There are just a few simple steps to follow to start your journey to consultancy with Setfords.

First, consider whether you have the right experience to transition smoothly into life as a consultant solicitor. Consultants at Setfords have at least five years of post qualified experience. This is because most lawyers need a reasonable amount of client involvement to make the most of this type of role.

If that sounds like you, continue with the followings steps to see how straightforward it is to become a consultant solicitor with Setfords:

• Fill out an application form to register your interest. Click here to go to the form now.
• This will prompt our recruitment team to get in touch with you. Once everyone is happy that you’re a suitable candidate for consultancy, you’ll be given a login to our onboarding system.
• On the system, you can provide all your details and sign your agreement with us. You’ll need to upload some documents, including your practising certificate.
• Our IT team will get in touch to set up your computer on our systems.
• Then, you can provide details for your new business cards and web profile.
• Some of our support team members will get in touch to introduce themselves and answer any questions you may have.
• On the day you launch as a consultant solicitor, you will be announced to the firm, and your profile will go live on our website. That’s it! You’re then free to start working in whatever way you wish!

You might find it helpful to have a business plan so you can plot your own success story. If you have the dedication and drive to make it work, we want to hear from you!

To find out how much you can earn as a consultant solicitor with Setfords, use our handy earnings calculator.

When it comes to setting you up as a consultant solicitor at Setfords, we can progress as quickly or slowly as you wish. But, we always aim to minimise delays and have even had consultants get set up in as little as two days!

In short,

Yes. Setfords provides SRA-compliant Professional Indemnity Insurance as part of the consultancy arrangement.

Our extensive support services are designed to take the pressure off our consultants. With fewer distractions, you too could entirely focus on satisfying your clients’ needs and provide a far superior service.

Each of our legal departments has a dedicated Head that you can contact with any questions or issues. And, our Wellbeing Team is also always on hand to help our consultants with absolutely anything they may need. The purpose of this department is to support our consultants throughout their Setfords journey, and many of our consultants use them as their main point of contact with the wider firm.

Lawyers do their best work when they’ve got the right team and the right tools behind them. That belief is why we offer the strongest support infrastructure in the industry. And it’s why, rather than settle for someone else’s technology, we built our own.

Halo is our case, accounts and practice management platform, designed in-house around the way our lawyers actually work. It brings everything into one place, so there’s less admin on your desk and more time for your clients, your practice, and your life outside work.

And because Halo is ours, it’s never finished. We keep building on it around our consultants’ feedback and what they need, so it grows with the people using it. It’s a system designed with you, the lawyer, in mind.

Find out more about Halo here.

Setfords provides all of our consultant solicitors with a desk VOIP phone and dictaphone to get you started. A small deposit is taken for this. You would need to provide a computer and broadband connection and then you can get started.

Working as a consultant solicitor, you will need to be able to generate your own work. However, we’ll never leave you completely on your own. We have award-winning Marketing and Business Development teams, generating over £1 million worth of new business for our consultants every month, run through a bespoke system that gives our consultants flexibility to pick up leads based on their capacity. Knowing this often gives our consultant solicitors more confidence when they join and it often helps get them up and running.

Find out more about receiving leads here.

To get paid as a consultant solicitor, you’ll need to invoice the firm once the clients bill has been paid. From there, you will be paid within seven working days. You are free to invoice us as often as you wish.

As a Setfords consultant solicitor you are free to set your own fees if you wish. Please note that any pre-quoted work coming through our Business Development team will have set fees.

Yes! Setfords is a social firm. We hold regular events that everyone is invited to; this includes consultants and support staff alike. So, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to meet other lawyers face-to-face.

Regular events include our summer and Christmas parties, normally held in London.

Yes! We have a number of offices and meeting spaces around England and Wales that our consultants can use. Our Head Office in Guildford has plenty of space for our lawyers to work. And, we also have a location on London’s Chancery Lane, which is particularly popular for its proximity to the capital’s legal heart. But, we also have a number of other meeting room facilities around the country that you can make use of. Click here to see a full list.

There’s a common misconception that being a consultant solicitor is lonely; at Setfords, we work tirelessly to ensure this isn’t the case! We always encourage our consultants to connect with each other, both virtually and in-person, to form a strong network and ensure that they have colleagues they can relate to. Find out more about building a community as a consultant solicitor here.

Training on how to use all of our systems is available to consultants before their launch date. Beyond that, refresher training is provided if it’s needed. And, if we introduce anything new, full training will be given to all of our lawyers.

Our dedicated compliance department provides regular webinars and other similar material for our solicitors. Beyond this, the responsibility to seek continued professional development lies with the consultants.