Hello, I'm Karla Mitchell. Going through a legal case can be very expensive and challenging. I won't go into details, but I recently underwent my own legal battle that lasted several years. It is finally over and I successfully received a settlement, but I had to spend so much time studying law in order to play my role in my own court case. While I found a great attorney at one point, I felt completely lost initially and I don't want anyone else to experience the same thing. So I decided to create this blog for those who would like to know more about law.
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As a lawyer you can expect to make more than $60 an hour, especially if you commit to expanding your experience and education after initially earning your credentials to practice law. While an increase in income tends to go hand in hand with working your way "up the ladder", there are a few things you can do to help maximize your income as a new lawyer while you're building a new career for yourself in the industry – here are a few effective ideas to consider:
Continue Your Education Online
One of the best ways to quickly expand your education after graduating from law school is to participate in accredited continuing legal education online courses. This will not only provide you with in-depth insight into specific legal aspects of the industry, but it will provide you with additional credentials that can be used to increase your rates when offering services you've been specially trained in. There are a myriad of courses you can engage in such as:
Most online courses can be completed in your own personal time, whether it's 8 a.m. or after midnight. You can complete your lessons by studying for fifteen minutes a day or all day once a week depending on how quickly you want to earn your new credentials.
Do Some Pro-Bono Work
Another effective way to make your way up the income ladder is to start by offering some of your services for free to individuals within your community. This not only provides you with essential hands-on experience that can be used in future projects, but it also helps to build a reliable and authoritative name for yourself within the legal industry, which in the end should result in lots of new clientele as time goes on.
Don't put yourself out by offering free services when you can't afford it financially or time-wise, or you may find yourself lacking the full commitment your clients deserve even if they aren't paying you for your services. It's also a good idea to only offer the legal services you enjoy for free, otherwise you may end up burning yourself out, which is sure affect your paid projects.
Cooperate with Colleagues
By working with other new lawyers in your area, you can create win-win cooperative projects together that benefit your income and reputation. One way to do this is to work as a team by splitting up legal services you'll offer so each of you can focus on different projects, which will increase expertise and offer the opportunity to collect expertise in different aspects of the law depending on what your specific interests are. Another way to do this is by getting together to host a free legal advice event or something similar that will bring attention to the practices of every lawyer who participates. Here are a few other options to consider:
If you find that you work well with one or more other lawyers in your community, it may be worth coming together to create a legal service business that allows each of you to focus on the areas and specialties of preference.
You'll find that all it takes to improve your skills and enhance your personal experience in the legal industry is just a couple hours of commitment each week. But like with anything else, the more work and time you put into your business the more you'll be able to take out of it when all is said and done.
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