 Hello everybody, welcome back to my YouTube channel. So today I have another very important topic and I get this question often I hear it a lot of times. I'm asked a lot of times by many people on LinkedIn, Instagram and on YouTube comments of course. People do ask me that how did I manage to run my own firm? How did I start my own business? What exactly are the pros and cons of running your own firm in a foreign land? And I thought there is no one answer to this particular question and I do realize that I need to make a special vlog on this. So here I am today I'm going to discuss how I started my own thing and what do you have to keep in mind for the factors that you have to keep in mind and how it was an experience for me and how it is still is right. So basically today I'm going to let you know some tips and tricks that I have followed in my own practice and I'm not going to discuss a typical day in what my life is because that's the mainstream thing. I'm going to discuss some details that I have resonated from a lot of experience till now and let's begin by telling you one thing that I do realize I've worked in law firms in India. I have had good internship experiences. I've had good exposure to that kind of corporate field corporate law all kind of fields right plus litigation. So I do realize that when you have to run your own law firm you are basically not just going to be a good lawyer. Being good lawyer is one thing yes you have to ace your practice but you also have to be a very good entrepreneurs. So I often tell people that it's not very easy to run your own law firm no matter how easy it looks it's not that simple and specifically when you are in a foreign land when you have to make local contacts when you have to go through that networking zone and all of that. But now when I have crossed that bridge and I am learning day to day I do want to share my experience with all of you so that when any of you and all of you are here and most of you are here or whatsoever but as in when you are here you do get there some helpful things and it does help you through. So one of the most important thing in Canada what I have seen as an internationally trained lawyer and going through my practice and resources here since the time I've been into practice is that a lot of people who come out of this licensing process who as soon as they get their bar licenses they do tend to start their own practice. People do realize that one thing is that you the much paying yourself employed practices you won't probably get in an initial job and people have to run their families and you know they have a lot of responsibility on their head. So there are a few types of practices in Canada that anybody can tap on because it's easy and it's quick money and you can't just say it's easy it's easy to get to business in that and that one business is real estate which a lot of lawyers you would be seeing are doing because what happens in Canada is that any kind of property that you buy or sale has to go through a real estate agent and further through a lawyer so the closing of your deal would be through a lawyer so when lawyers do that they usually charge say about this now they start from anywhere around 800 to 1200 depending on what residential commercial property it is so 800 or 1200 dollars so basically the many lawyers I have heard that they do around 100-100 closings a month so that's like good money for them and it's more rewarding than a job so hats off to those people who start on their own practice just because you know I do understand that they do have to do a lot of responsibility on their head and have to take care of it but what I do realize specifically for mine my case was that I was not interested in this area of practice and I was keenly keenly working towards I initially started with a refugee matter and then that's how I was working in a law firm and that's how I realized that no I can actually pick up my own work have with the hands-on experience and start with this plus it really depends on your kind of family support that you get my partner was very supportive in fact he's one of the business partners in our firm and the other person is a Shahrukh as you all might know the Shahrukh is also a dear friend and a business partner so we've all been really like very good to when it was just for the moment so we started our own ace law practice and ace law is by the way doing a lot of business migration cases and hence that is my key area of interest I do like to read about investments act and I go through all of that in day-to-day routine so basically now I did not want to specialize we all do diversify but now by the time when your practice gets old you do try to tend to focus to a particular area initially and we still do we still do a lot of criminal matters we do civil matters and matters do come to you see there's no it's not that you are you know you you will not find work when you actually want to find work somehow the work will also find you so it it has never been a day where I have you know thought that why did I start my own thing I have always always embraced the feeling of starting my own firm now few of the factors that I want you guys to consider before once you get your licensing and have gone through that process is first how can you sustain how risk aversive are you now risk aversion say I do not mean ki apke pahs kite finances a of course finances is one criteria to it second is ki ap how much are you willing to give are you are you a person who's like you know a nine to five person then this is not for you are you a person who's like shy and timid and can't talk much to people do not like to you know go out of your zone out of your box get in touch with everybody and you know you are just very comfortable in your comfort box then this is not for you you have to again another thing is calculate that how how much confidence basically you have in yourself are you confident enough do you think yes out there in the world you have already had experience in a in a common-law country like India Pakistan you know wherever you can think as a common-law country wherever you are coming from do you think that you can basically you know make your local resources then if if your heart says yes then do follow this thing do follow your heart because you know sometimes you your brain will tell you something but what your heart says you need to follow that and believe you me that is the key to success it is just a minor difference on where you have to select your head and heart so a combination of both is ideally what I go for sometimes I think from my heart sometimes I think from my brain and usually both situations in collaboration work very well for me now the other point that I do want to discuss is that how is your business sense do you think you can handle because at some time you won't have employees with you when you start right because you have a limited budget you have limited kind of resources now you do want to emphasize on your business skills now some people are not meant for business they know that they can't do business because a law practice is not only doing some kind of paperwork that is going to come to you how is that paper going to come to you how is the client going to come to you how are you going to manage client expectations how are you going to keep accounting into record how are you going to maintain the society rules and ethics how are you going to be you know in in so much of so much of things that go together can you manage it all do you have the business sense and the most important thing is can you get business so it's very important to keep your clients happy to you know no no it's a service industry so basically