If you have spent years and money on your education, you will surely want to make the most of it. It may have helped you to get the career you need but you may also feel as if you could get more from your education and experience than your current career is allowing you.
You might therefore decide to start a side hustle. A side hustle is an extra means of generating money away from your main job and it allows you to have an extra source of income that can help either pay for bills or other necessities or can be used as a means of supplementing your income and allowing you to be some of the luxuries in life.
If you are a practising attorney, then you may feel as if you can’t do anything other than the law. However, your law degree opens up a variety of opportunities for you and you should make sure you take them.
This article will set out exactly what kind of side hustles attorneys should try to do and how they can help get them an extra bit of well-earned cash.
1. Writing
Let’s begin by looking at one of the most obvious side hustles for attorneys – writing. Writing can of course come in many forms, but the most lucrative form for attorneys is writing for magazines or websites who will easily pay $100 plus per article for work by an experienced attorney.
Writing articles not only does not take up too much time as a side hustle but it will also ensure greater publicity for any attorney who engages in it. This is why it is particularly useful for attorneys who want to raise their profile and gain extra clients.
By writing articles for popular publications, you can not only get money from your side hustle but also use your side hustle as a means of promoting your main career.
Writing of course can also take longer forms, such as writing books. Many attorneys have found it worthwhile to write fairly long books on the law and other associated subjects and therefore used it to help increase their profile and earn more money.
This all of course depends on how busy your practise is; if you find yourself only wanting to devote a limited time to your side hustle then writing for magazines and websites is a better means of using writing as a side hustle than attempting to write an entire book.
Now that we’ve examined one of the most obvious side hustles for attorneys let’s take a look at another side hustle that can be just as rewarding.
2. Teaching
Although you may not immediately think of it, teaching can be a rewarding side hustle for practising attorneys.
The reason for this is, similar to the world of journalism, schools and colleges are always crying out for individuals with real-world experience of their subject to instruct their students. Therefore, you can create an exciting and interesting side hustle by teaching classes on the law to students.
Of course, you would have to consider what kind of teaching you want to do – for example, would you simply prefer to provide lectures, or would you want to actually take classes and mark papers?
Both have different time demands on you and you must think about how doing such a side hustle might impact your main career and if you want to ensure that your legal workload goes well then you must ensure that you focus on taking on a side hustle that can add to your income whilst not taking away your energy or your attention to detail with your main job.
The next side hustle doesn’t demand nearly as much time and may in fact prove to be more lucrative than teaching.
3. Social Media Advice
Social media has become one of the big cash cows of the twenty-first century and if you have a legal career and or a law degree you can easily get involved with it.
Legal advice is a standard part of an attorney’s role, however, you can get more money by giving legal advice to social media personalities and celebrities.
Social media stars are often in the news and more often than not they are in the news for something they have either done or alleged that another social media personality has done. By being able to provide advice to them you can easily make a great deal of extra money and again potentially help to raise your profile.
An alternative means of using social media to get money is by becoming a content creator yourself. Some attorneys have made a great deal of extra money by providing easy general advice and posting it to social media and monetizing their content.
This also allows flexibility as you don’t have to constantly interact or post all the time and yet you will still be able to earn money and have a fixed stream coming in.
4. Public Speaking
One of the best side hustles for attorneys is to become a part of the public speaking circuit. Public speakers often travel around the country giving out advice and information related to their careers.
It can be an exhilarating side hustle because you get to speak in front of large audiences in different parts of the world all year round and you can expect a healthy cheque at the end of it.
It will also allow you to perfect your technique for speaking to an audience and giving a speech that helps sway them to your line of argument – a crucial part of an attorney’s skill set.
Why They Can Be A Good Thing
Being an attorney and having a side hustle can be a good thing, not just for you but for your clients. Being able to have a wider experience of work outside the legal profession ensures that you have a greater engagement with the lives of others and can understand the clients you are representing and their lives better than an attorney who has simply gone from law school to practising.
To be a truly great attorney you need to understand the lives of others and there is no better way to do that than by having a side hustle that not only allows you to get some extra money but will also put you in touch with the outside world.
