May 6, 2024
Editorial GuidelinesKari is a writer for SideHustles.com. She previously managed a website in the privacy and digital compliance industry and...
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Freelance LawyerPracticing law is a well-respected career with huge earning potential, but rising costs of living, the sky-high price of law school, and an impacted legal space leave a lot of lawyers hungry for extra income.
If you’ve found yourself in that situation, consider adopting one of these 16 side hustles that are perfect for lawyers.
Average rates: $35–$50 per hour
Additional legal work is an obvious choice of side work for a practicing lawyer. Freelancing gives you a lot of control over your schedule and the number of hours you work each week, making it easy to slot in around a full-time or part-time job.
As freelance counsel, you’ll work with businesses or individuals on specific projects. For example, you might find yourself helping a burgeoning company draft their internal contracts and agreements, or you could advise a website developer about any legal snags associated with launching their site in a new country.
Average rates: $25–$35 per hour (potentially higher in the legal space)
This is a great way to share your specialized knowledge and make money from home.
As a lawyer, you’ll be a highly desirable freelance applicant, especially for companies and individuals seeking professionals with knowledge of the law and the legal industry. An in-depth understanding of a challenging and in-demand subject like this ensures you’ll be able to find consistent writing work that pays very well.
If you need a break from the law, freelance writing also gives you the chance to gain exposure to other industries while putting your rhetorical skills to good use.
Average rates: $15–$27 per hour
Leverage your legal knowledge by creating a course and selling it online, or even teaching it yourself. Alternatively, you can turn one of your hobbies into a side hustle by designing a course around something unrelated to law—like gardening or coding.
If you have experience in education, you can also create supplemental teaching materials, like lesson plans, quizzes, and assignments, and sell them online.
Average rates: $20–$30 per hour
Help the next generation of lawyers and legal professionals by becoming a tutor. You can tutor standard school subjects that you excelled in, like English, or you can tutor law-specific courses.
One of the more profitable routes you can take is tutoring potential law students and licensed attorneys for tests like the LSAT and the Bar Exam in your state of practice.
Average rates: $18–$44
Tons of companies need legal research conducted every day but don’t have the in-house legal team to tackle this endeavor. As a freelance legal researcher, you can use your expertise in law to conduct research for businesses or individuals.
You may be asked to do this for specific business endeavors (e.g., looking into alcohol-distribution regulations in a specific city for a restaurant owner) or for content (e.g., helping a journalist research an article about privacy law).
Average rates: $12–$22 per hour
Put your typing skills to the test by becoming a freelance transcriptionist. In this role, you’ll be tasked with listening to audio files or watching videos, then transcribing the dialogue you hear.
Legal transcription is hugely in demand, and no one makes a better candidate than someone with intimate knowledge of the legal space and its jargon. If you’re willing to spend time in court while you’re pursuing your side hustle, you can also look into court transcription, which commands some of the highest rates in this field.
Average rates: 20% of the user’s question fee (on JustAnswer)
There are many platforms that allow people in need of legal advice to post questions and get direct feedback from professionals. You can join one of these (or advertise your own ask-and-answer services on a site like Fiverr) and answer questions that appeal to you.
The pay for each question you answer will be relatively low; users may pay anything from $5–$100 to post a question, and you’ll only receive a fraction of that as a commission. However, if you choose high-paying questions in your line of expertise, you can make quick and easy spare change.
Average rates: $35–$40 per hour
Consulting is a vast and varied field with opportunities for every kind of professional. You can weave a few hours of consulting into your schedule each week, or you can transition your consulting side hustle into a full-time job over time.
As a consultant, you’ll advise clients on specific projects or issues, provide action plans, and create frameworks to help them achieve their goals.
As a lawyer, you can provide many forms of consulting, including straightforward legal consultations for businesses or even admissions consultations for prospective law students.
Average rates: $20–$29 per hour (highly dependent on the popularity of your content)
Become a blogger or a YouTuber on the side to speak to a wide audience and create content you’re passionate about.
You can write or talk about absolutely anything. Start off by considering these topics:
Average rates: $28–$50 per hour
If you’ve secretly harbored dreams of teaching, dip your toes in the water by being an adjunct law professor.
You can teach at a college, university, or law school, and help prepare future lawyers to enter the world of law. As an adjunct professor, you won’t be eligible for tenure, so you’ll only be a part-time faculty member. This means it probably isn’t the right pick for a job you plan on holding forever, but it’s a great side hustle to combine with other legal work.
Teaching experience will help you land jobs like this but isn’t necessarily required, so long as you have the right degrees and subject-matter knowledge to teach your course.
Average rates: $16–$32 per hour
If you have experience in contract law or specific legal agreements, start up a contract review side hustle. You can review any kind of contract you’re knowledgeable about, whether it’s leases, copyright agreements, employment contracts, or something else.
By reviewing contracts on a freelance basis, you can help dozens of businesses and individuals cover their legal bases while making money without sacrificing a ton of your time.
Average rates: $25–$40 per hour or $.02–$0.03 per word
Use your keen lawyer’s eye to become a proofreader. Unlike being an editor or a writer, proofreading isn’t very creatively draining. Essentially, the job is to read someone else’s work and check for spelling, grammar, consistency, substance, and style.
As a legal professional, you’re uniquely qualified to review works that adhere to the Bluebook style guide or use technical legal jargon. Freelance proofreading jobs like this almost always command higher rates than ones that don’t require specialized knowledge.
Average rates: $25–$40 per hour
Take a break from the law but use all of your hard-earned skills by becoming a virtual assistant. In this job, you’ll perform everyday administrative tasks for businesses in need.
For example, you could be tasked with organizing a calendar, scheduling appointments, creating a filing system, or planning a company outing. The work can vary greatly based on what gigs you land, so you can tailor your search to work that interests you or makes for easy money.
Average rates: $3–$15 per printable
A growing side hustle, printable creation can be a fun way to flex your creativity while making extra money.
Printables are downloadable and customizable sheets that tend to be helpful and aesthetically pleasing. You can make law-related printables, like contracts and agreements, legal checklists, or law school study schedules. Alternatively, you can make everyday printables, like meal plans, reading diaries, mindfulness journals, and more.
To make your printables, you’ll need to use basic design software like Canva, Adobe Photoshop, or Templett.
Average rates: $100+ per appointment
A mobile notary is someone who travels around (often to their clients’ houses) and offers notarization services (e.g., serving as a witness when people sign documents and then providing a legal stamp of approval).
You don’t need to be an attorney to become a traveling notary—anyone can undergo the required training and get certified—but it will help you land clients. Many people will feel more comfortable signing important documents when someone with proven legal expertise is there to explain them.
You can’t jump right into being a mobile notary. You’ll have to undergo a bit of training and take a test. As an attorney, this will probably be a cinch, but it’s still a necessary step. Start by looking up the requirements to become a notary public in your state.
As a lawyer, choosing a related side hustle is a safe choice, but there are also good reasons to pick other ideas beyond your occupation.
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