it's it's so competitive that you actually have to have good services now if you are good in something then automatically from one client you'll get another client from another you will get a third one it's like word of mouth till date no matter how much you socialize how much you are on social media how much you market yourself it does not matter what matters in the end is how good you are with what you do along with a very good blend of being a very good business person how you don't have to sell yourself never sell yourself and never even short sell yourself do not I think in my career till now what I realized is that the services I offer as a lawyer can be you know can be maybe they are available in the market with a less maybe a less legal fee but I know when I do it I do it with all my heart and my clients file maybe if it's just a small investment for him but it's like everything for me that I do it's I do understand that this some people have their own savings into this and I do realize and emotionally you know that emotional quotient is there in me and I do realize that I have to take care of it so even if my face is there it's just because you if I value you you value my time so basically in importance of time and I do not like to short sell myself every ever then the third thing I like to talk about is your experience now I would not recommend anybody to start their own practice as they are just you know fresh law graduates cleared gone through the NCA process everything and they became lawyers in Canada and you have obviously have an immigration status so I would not recommend anybody without zero experience to start it is not something that I say key does the Salka experience to get started I don't know I'm not of that school of thought I also think that young people young entrepreneurs so much people across the world are doing so much young young kids are doing so much they have their own startups and everything and after all the law firm is also basically your own startup right so I do not think that you need a lot of experience for this but you do need a decent experience to know how will you actually work how is your temperament with your work so how can you you know deal with a particular situation you sometimes you might just lose and you will not just lose it's after all a loss for yourself as well but it's a major loss for your client so sometimes a lot of things are at stake and you have to be very careful with all that you have to be very diligent with all of that so basically I do not say a much diverse experience like five to ten years but I do say a decent two to three experience two to three years of experience and I when I say two to three experience I do count myself saying that your internships included in that why because your internships I know how much we work hard in our internships in India at least I have so basically I whenever somebody I'm in turn taking somebody on is and on as an intern in my firm I do realize that I will not free put them for free on work so they their people actually they get very much motivated and I think in lawyers and in this field we do need to motivate each other so even if you think you have a little bit of experience but you have the confidence you have the risk aversion you have the business in then do not even give it a second thought according to me the next thing I think I want to talk about with you guys is that how law is a tool to you with you which you can help people you know when I came to Canada I had no such thing in my mind that I will open my own thing but as a tool that can help people I started helping people with small immigration matters because it was for me it was just reading the law and helping them out with their matters I did tend to help a lot of people in there in that time when I was studying and going through my process and that is when I realized that okay no matter where in the world you are even in India even in Canada I do realize the fact that no matter where in the world you are one tool in your hand is your education and your degree and this particular thing called law in your hand so basically when you do understand something you can't even imagine the kind of small small reading and researching and help we can do for somebody that layperson is not aware of that layman is not aware of so basically this is like a very powerful tool that we have to use it and we know we should know how to use it right we should know where we can make money and where we should not make money where we should be more compassionate towards people and where we should know that okay this is now more of my time and this has to be valued this has to be compensated and basically that is where your own business sense come in do not be very greedy start just you know don't be out of the box and making just wanting to make huge money with few cases no it's over a period of time in your practice that you realize that as a self-employed person as somebody who has to in the end be directly accountable to the clients just be very reasonable and be very ethical with your clients even in Canada even in India wherever now I do have clients from overseas obviously because I do immigration but even when I have local clients I do tend to report them everything that's happening with their case or maybe I make it a habit to say once in two weeks but I do die too it's always on my mind and when you can multiple you know do multitasking do a lot of things then this this thing I'm sure running your own law firm you can manage if you have partners that's well and good because you tend to diversify more you tend to share responsibility more at the same time one of you has to be the managing partner why because you need to manage small small nitty-gritty's of the office which you don't realize right now but when you open your own firm then there is everything that you have to look into from the photograpy to basically even you know filing things so everything in an office in Ontario I have realized here in Canada that we can do everything in anything it's like we are very smart we just need to be very confident about our own selves have a little kind of risk aversion everybody will flourish even if the job market is down but still your own practice will it's your own right so you know how much you can do at the end of the day your capability pay I've made a lot of people who are born here but they don't have to practice so how is that possible it's just basically the difference of attitude how how much independent as you are as a person how much you know I am like not a 9 to 5 person if I want to work at night I can work at night if I want to work at day I will work at day so nobody that monotony I just can't tolerate so that's with me but that's not a very good thing though but that is there so I can't help it so make a pattern here at improvement case I don't use temperament case I'm sick me situation may just get a right and my God grace all is well that way but I just my quick suggestion is that start from whatever you have and do whatever you can right basically basically just try to spread that kind of positivity and I'm sure the universe will make things happen the way you want them to happen but just work towards it new universe is not just going to come to you and you know make it happen so that's me for today and if you want to go check out my website and everything in my about me then I do share the link of my website in the description box and if you want me to log about anything specifically related to other than starting your own practice in Canada and how the things related to that so you can do put in the comment section and thank you so much bye bye take care goodnight