Login
Tackling the uncertain legal job market like an entrepreneur
A Victorian man has combined the skills honed in law school with his business know-how as a consultant to launch a document proofreading service.
Melissa Coade
Jordan Lees splits his time between Bendigo and Melbourne. Trained as a physiotherapist, he offers his consulting services on aspects of occupational health & safety (OHS) to businesses and councils.
To continue reading the rest of this article, please log in.
Create free account to get unlimited news articles and more!
Before branching into consultancy work and part-time legal studies, Mr Lees operated his own physio clinic in Bendigo. Today the 28-year-old PLT student, who is completing the final stretch of his studies at the Leo Cussen Centre for Law, has his heart set on eventually practising as a solicitor.
In the meantime, however, he has kick-started a remote document proofing service – Eagle Eye Proofreading.
“My skills as a consultant were transferable in the sense that I was not afraid to put myself out there,” Mr Lees said.
“Finding work for the OHS consultancy work was a matter of word of mouth. I already had a few contacts in the health industry and once I put the word out that I was going into it, I started to get a few inquiries,” he said.
Mr Lees established the proofreading service last year, while still at university. Eagle Eye caters to a number of different audiences and offers proofing for a range of documents, however it has mostly attracted the attention of university students wanting a second pair of eyes on their essays.
The business markets its point of difference as being staffed only by proof-readers who are lawyers and law graduates.
According to Mr Lees, the attraction of his model is that clients have the benefit of careful comprehension and perfect syntax – hallmarks of a lawyer's particular command of the English language.
“At the time, I knew that there wasn’t a proofreading business run by lawyers. In that sense, I was just trying to think of ways that I can do things a little differently,” Mr Lees said.
“In my penultimate year I literally just put up a flyer at uni and got a few inquiries from students. Then I just started doing it for other students based around Melbourne. But not on a large scale, I was obviously still studying and working as an occupational health consultant in my capacity as a physio – so just doing a little bit more here and there,” he said.
Eagle Eye’s pricing model sees each document looked at by three proofreaders, with the fee split three ways, as a quality assurance measure. To date the business has only catered to Victorian clients but Mr Lees said he is keen to see its coverage expand.
