags where the brilliant entrepreneur sits on a lovely sofa with her apple mac in a gorgeous dress and makes it look so easy!

I found that DS was better if i was there for him to discipline him. he'd never admit that either, but even now he thrives on discipline (maybe that's why he's applied to join the army?!). I know what you mean about fitting in everything on the two days off (weekends aren't for housework!). it's virtually impossible!

If you just want to do something for yourself why not do something completely different, maybe even bar work?! When DS was seeing his father every other weekend, i found i was sat in on my own on a Saturday night with nowhere to go and no one to see so i started working in a pub every other weekend, just to get out of the house. I didn't care about the money and ended up having a great time with staff there! If you do want to stay in legal, maybe there will be something for you out there for 2 days a week as some small firms might not be able to afford to employ you for longer anyway!

I'd love to run my own business too. It's not for the money, you understand. It's because i want to sit on a cream leather sofa with my finely styled hair and posh cream suit (minus baby sick/milk/snot/dinner), whilst smiling serenely into the camera.

Fabulous!

Thought about being a virtual assistant (secretarial work from home) but wonder how inspiring it would be.
My other thought is to make perfume, soaps etc and make a mini brand of reasonably priced smellies to flog. Sounds very kitchen table and not very profitable but wonder if I could sell in local shops, farmer's markets, National Trust shops (we are tenants on NT farm).

Just went to the Good Food show and I was amazed at what people were selling. Small businesses making all sorts of obscure things. I suppose if you put the time into marketing etc you can probably sell almost anything.

DH just fallen asleep whilst I told him of my plan to make a fortune out of rose petals.

Mad idea, who am I kidding.....

That's very ingenious of you! If it's something you really want to put your hand to, why not give it a go? If it doesn't work out, go do some secretarial work. i'd much rather do something like that rather than sitting in my crappy office 3 days a week!!

You're very kind.

I would love to make a go of something like this as feel I am more of a creative person than a characterless legal type.

But you are right. I am going to look into it and perhaps do some temping at the same time.

Fed up of trying to discuss my brainwaves with DH who thinks its just another of my daft ideas.

omg - not implying that you are a characterless legal type. I mean the fee earners who truly do enjoy staying late to get the job done!!

I work 3 days in a small office.

Tax credits pay most of the child care. I enjoy my 3 days off. Hard work is staying home and looking after children imo.

My work is a breeze in comparison, except when I have to do the thinking bit, that can be tricky

best of luck.

Fa La La - thanks.
I completely understand. Three days at work used to be fab and only expected to do one thing at a time. However, all my DCs are at school so really should do something probably each morning.

Thinking more and more along the lines of freelance office admin. Will do some more reasearch and try and start up with some ads after Xmas. Going to get home computer to PC world for a clean up and sort out what I can do with it.

Thinking of offering the following to small businesses:

invoicing
transcription of digital recordings (- can anyone tell me if these recordings can be emailed?? urrmm.)
chasing payments
on site weekly filing
mailshots
research
typing letters

Any other services you can think of ??

thanks

haha no offence taken, Tacky!!

if you're talking digital dictation, then yes, they can be emailed quite easily. Think you've covered pretty much most things that you could offer someone.

let me know how you get on.

Oh i should point out that i'm DEFFO not one of the boring types who LIKES to stay late! haha! I'm sure you know what i mean....

Cheers Pargy. Do you mean that you could dictate something and then download that to your PC and then attach to an email to me?

Sorry - way too much technology for me but could be really useful/complete nightmare.

Digital dictation is a piece of software that allows you to connect a dictation microphone to your pc and you use that like you would a dictaphone. instead of talking onto tapes, your dictation is stored directly onto your computer. From there it can be sent via email or sent to your secretary (she'll have the digital dictation software too).

Does that make sense?!

not sure that small local firms would have Digi-dic however, so you could always just get yourself a dictation machine and then collect the tapes from them daily if you want to work from home......

Oh I see. Yes much easier to pick up the tapes and go from there.

Brill advice thanks.