Pro Freelance Writer

I’m currently working on a difficult, time-consuming project — an article for the Indian Nations and Indigenous Peoples Symposium Issue of the Idaho Law Review.  And I keep getting asked if I’m getting paid for this work.  The answer is not a dime.  Truth is, no one gets paid for law journal articles.  And they’re hard!  So why do us legal enthusiasts keep writing them?

For me, it’s a dedication to academic scholarship.  Don’t get me wrong, I sometimes curse the dedication (or the scholarship, depending on what I’m reading).  But without pushing myself to study and write, I can’t keeping growing and learning.  My primary area of scholarship is cultural property law, and I want to keep becoming more knowledgeable and more involved.  There’s no better way to ensure this happens than by way of scholarship.  That means sorting through piles of other academics’ thoughts, and coming up with a unique analytical perspective.  Hopefully one that will foster progress in the dialogue!

Yes, academic writing takes time away from paying work.  But one of the reasons I run my own business is just so that I can afford to do these things (usually in the morning when I’m feeling bright-eyed and bushytailed).  My friends that work 40-hour weeks (or more) in an office hardly have the energy when they get home to attack intellectually demanding projects.

Well, lest I yammer away and forgo the 10,000 word goal that I’ve got going on my working paper, I best get back to it.

Write on… Kimberly.

I’m making a comeback, after my escape from the brutal cold of Interior Alaska.  Several weeks of driving gave me plenty of time to think about how to improve my business model and offerings. With the new year, I have some new ideas, and I anticipate there will be some noticeable changes to my websites and services.

Up until now, I have kept my legal writing and non-legal writing services separate, for several reasons.

First, I was concerned that non-legal writing clients might seek legal advice from me if they knew of my education and background.  This is fear-based reasoning, however, and there are certainly safeguards and boundaries that I can use to prevent this from becoming a problem.  I now have a few regular non-legal writing clients who have learned of my legal background, and no problems have arisen.  I have explained to one client that I only perform legal writing services for licensed attorneys due to licensing issues, and she was completely satisfied with this explanation.

Second, when I started my non-legal writing business, I had no concept of how strong the demand for high quality writers is.  So I viewed it as a “when legal writing times are slow” endeavor, although business grew quickly and continues to do so.  I am now justified in charging rates that compete with my legal writing services, and I genuinely enjoy the work.  Therefore, there is no longer a financial justification to “sidelining” my non-legal writing business.

Finally, I was concerned that my legal writing clients would perceive me as less serious or legitimate if they knew that I engaged in non-legal writing as well.  However, I have always embraced transparency, and if a practitioner is dismayed that I enjoy many non-legal forms of writing as well, then I’m willing to forgo that relationship in favor of the ten others I believe will be made possible by complete disclosure of my capabilities.

Accordingly, I am going to create a larger umbrella for my business that includes both legal and non-legal writing, so that I am not growing the two in relative isolation.  By doing so, I aim to foster a greater sense of transparency, as well as to increase the perceived legitimacy of both.

Write on… Kimberly