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What’s in a name? What do we mean at Nexa when we say “consultant lawyer”?
Labels matter. As any lawyer knows, properly thought through definitions are crucial for legal accuracy and understanding. We talk a lot about our “consultants” here at Nexa, but what precisely do we mean when we label someone as a consultant lawyer?
Lawyer=solicitor
The word lawyer is a commonly understood lay term for both solicitors and barristers, but at Nexa, our consultants are all practising solicitors. While we know that there are similar platforms to ours providing online support and virtual clerking services to barristers, that is not our market. Our services are designed almost exclusively for solicitors.
Meaning of consultant
The standard dictionary definition of a consultant is, “…a person who gives expert advice to a person or organisation on a particular subject”.
At Nexa, our consultants are all self-employed. In effect this means they are running their own micro-businesses under the umbrella of our SRA regulated firm.
As well as taking care of the regulatory burden, we provide everything else that our consultants need to run their legal businesses. This includes:
- insuring the legal advice they give their clients.
- Providing the critical ‘back office’ services like finance, IT and compliance necessary to deliver their advice
- Providing other key support such as marketing, know how resources and training.
Making a distinction between consultants and contract lawyers
In order to avoid confusion, we think it’s important to make a distinction between the two limbs of consultancy law that have opened up in recent years.
Platforms like Nexa’s facilitate lawyers who want to build their own, unique client facing law firm brand and win their own clients. This should not be confused with the lawyers who, may also be self-employed, but who work on demand to provide capacity support to law firms and in-house teams.
This latter type of lawyer may be called a “freelancer”, “locum” or “contractor”. This model of working brings the flexibility that many people want – you can work when you want and as much or as little as you want – and does not involve winning or advising your own clients.
Want to find out more?
Through our NexaConnex offering for law firms, we are fortunate to also work with many high-quality contract lawyers. To find out more about opportunities to work with NexaConnex as a lawyer or client, see our brochure: nexaconnex: freelance support for law firms
If you think becoming a Nexa consultant lawyer sounds more like what you are looking for then take a look at our brochure: becoming a consultant lawyer
–Eliot Hibbert, COO & Founder