As I approach the end of my career as a solicitor – and I don’t suppose my office will want to mark that with a party or whatever the latter-day version of the presentation of a carriage-clock is - I look back and, just very occasionally, query whether being a consultant solicitor, as a bolt-on to an otherwise traditional law firm was the right decision. I preface all of this by noting that there will be many consultants out there who have had a different experience than mine.

I am 'attached' to a small provincial firm run on quite traditional lines. I do a mixture of family and mental health tribunal work. It’s not a question of a modern consultancy law firm where everyone is a consultant. And it’s not one of those situations where I was a partner, and perhaps as a transition in my last working years, have become a consultant so as to concentrate on case work; I have worked as a consultant for over 15 years. This fitted in with my being a single parent. I was friends with the previous partners; it was all chummy; we co-worked cases and talked a lot. But the previous partners have moved on or stepped aside for various reasons, and I have stayed.

The deal about being a consultant is that we receive healthy remuneration and don’t have the administrative burden of running an office. The quid pro quo is that we are entitled neither to sick pay nor holiday pay, nor, as I am pondering today, sometimes, that nice warm fuzzy feeling at Christmas. Oh, and no office pension of course.

I earn an agreed percentage of the money I make on my cases. The office I am attached to appears to have sometimes regretted cutting me that deal. Covid working-from-home was nothing new for me save for the fact that court hearings (always an opportunity for me to put some slap on, see friends and colleagues at court, enjoy chatting to other advocates as we wait for cases to be called on or for judgments) took place on zoom. I can usually take my dog for a walk in the afternoons.

I am happy to be freed from all of the administration; I am happy not to have to sit in an office. I never go to the office and so my relationship with them is very invoice-related. The emails might be prefaced with 'I hope you are well', whatever that means – but there’s not much personal exchange beyond that. God only knows what would happen if I told then how well I was or wasn’t. Cancer scares, miscarriages, and separations have passed by and I have not even mentioned these to my 'colleagues' whilst at the same time, their parallel difficulties have been made very much my business.

It used to feel as though I was the jammy dodger. I earn well, even though the legal aid rates have been frozen for so many years, and have none of the stress of running a firm. I work hard, take pride in my work, and appear to be respected. I became a legal aid solicitor – back in the day – because, and it may now sound cheesy, that I wanted to do good. Now, like all legal aid solicitors, I feel demoralised and under-valued; it would however be nice to be able to share that feeling with my immediate colleagues.

I don’t rely on my chilly colleagues to refer work to me. Other self-employed solicitors have complained to me about the fact that they expect work to be referred to them, but the choice work is kept for employed solicitors and for partners.

I have tried to help when various commonplace disasters have beset the firm – including nervous breakdowns with rapid exits, bereavements, health catastrophes. This has meant taking over cases at the last-minute – and which has often required me to work punishing hours (for which of course I was paid – but I would have preferred not to have to work so hard.) I have been punctilious about sending notes of condolence. But when I suffered a bereavement, there was one tepid email from the partner – the one I had notified, but no flowers, no card, no offer of support, and no emails or calls from the other partners. Had I ever emotionally hit the buffers, which thankfully I have not, I am not sure what support would have been available to me. People seem to talk incessantly about mental health and wellbeing; does that only apply to the employed?

Clearly, the partners in the firm I am attached to have found it commercially beneficial for me to continue to be a consultant; had they not, then they would presumably have ended the arrangement. I cost them nothing. That being the case, can I not expect a modicum of friendliness? One regret is that not being present in the office, I have not been able to share my substantial experience with junior members of staff. Similarly, I have not, latterly, in the chilly years, shared in my colleagues’ experiences.

My advice to younger members of the profession is to think clearly about how important that sense of collegiality is. Just sometimes, being a consultant can feel lonely and, I hate to say, ever so slightly grubby.

Office Christmas parties can sometimes seem, like family Christmases, inevitable and even tawdry – but for all that, somehow essential. I remember office Christmas dos when I was a junior solicitor (employed) being much anticipated rambunctious affairs. Not being invited to the office Christmas party can sometimes seem sad. (Of course, there will be consultant solicitors who do get invited – but the point is that it is unlikely that an employed member of a firm would not be invited to a Christmas party. I have an employed solicitor friend who similarly was not invited to their office’s Christmas party having indicated a firm intention to move away.) Don’t get me wrong – I have a full social life and family life, and other places to be - but perhaps sometimes, just sometimes, I feel sad not to feel part of a team.

I think about the last day I will ever work. (It will probably involve picking through some thorny billing issue or file-closing procedure) with nobody raising a glass to me in recognition of these years of hard work. Cristiano Ronaldo, as we have seen, is not indispensable, and neither is a competent but not brilliant legal aid solicitor, but don’t we all sometimes need the approbation of those we have worked alongside for many years?

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