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Solicitor Kim Huggins

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Meet Kim

IPSE membership covers an amazingly diverse range of self-employed people, with thousands of freelancers, contractors and consultants. Every individual has valuable knowledge, experience and insight in building their business and career. We want to share more of that wisdom with the story of solicitor Kim Huggins.

We spoke to Kim about how she went from the idea of working for herself to establishing a successful self-employed business, helping a wide variety of businesses with a range of legal matters over the last five years.

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What’s the biggest benefit from being self-employed for you, and your clients?

So, what makes it great for me is the variety of clients that I get to work with. That’s particularly enjoyable because I have a hands-on way of working, and for me, it’s about being a partner with a client and their business.

I get a lot of satisfaction from getting involved with different businesses and learning about them, and I enjoy the variety and the flexibility it gives me as well. And the control I have because I can make a decision about who I want to work with, and when it might not be the best fit.

The benefit for clients is that my business is based on establishing good relationships, which works for everybody. If my clients and I get on, it makes the working process that much more enjoyable, and we achieve things much more efficiently. If it’s a big organisation, and I’m working with different divisions within it, then it’s important to establish those relationships at the outset because they have to feel comfortable talking to me, and sharing information with me.

So that’s something I pride myself on, my ability to get on with people. It sounds basic, but it’s surprising how many solicitors struggle with that. And I’d like to think that for my clients, I provide a good service and that’s important to me. And I think beyond the problems that come to me, because often it’s not just one specific thing in isolation. So, I refer to it as an integrative approach to the work that I do.

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Has IPSE helped you with any specific problems or issues?

Not a specific problem, but I must admit I’ve listened to pretty much every one of the IR35 webinars, and they’re always really useful. I’ve referred back to everything I’ve heard and learned because I’m working with a new client at the moment, and I’m having to do it within IR35.

I’ve been employed by an umbrella company to work that way, and it raised a lot of issues. I knew theoretically about IR35, but suddenly I was in it. And I needed to refer back to a lot of what I’d heard. I also reached out in the Facebook group to other members, just to see other experiences, and if anyone had used the particular payroll companies that were being offered. I had two choices, and I thought well, I don’t actually know which of them to choose or what I’m looking for, so I did reach out to other members to help with that.

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Do you find it hard to balance work and your free time?

I do, I’m very driven. I also live alone, and I’m single, so there’s no children running around, there’s nobody else vying for my attention on a daily basis. And it’s very easy as a driven independent worker to just keep, just keep going.

And in fact, I had a conversation with a nutritionist earlier today when we were discussing my stress levels, and how actually I need to get those under control, because they’re impacting me in ways that I perhaps haven’t appreciated.

So, I do need a better balance. I mean, one of the great things about working for yourself is that you can take time out in a day to do something. And I do a lot of fitness related things, but it does mean I’m often burning the candle at the beginning of the day, and at the end. And yes, more balance is needed.

There’s a bit of a feast or famine in my work, and since the beginning of the year, there has been a lot less famine, which is great. But I think a lot of service providers like me will say that it’s difficult to turn anything down. We don’t want to turn work away because it might be a great opportunity, it might be something that we’re really interested in, or we’re worried that a potential client might not come back to us. And so, we say yes.

And we find a way to get it all done. But it’s not sustainable long-term, that’s for sure

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