31/03/2023
OPENING A PRIVATE PRACTICE
Hear this,
(1). The Responsibilities are huge: Private practice is very demanding. You will be responsible for the fortunes, lives, child custody, property, freedom, businesses, safety, and future of your clients. One bad legal advice can cost your clients millions of money. In all honesty, starting a private practice is not for the faint hearted. You must have the grit for it. But it is rewarding, you just need to thread with caution.
(2). Keeping Your head and business above the water: what many people hear is that lawyer make lots of money, they claim they charge thousands of rands per hour etc, they see invoices and they go like, these lawyers are killing it! but what they don't realise is that the lawyer still have bills to pay. There is office rent, office staff, office equipments, investigators, utilities, insurance, student loans, continuing education requirements, travel expenses, annual fees with Legal Practice Council, membership fees of other professional associations, and many more related expenses.
(3). The Blame Game: being a lawyer is not a profession that provides a lot of positive feedback. Often your clients are not going to prevail in court. When that happens, they usually blame you - a client who lost a case won't be excited to pay your fees, some may end up paying with so much anger and temper tantrums (even though you had advised and warned them beforehand that they weren’t likely to prevail). Many people consider lawyers to be liars and cheats until they need one 🙄. It’s a very lonely profession for someone who needs positive reinforcement in practice.
(4). Your adversary is not the devil, it is your opponent, in some cases, it will be your classmate, fellow alumni or a colleague in the same building, it may be the person you greet inside the lift every morning: Being a Litigation lawyer is not a child's play, because in all situations, there is a skilled adversary on the other side, often equally or more skilled than your good self, who is trying to defeat you.
PS - OF A SURGEON AND A LAWYER - WHO IS MORE STRESSED AT HIS JOB?
Both profession are stressful, we can't really place one over the other, so i will not categorically suggest that being a lawyer is more stressful than being a surgeon who always have someone's life in his hands in the theatre, but here is a comparison, and I find it humorous yet very insightful, The surgeon trying to save a patient at least doesn't have another surgeon in the room trying to kill the patient 😄😄😄.
The adversarial nature of this profession is what makes it very exhausting sometimes 😅.
A blessed Friday to you all ❤️
