Going Solo from Biglaw: What Transfers, What Doesn't

What transfers, what doesn't, what's replaceable

• Transfers fully: your craft, your standards, your training in how work product should look - the genuinely scarce assets.
• Transfers partially: your network (it's worth more than you think, less than you hope - test it before you leap) and your specialty (some biglaw specialties have no solo market; adjacent consumer/small-business versions usually exist).
• Doesn't transfer: the machine - docketing, support staff, research subscriptions someone else paid for, and the brand that made clients arrive. This is the gap the modern stack fills: the operational layer (intake, document reading, deadlines with shown bases, drafting support, portals) is now a platform subscription, not a payroll.
• Doesn't transfer and isn't replaceable: the salary's certainty. That one you underwrite with runway.

The departure rules (do this precisely)

Departure ethics are well-mapped; violating them is how a launch starts with a lawsuit. The load-bearing rules: clients belong to themselves - they may be informed of your departure and choose, but solicitation logistics and timing are governed (many jurisdictions expect joint or coordinated notice); files follow the client's instruction; and firm property - documents, forms, precedent banks, client data - doesn't leave with you beyond what the rules permit. Take advice on your jurisdiction before the first conversation, not after.

Non-solicitation of staff, partnership-agreement notice terms, and conflicts documentation for what you carry out round out the checklist. The clean departure costs a few weeks of discipline and buys a decade of not looking over your shoulder.

The money math, with shapes

Runway: twelve months of personal burn is the comfortable number; nine is workable; six is a bet on your pipeline. Practice costs are the smaller story - insurance, software, phone, presence typically land well under $1,500/month lean. The revenue side's honest shape: solos commonly reach sustainable pipelines in months six-to-twelve, and the rate conversation inverts - your effective solo rate will be a fraction of your biglaw billing rate and a multiple of your biglaw take-home per hour worked, especially once operations are automated and flat fees capture the efficiency.

The first ninety days

• Days 1-30: entity, insurance, trust account, the four-layer stack, and the departure communications done precisely. Ship the website that says what you do and for whom.
• Days 31-60: pipeline construction - every referral source told your specific intake profile; response-speed as your differentiator (same-hour substantive answers, possible when intake automates); first matters priced flat where definable.
• Days 61-90: systematize from evidence - track cost-per-matter from day one, adjust prices quarterly, write down the intake-to-close process while it's fresh. The firms that compound are the ones that structured early.

How much money do I need to go solo from biglaw?

Personal runway dominates the math: twelve months of living costs is the comfortable target, nine workable, six aggressive. The practice itself is cheap to run lean - insurance, software, phone, and web presence typically under $1,500/month - because the operational infrastructure biglaw provided through payroll now arrives as an agentic platform subscription. The variable that actually decides timing is pipeline confidence, which you can test (quietly, within departure ethics) before leaping.

Can I take clients with me when I leave my firm?

Clients choose their lawyer - that principle is bedrock - but the mechanics are regulated: notice to clients is often expected to be joint or coordinated, timing and solicitation rules vary by jurisdiction, files move at the client's instruction, and firm property (precedent banks, forms, data) has limits on what departs with you. Get jurisdiction-specific advice before any client conversation; clean departures are entirely achievable and messy ones follow people for years.

Will I earn less going solo than in biglaw?

Usually less gross, often comparable-or-better per hour actually worked, and the gap has narrowed structurally: a solo running automated operations keeps a billable share and cost base earlier generations couldn't. The honest framing is a trade - salary certainty and peak comp against autonomy, client choice, and an equity you own. The 2026 change is that the operational penalty of solo practice, historically the hidden tax on the trade, has largely been engineered away.