Your Bonus Check Is Your Escape Hatch

December is here. Bonuses hit bank accounts. And thousands of lawyers are doing the same math they do every year: Is this enough to keep me here?

Here is the truth most BigLaw partners will never tell you: The barriers to starting your own law firm have never been lower. The economics have never been better. And the myths keeping you chained to your desk are exactly that. Myths.

The Fear Factory

The legal profession runs on fear. Fear of failure. Fear of losing prestige. Fear of the unknown. Law firm leadership depends on this fear to maintain the status quo.

You have been told that clients expect a corner office in a downtown high-rise. You have been told that going solo means taking a pay cut. None of this is true anymore.

The partners who tell you these things are not lying. They are repeating what they believed when they started practicing. But technology has fundamentally changed the economics of running a law firm. Most lawyers over 50 have not updated their mental models.

Your clients have changed too. They work from home. They take Zoom calls in their kitchens. They do not care if you have a mahogany conference table. They care if you answer your phone and solve their problems.

The Real Numbers

Let me show you what a lean law practice actually costs in 2025.

Google Workspace Business Standard plan: $14 per month. This gives you professional email, cloud storage, video conferencing, and document collaboration. Gemini 3 is probably all of the AI software you need and it’s included in Workspace. Throw in $10 a month for a Google Voice number, and it’s everything you need to run a modern practice.

Web domain and basic hosting: $500 per year. You need a professional website. You do not need to spend $10,000 on a marketing agency to build it.

Hardware: $3,000 for a new MacBook Air, printer, and scanner. This is a one-time expense that will last you years.

Malpractice insurance: $1,500 for your first year. This is the cheapest it will ever be because you have no claims history and limited exposure.

That is $5,072 in core expenses.

Add your phone bill at $1,200 per year. Budget $7,500 for accounting and bookkeeping. Throw in $1,500 for incidental software like Adobe. Get Fastcase for legal research at $995.

You are now at $16,267 in annual expenses.

You have nearly $9,000 left in a $25,000 budget for things like co-working space, marketing, additional monitors, or case management software. Some lawyers are running profitable practices for under $20,000 per year in total expenses.

Compare this to what your firm bills clients for your time minus what they actually pay you. The math is not complicated.

The Myth of the Pay Cut

Here is the most persistent lie in legal practice: Going solo means making less money.

The opposite is often true. When you work at a firm, you generate revenue and keep a fraction of it. The rest goes to partners who did not do the work, overhead you do not need, and profit margins that benefit everyone except you.

When you run your own practice, every dollar of revenue above your expenses is yours. A solo practitioner billing $300 per hour who works 1,500 billable hours generates $450,000 in revenue. Subtract $25,000 in expenses. That leaves $425,000 before taxes.

How many BigLaw associates make $425,000? How many have the flexibility to take a Tuesday afternoon off to watch their kid’s school play?

The economics favor the entrepreneur. They always have. The legal profession just convinced you otherwise.

The Office Myth

Your clients do not want to come to your office. The pandemic proved what technology already enabled: Legal work can happen anywhere. Clients prefer the convenience of video calls.

A physical office is a fixed cost that drains your cash flow every month whether you have clients or not. It limits your flexibility. It is a relic of a business model designed for a different era.

If you need to meet a client in person, rent a conference room for an hour. It costs a fraction of monthly office rent and signals that you are efficient with resources.

What You Actually Need

Starting a successful law firm requires three things: vision, values, and community.

Vision means knowing what kind of practice you want to build. Not every lawyer should go solo. But if you are reading this article in January while looking at your bonus check, you probably already know what you want. You just need permission to pursue it.

Values mean understanding what matters to you beyond money. Do you want flexibility? Autonomy? The ability to choose your clients? Control over your own schedule?

Community means surrounding yourself with people who have done what you want to do. The loneliest path is the one you walk alone. Find mentors who have built successful practices. Learn from their mistakes.

The Best Investment You Will Make

If you are serious about starting a firm, do the foundational work first. Define your vision. Clarify your values. Build a business plan that reflects who you are, not what someone else thinks a law firm should look like.

You can run a law firm for $25,000 a year. You can make more money than you do now. You can have the flexibility and autonomy you crave.

The barriers are not financial. They are psychological. The question is not whether you can afford to start your own firm. The question is whether you can afford to keep waiting.

Your bonus check is sitting in your account. What are you going to do with it?