If you’re a lawyer looking ahead to 2025 and thinking about personal development goals, here’s one to consider—start a side hustle.
I know, I know. You’re a busy attorney. Your day job is a 50, 60, 70-hour a week grind, you can barely drag yourself home at night, and you might have a partner, kids, friends, ailing parents, all who need attention. There’s no time for a second job! But I think that’s why you need a side gig. It can add a lot to your life, personally, professionally, and financially, if you do it with purpose.
Ever since I was a young federal prosecutor, I’ve had a side hustle. I accepted an offer to co-teach a graduate school class for forensic scientists at a local university, teaching FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration employees how to testify at trial.
It was one night a week, and I knew the extra cash would come in handy with my government lawyer salary. What I didn’t anticipate was the joy of teaching—I really enjoyed helping other people get better at their jobs.
And I discovered the secret about teaching—you often learn as much as you teach. I picked up great tips from the other co-teachers about how to direct and cross-examine expert witnesses, and I got a better understanding of forensic science from the students.
My entire career was altered by a hobby that pushed me to do completely new things. A friend convinced me that my legal training had made me too “left-brained,” always focused on logic and reason. I needed something to help me get in touch with my creative side, so I bought my first camera and enrolled in a weekend photography class.
Three years later, I was selling prints in local galleries. It was more than a nice financial pick up—it got me outside appreciating nature, it pushed me to look at the world in a more creative light, and I met interesting people.
The big payoff came, though, when I started to use a small website called eBay to buy and sell the unusual photographic equipment that I needed. My success on eBay made me a strong candidate when the company was looking to hire their lawyer back in 1998. My move from federal prosecutor to tech lawyer changed my life, and it all started with a side hustle.
Think that a photography business is crazy for a lawyer? A former Department of Justice colleague bought a food cart and set up in Washington, D.C. selling gourmet hot dogs on the weekend. He loved cooking, and he always looked a lot happier when I saw him dishing out food to a long line of tourists than when he was wearing a suit and practicing law. Some people thought he was crazy when he quit his attorney job, but last I saw him he was running a successful restaurant and loving life.
I know lawyers who moonlight doing stand-up comedy (litigators are often great at public speaking and thinking on their feet), tutoring students for LSATs, writing a book, even bartending. If you can write a brief, you might like writing a novel—Scott Turow and John Grisham are just two of the many attorneys who evolved into authors.
Multiple NFL referees, including long-time National Football League official Ed Hochuli, worked in law private firms during the week and in the off-season. A good side gig can help you test the waters if you’re thinking about a career change, or just add a fun change of pace to your life.
Moonlighting can also help you evolve your career within the legal profession. A good friend was working as a personal injury lawyer when he learned about business immigration work. He took the initiative to learn more and started taking on a few business immigration clients to try out the practice. It took off, and years later he was running his own business immigration firm with over 100 employees.
Even if your side job doesn’t immediately translate to billable hours, it can help in other ways. You can start small (and pick up a little extra cash) teaching a bar exam course, speaking on a podcast, or doing tax preparation. You might get a lot of personal satisfaction and meet great people coaching a sports team, or helping a nonprofit with their legal work.
Now for the inevitable legal disclosure—while law firms and companies are increasingly open to their employees taking on side responsibilities, don’t take your day job for granted. You owe your primary employer your best effort, and you should get familiar with your company’s code of ethics to understand applicable policies around outside activities.
If you think about it, side hustles are also informal networking, and they might help you expand your legal practice or meet clients that can make you a rainmaker.
Or it might just get you out of a rut, help you relax, and put a smile on your face.
Rob Chesnut consults on legal and ethical issues and was formerly general counsel and chief ethics officer at Airbnb. He spent more than a decade as a Justice Department prosecutor and he writes on in-house, corporate, and ethics issues.
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Source: Side Gigs Can Lead to Career Turns, Clients, or Much-Needed Fun
