Have You Been Considering Your Career Options Over The Summer?

If you are an experienced solicitor and the summer has left you questioning whether your current working pattern is sustainable, the strongest evidence points to workload, control and culture rather than stamina as the real problem. This article applies to solicitors in England and Wales. LawCare’s Life in the Law 2025 report found that 56.2% of people in the legal sector could see themselves leaving their current workplace within five years, while 78.7% said they regularly worked beyond their contracted hours. A different structure can change both your quality of life and your earning model.

Summary

• LawCare’s Life in the Law 2025 report found that 59.1% of legal sector respondents had poor mental wellbeing and 78.7% regularly worked beyond contracted hours.
• September gives you a better decision window than January because the summer lull has passed and the year end billing push has not yet closed in.
• Research on more than 6,000 lawyers found that autonomy, competence and relationships predicted wellbeing more strongly than prestige, grades or earnings.
• A consultant model can give you more control over your diary, clients and fees while keeping compliance and insurance inside an SRA regulated structure.
• If you do nothing, you are likely to carry the same pressure into the next appraisal and billing cycle with no change in the conditions causing it.

From January to March 2025, LawCare surveyed people across the legal sector and found that 56.2% could see themselves leaving their current workplace within five years. LawCare also found that 78.7% regularly worked beyond their contracted time and 8.5% estimated they worked 21 or more extra hours each week.

Although burnout is often treated as a personal resilience problem, LawCare’s earlier Life in the Law 2020 to 2021 research linked higher burnout to lower autonomy, poor psychological safety and high workloads regardless of job role. If the summer break has given you enough distance from the daily churn to see that pattern in your own working life, the decision in front of you is whether changing firms is enough, or whether changing structure is the better answer. 

What does the data show?

Overwork, anxiety and poor mental wellbeing are common in the legal sector. LawCare’s 2025 findings give you a clear benchmark for judging whether your current pressures are temporary or built into the way you work.

LawCare’s Life in the Law 2025 report found that 59.1% of respondents had poor mental wellbeing, 50.0% had experienced anxiety often, very often or all of the time over the previous 12 months, and 43.4% said work very significantly influenced their mental health and wellbeing. LawCare also reported that 32.1% could see themselves leaving the legal sector within five years, which indicates that a serious number of talented people are looking to quit law when a simple change of working conditions could positively impact their happiness.

In What Makes Lawyers Happy? A Data-Driven Prescription to Redefine Professional Success, Lawrence S. Krieger and Kennon M. Sheldon studied 6,226 lawyers and concluded that external factors such as earnings, partnership, class rank and law review membership showed only nil to small associations with lawyer wellbeing. Instead, the strongest predictors of lawyer happiness were intrinsic. These included autonomy (feeling in control of one’s choices), competence/mastery (feeling highly skilled at the work), and relatedness (feeling connected to others).

Why does September matter?

September provides an ideal window for making career moves because the summer slowdown has passed and the year end target cycle has not yet peaked. A move you plan now can be operational before the next appraisal, bonus or budget round starts to shape your choices for you.

January tends to attract career resolutions because it feels like a beginning. September is usually more useful for solicitors who bill heavily and supervise others. Files are moving again, pipeline visibility improves, and you can judge your likely year end position with more realism than you can in the first week of January. A September move also avoids carrying a second autumn and winter inside the same structure that has already pushed you into reassessment.

Timing matters because consultant transitions take planning. You need time to discuss restrictive covenants, client communications, systems onboarding and the commercial case for the move. Starting that process in September gives you room to complete the switch before the pre-Christmas push fills your diary and narrows your options.

What are my options?

You have three broad options at your disposal: 

• move to another traditional firm,
• build an independent practice on your own, or 
• join a consultant platform within an SRA regulated New Model Law Firm. 

The right choice depends on how much control you want, how much administration you are willing to absorb, and how directly you want your income tied to your own billings.

Option	What you gain	What it costs you	When it suits you
Move to another traditional firm	A new team, brand and compensation package	Little change in structure, targets or control if the model stays the same	Your problem is the present firm, not employed practice itself
Set up alone	Full control over clients, pricing and workflow	SRA authorisation, insurance, systems, accounts and admin on your shoulders	You have capital, appetite for risk and a clear client base
Join a consultant platform	Greater control over hours, clients and fees inside a regulated framework	Income depends on billings and you give up employed benefits	You want autonomy and high earning potential without building every system yourself

 

The consultant option exists because the Legal Services Act 2007 allows reserved legal activities and other activities to be carried on by licensed bodies. The introduction of ABSs under the LSA 2007 allows for non-lawyers to have ownership or management roles in legal service providers, enabling a more flexible business structure. ABSs can combine legal services with other professional services, providing operational, compliance, and insurance support to legal practitioners. This flexibility supports the development of innovative business models, such as those where legal professionals can build and manage their own practices while relying on the infrastructure and support provided by the ABS

How much control would I gain if I became a consultant solicitor?

You would usually gain control over your diary, the clients you accept, the matters you decline and the rates you charge, while still working within an SRA regulated framework. The commercial trade is straightforward: you keep a larger share of what you bill, but your income depends more directly on what you generate.

The wellbeing case for that control is supported by both legal sector and wider workplace evidence. LawCare recommends that legal workplaces actively manage workloads and embed hybrid and flexible working options because excessive work intensity harms wellbeing and mental health. The CIPD’s Health and Wellbeing at Work 2025 report found that heavy workloads remain among the most common causes of stress-related absence, and that flexible working and improved work-life balance are among the most common actions organisations take to reduce stress.

A consultant structure will not remove pressure if you want to build a high billing practice. It can, however, give you the authority to decide which pressure is commercially worth carrying and which pressure is simply inherited from someone else’s model.

What should I check first?

You should check regulation, insurance, fee share and practical support before you commit to any consultant platform. A strong platform reduces friction and risk. A weak platform simply transfers admin from a firm to your own desk.

Start with the basics. Confirm that the platform is authorised by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, ask who carries the excess on professional indemnity claims, and ask for a clear explanation of what percentage of billed fees you keep after any deductions. Then ask about systems, billing support, case management, conflicts processes and marketing support. 

You should also assess your own commercial position honestly. A consultant model suits solicitors who want the link between effort and income to be more direct and who are prepared to build or deepen a client following. If you already bill strongly and clients instruct you because of your judgment, September is often the month to assess whether the current structure still deserves the share of value it takes from the work you originate.

Frequently asked questions

Will my clients follow me?

Yes, many clients follow the lawyer they trust rather than the office they visited, especially where the move is planned carefully and communicated properly. Client transfer still needs to be handled lawfully and professionally, including any contractual restrictions and regulatory duties around client choice.

Do I need a large following first?

No, you do not need a huge portable book on day one, but you do need a credible route to sustained billings. A consultant model tends to suit solicitors with at least eight years’ post-qualification experience who already generate work, receive repeat instructions or can convert established relationships into fees.

Is consultant practice less ambitious?

No, consultant practice often suits solicitors who want a more direct link between output and income, because a larger share of fees stays with the lawyer generating the work. The model changes how you practise and how you are paid. It does not require you to reduce your ambitions.

Talk to Nexa Law

If you want to discuss whether a consultant structure would improve both your working life and your billings, we can talk through your current practice, your likely portability and the practical steps involved in a move. You can arrange a confidential conversation through our join Nexa Law page.