Building and Scaling Your Own Legal Business as a Consultant Solicitor Under a Regulated Virtual Firm Model

Introduction

The consultant solicitor model has transformed the legal services landscape. It allows solicitors to operate independently, retain a greater share of fees, and build their own client base—without the regulatory burden of running a law firm.

Yet many consultant solicitors don’t realise how far they can go within this model. Under the right regulated umbrella, you can build a team, scale your revenue, and even create a business asset capable of being handed over or sold in future.

This paper explains how to do just that, based on first-hand personal experience of scaling a consultant-led practice before later establishing a regulated firm. Few leaders of virtual firms have actually walked this path themselves; this guidance is practical, tested, and grounded in experience.

1. The Consultant Solicitor Business Structure

When you join a regulated virtual firm like the Jonathan Lea Network (JLN), you typically work through your own service company, which contracts with the umbrella firm.

The Umbrella Firm Provides:

• Regulation under the SRA and professional indemnity insurance
• Case management systems (e.g. Clio)
• Compliance support and supervision
• Administration support, particularly for file opening, conflict checks, and AML verification
• Accounting and credit control, handling billing, payments, and reconciliations
• Marketing support, including:
  • Promotion via the firm’s social media channels
  • A high-ranking website that performs strongly in search engines and AI-driven tools
  • The ability to add your own authored content to the website while retaining ownership
• An in-built referral network from other consultants and retained fee earners
• Access to junior fee earners employed by the firm who can assist on your files as needed
• Billing and client-account administration
• Operational infrastructure and policies ensuring compliance and best practice

You Provide:

• Legal expertise and client care
• Business development and entrepreneurial direction
• Oversight of your own team and client relationships

This structure gives you the freedom to grow your business within a secure, regulated environment.

2. Why Building a Team Matters

A solo consultant is constrained by personal billable hours. Building a team allows you to:

• Multiply output and revenue
• Delegate routine work
• Focus on higher-value advisory and relationship work
• Develop a sustainable, transferable business asset

That is how consultants evolve from fee earners into entrepreneurial practice owners.

3. Establishing a Local Operational Base

Although the model is virtual, many consultants find that a small serviced office provides a real advantage.

It enables:

• Close supervision of junior staff
• Space for meetings and team growth
• A visible professional presence in your area

Serviced offices are flexible, cost-effective, and ideal for gradual scaling.

4. Hiring Paralegals Through Your Service Company

Your service company can hire paralegals directly, as they don’t need to be employed by the regulated firm. Once hired, they will be:

• Added to the firm’s case management system
• Given their own hourly rate
• Able to record billable time on your files

This ensures their work is billable, properly supervised, and revenue-generating.

Paralegals can handle substantial portions of your workload, especially when supervised in an office setting. Bright and fast-learning paralegals can take on much of the routine drafting, bundling, onboarding, and client correspondence.

They can also assist with administrative tasks such as:

• Drafting engagement letters and fee estimate emails
• Preparing standard forms and templates
• Managing client onboarding and document collation

This frees you to focus on higher-value client work and strategy.

5. Hiring Trainee Solicitors and Qualified Solicitors (Tripartite Model)

For SRA compliance reasons, your unregulated service company cannot directly employ trainee solicitors or qualified solicitors (although, as explained above, it can employ non-qualified fee earners).

However, you can expand your team using a tripartite arrangement between you, the umbrella firm, and the trainee solicitor or solicitor you wish to “retain”:

• The umbrella firm employs the fee earner to maintain regulatory compliance.
• Your service company pays their employment cost (+ VAT, reclaimable) monthly in advance to the umbrella company.
• The individual works exclusively for your practice and client base, thus increasing the volume of work your service company can process through the umbrella firm and boosting your revenue.

6. Hiring Your Own Self-Employed Consultant Solicitors

As your business grows, you can also engage self-employed consultant solicitors under your practice unit. They operate through the umbrella firm but work primarily on your matters, sharing revenue with your service company.

This enables further growth while keeping overheads light and compliance straightforward.

7. Proven Revenue Growth Pathway

This scaling occurs without taking on regulatory risk or firm ownership.

8. Building a Sellable Business Asset

With a mature client base and team, you are effectively creating a mini-practice within the firm.
That business can later be handed over or sold to a younger consultant, much like wealth advisers sell client books within umbrella networks such as St James’s Place.

This model transforms your consultancy into a long-term asset rather than a short-term income stream.

9. Why Grow Your Practice with the Jonathan Lea Network

Having personally built and scaled a consultant solicitor business before founding JLN, I understand first-hand how to succeed in this model. Most other virtual firm leaders lack that experience.

Our Key Advantages

Stable Culture and Steady Growth

JLN is intentionally a smaller, well-balanced consultancy, not a high-turnover, rapid-growth operation.
We maintain a settled culture where:

• Systems don’t change constantly
• Processes remain simple and user-friendly
• Consultants can focus on clients, not bureaucracy

User-Friendly Systems

Our systems are modern yet intuitive. Using Clio for case management and integrated cloud tools, everything is designed for speed and ease, not clunkiness.

Same-Day Payments

Unlike large bureaucratic networks that hold your money until the next pay run, at JLN:

As soon as your client pays a bill, you can invoice us for your share and we’ll pay you the same day.

That means reliable, fast cashflow and peace of mind.

AI-Enhanced Support

We’ve embedded AI across all workflows, from document generation to knowledge retrieval – making our admin and support faster, more accurate, and more responsive than firms still relying on manual systems.

Comprehensive Support and Collaboration

• Dedicated accounts and admin teams
• Marketing reach through a high-ranking website and active social channels
• Warm internal referral network among consultants and staff
• Access to employed junior fee earners when extra hands are needed

We don’t just let consultants operate independently, we partner with them to build thriving, scalable practices.

Conclusion

The consultant solicitor model is a genuine opportunity to become an entrepreneurial business owner within a regulated environment.

At the Jonathan Lea Network, you can:

• Grow beyond your personal billing limits
• Build and manage your own team
• Enjoy smooth systems, responsive support, and same-day payments
• Create a valuable, transferable business asset

And this approach isn’t theory, it’s based on my own successful experience as a consultant solicitor who built a team and scaled revenue long before becoming a regulated firm owner.

With JLN, you can follow the same journey – securely, profitably, and sustainably.

If you’re thinking about taking the next step in building your own legal business or simply want to explore what’s possible within the consultant solicitor model, I’d be delighted to have a conversation. Feel free to reach out for an informal chat, I’m always happy to share insights and help you plan your next move.

✉️ jonathan.lea@jonathanlea.net