Speaking on an episode of The Lawyers Weekly Show, produced in partnership with Clarence Professional Offices, the group discussed the importance of finding support when starting a new firm and how Clarence played a key role early on for Walsh and Cassimatis.

Unsurprisingly, there can be various hurdles when setting up a new law firm – and Jansz said that having conversations around this topic is particularly important for a number of reasons.

“Law is a service business, and hours are directly linked to both practising law and running a business. A lot of lawyers tend to do the work of practising law during the day and running the business at night. It’s an incredibly difficult concept, and a lot of times, the better you are as a lawyer, the busier you are in trying to run the business. And so, a lot of people are terrified by that concept, either contemplating going into business of their own, but the rewards you’ll hear about it are really quite significant,” he said.

“So, what we have tried to do at Clarence is to help in both of those areas. How do we de-risk either setting up or running a law firm? How does the financial strengths, the flexibility of what we try to offer, help small-business lawyers do what they want to do, number one.

“We try to provide as many of the benefits of a large law firm without necessarily many of the downsides of being in a large law firm. And that’s what we try to do. We continue to try and find more and more ways to help our members. How do we de-risk and make the running of their business easier, faster, more efficient?”

Cassimatis has been in criminal law for almost 20 years – and in 2019, she stepped out of a government role to start her own firm with a Clarence space.

“I’ve gotten to a point now where my firm, Gallant Law, has a team of, I think we’re at 14, and we’re based in Melbourne, but we also then branched out to the Victorian regions and also now do a bit of work in Sydney and Brisbane. And the advantage of having Clarence based in these other cities around Australia [means] there’s no need to really go out there looking for new space and you’ve got that community extended beyond your usual patch,” she said.

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“In terms of my law firm, I also created the organisation Connecting Lawyer Mums, which is into its fifth year. We’ve got about 1,000 members now, Australia-wide, so a lot of them are Clarence members and certainly a lot of them came to Connecting Lawyer Mums by meeting them through Clarence. So, the value of community there at Clarence and in Connecting Lawyer Mums is just getting stronger and stronger. And I’m really happy with where things are at and happy with the team.”

Walsh has been practising for more than 25 years and worked in international, national and boutique firms across Brisbane, Sydney, and London as well as in-house and has developed a specialisation in terms of Corporations Act compliance.

“I started my firm so that I could provide a high standard of service to my small-business owner clients, but also to my financial advisor clients and my insolvency practitioner clients, and particularly with regard to Corporations Act advice and financial services law advice.

“And then, obviously, I started my firm built around alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and particularly with regard to the Australian Financial Complaints Authority, which is a dispute resolution scheme that runs nationally in respect of financial services disputes, but they’re also in respect of state and Commonwealth ombudsman conciliation processes as well. And then also I started my firm so I could be values-based,” he explained.

“So, all of those objectives I needed to meet to start my firm. But then on top of that, I had the incredibly tight runway-type budget to do that. And that’s really where I think Tony’s absolutely amazing, the service that he offers to practitioners like me who are going out on their own.”

Having an office space was “crucial” for Walsh, and he said Clarence was the only serviced office provider that was both specific to law and would allow him to start small and grow.

“I built my website out in the co-working space. I sat there on my laptop, and I had a home office as well. But that was really important for me because I was able to keep my overheads down. It took the pressure off for the purposes of revenue targets and projections, and I could build out my systems, work on my it, work on my business model, and calibrate that without the immediate pressure of high revenue and overhead,” he said.

“Being part of the Clarence network was crucial when I made the decision where to base my firm, particularly with the networking opportunities, but then also the collegiate atmosphere at Clarence generally. Obviously, we are all separate firms, so we can’t get all kind of too collaborative or too co-working with the nature of the legal profession. We have our obligations under our relevant legal profession legislation, our ethical obligations. But the great thing about it is everyone is so professional, and everyone just has an innate understanding of that, which means you can be collaborative and you can network.”

Cassimatis had a similar experience – and said that while simultaneously keeping her overhead expenses down, she also didn’t necessarily want to draw clients’ attention to the fact that she was a new firm.

“I remember looking for a space that wasn’t going to cost me an arm and a leg so I could stay lean. But also something would be impactful for a client walking in the door to feel like, ‘OK, this person’s been around for a while. They’re obviously good at what they do if they can be in a space like this.’ So, Clarence, I actually came across an accident. I’d gone to a law conference that was being held there and I fell in love with the space immediately, the Melbourne space.

“There’s a beautiful waiting area, there’s a boardroom, and there’s some meeting rooms as well. So, visually, I thought it had the right impact for my firm, but also I was able to keep my overheads down. And I also started in the co-working space. I had a locker that’s probably about a metre high by about half a metre wide. I kept my files in there, worked from the hot desks, and then when the locker started to overload and I couldn’t close the door is when literally I realised I need to now get an office. I moved from a hot desk to just a one-person room and I’ve been able to measure sort of the success of the firm since then by the ways in which we’ve been able to move into bigger rooms each time.

“And now we’re at a point where we’re in one of the communal corner offices where we can fit the team of 14 in there. We’ve also taken out a few of the meeting rooms, so I was able to pace things out without putting too much financial pressure on myself, so I could focus on ensuring the revenues, covering my mortgage and other expenses, and without feeling that panic of being able to keep up on top of any overheads.”

Having a number of small boutiques and sole practitioners under one roof means that Cassimatis has been able to bounce ideas off other lawyers and celebrate her successes, as well as refer colleagues and be referred for legal work.

“When I started my firm, I was thinking about work/life balance. I’m a mum, I’ve got family, family commitments. There are certain things about my social life I enjoy, but becoming a business owner, I didn’t appreciate the time that in fact, it would cut into a lot of your personal life. So again, trying to navigate that work/life balance and having that community around you to get you through it is really important,” she added.

“So yeah, I think that if you are starting out, definitely get your ducks in a row, but also find the right space that works for you and does give you all that support because there will be a roller-coaster ride and there will be unexpected turns and moments in the practice. And it’s important to have the right people systems around you and the right networks.”

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Tony Jansz, Julian Walsh and Lauren Cassimatis, click below: