The market advantages of being an SP

Over the last 12 months the Sole Practitioners Group (SPG) has faced several challenges, not least establishing and building upon our independence. It’s only our second year as an independent stakeholder group, so this year’s workload focused heavily on relationship building with third parties and legal sector influencers, such as the Legal Services Board (LSB), the Council of Mortgage Lenders, Law Society, and the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). It was essential that SPG continued to be recognised as the main route to reach sole practitioners (SPs).

SPG’s other priority was engaging with its membership in a more direct way, gaining their feedback on what support and resources they need now and in the future. Last year,
SPG commissioned external consultants to undertake stakeholder engagement research, which highlighted
the need to change outdated perceptions of SPG and refresh its public image. Delegates at the annual conference will be among the first to see the new-look visual identity and website, designed especially
for SPs after applying their feedback and recommendations.

Another outcome was that SPG took on its first employee,
a full-time co-ordinator.

Meanwhile, the challenge
for all SPs has been continuing to adapt to the increasing regulatory pressure and the rapidly changing legal landscape. There are more multi-disciplinary practices now and plenty of new business models. SPs are having to become more efficient to compete with larger and wealthier firms. What’s good, though, is that SPs have a much leaner organisational structure and fewer overheads to shoulder, and can make decisions faster, so they can adapt quicker too.

An encouraging sign is the increasing number of SP start-ups; personally, I’ve spoken with six brand new firms since January. There are other interesting trends among newer SPs. Many are niche specialist firms, run by entrepreneurial people who are ahead of their game. Some have been made redundant from large firms and are still in their 30s or 40s, so their ambition is to build something of their own rather than being ‘one of many’ in a large firm.

Doing one area of law excellently enables SPs to compete well with the bigger firms. Having a high street presence or an advertising budget are irrelevant factors, since so many SPs find their clients nationwide or internationally via the internet. Technology makes it easier to innovate and work flexibly, too.

All of which makes
becoming an SP an attractive career opportunity. Looking
at the year ahead, I’d expect to see more SPs coming through the paralegal/legal executive route, which will further enhance the sector’s diversity and expertise. SPG believes that becoming a good lawyer should be about ability and
not background.

It’s often latecomers to the sector who make the best lawyers, because they apply real-world experiences and apply entrepreneurial flair.
The SP community is one of the most diverse within the legal sector, something which the SPG is extremely proud of. SJ

Hilary Underwood is coordinator of the SPG and principal of HA Underwood Solicitors