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In the UK legal market, a growing number of lawyers are leaving traditional law firms to work as self-employed legal consultants for fee-sharing platform law firms. In fact, experts warn that by the year 2026, a third of all UK lawyers could be working as legal consultants.

Read our new report: Rise of the legal consultants

Why? Legal consultants at fee-sharing law firms can work when they want, how they want and where they want – and they get take to home the majority of their billings. Will the desire for a better work-life balance drive lawyers across the Caribbean to become self-employed legal consultants? We spoke with some Caribbean-based legal experts to find out more.

Remote working is now commonplace amongst lawyers in the Caribbean

Keystone Law and gunnercooke are the two largest fee-sharing law firms in the UK, each bringing in £55m and £48m respectively in revenue in 2021 and employing more than 700 legal consultants between them. There are also a number of U.S. firms (known locally as distributed law firms) that are rapidly growing in size, including FisherBroyles – the first alternative firm to make the 200 largest U.S. law firms by revenue list – and Rimon, which has a strong presence in Latin America and a minor presence in the Caribbean.

Charlotte Morrish, legal recruiter at Cayman Islands based recruitment firm, Stepping Stones, says she is yet to see any great change in lawyers turning to self-employment or to virtual law firms due to the existing lifestyle benefits of working in the jurisdiction – but there is a shift amongst law firms towards remote working.

“As with the rest of the world, the Caribbean jurisdictions adapted very quickly to working from home and this has continued since restrictions were eased,” she explains.

“In most firms, it is now commonplace to work from home for two to three days a week and most are flexible when it comes to working from overseas for certain periods of time.”

Christopher Hamel-Smith, partner at virtual law firm, Hamel-Smith Caribbean, says his team do the vast majority of their work from their homes or wherever they may be at the time, only attending physical offices from time-to-time on an as-needed basis. 

“Since we are based in Barbados but practice in a number of Caribbean islands, this is very helpful and saves time, money and stress,” says Hamel-Smith.

“Of course, many traditional firms have been pushed in this direction by the pandemic, but we have been operating this way long before and we think it really works well for us and for clients.”

Virtual courtrooms are making remote working possible for many

The pandemic has also been useful in that it encouraged Caribbean courts to embrace virtual hearings, making remote working more plausible for many.

“The Cayman Islands judicial system was already used to accommodating parties and representatives from multiple jurisdictions and readily adapted to the need for virtual hearings during the pandemic,” says Morrish.

Hamel-Smith says the pandemic has helped to push the virtual model and they can now attend court hearings virtually, which was previously unheard of in the Caribbean beforehand.

“It used to take me at least three days to get to Saint Kitts and return even from a short hearing. Recently, my colleagues and I have appeared virtually in a hearing in Saint Kitts in the morning and then in the Trinidad & Tobago Court of Appeal in the afternoon of the same day, all without leaving our respective homes in Barbados. This is obviously more efficient and much easier for us, and far cheaper for the clients.”

Can lawyers in the Caribbean work across multiple jurisdictions?

For virtual law firms wanting to service clients across numerous jurisdictions across the Caribbean, an obvious obstacle might be the legal ramifications of doing so – as each country has its own laws, courts and tax departments to cater to.

Hamel-Smith says no one has ever insisted that an attorney that is visiting from another Caribbean jurisdiction to work on court matters needs a work permit.

“Since this is primarily what we do when we work across Caribbean jurisdictions, there is no practical problem.”

On the other hand, if you are looking to work more formally and consistently in a jurisdiction, then the issue may come up, says Hamel-Smith.

“The legal answer to this would be for the relevant attorneys to get the right to live and work in that jurisdiction under the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (“CSME”) system without the need for a work permit,” he says.

“This allows a national of any CARICOM Member State who has a Skills Certificate (including a degree from a recognised university) to live and work in any other CARICOM Member State,” says Hamel-Smith.

For more insights, download: Rise of the legal consultants