Having just perused the website of the Solicitor Sole Practitioners Group, I was left with the feeling that there was something rather soulless about it. According to the website, "Solicitor Sole Practitioners is one of eight Law Society recognised groups which represent particular sectors of the profession. The others are the Young Solicitors Group, Association of Women Solicitors, Commerce and Industry Group, the Local Government Group, Group for Solicitors with Disabilities, the Black Solicitors Network and the Trainee Solicitors Group".While I'm sure that the SPG is totally worthy in all respects, this defining statement makes it sound as though being a sole practitioner, a legal spinster as it were, is a sort of handicap that really brave people can overcome by attending the Law Society's analogue of a singles club.
A good thing about the SOLO IP group is that it is much more driven by a positive commitment to the subject-matter than by a negative support-group mentality. We also have the advantage that we span different professions -- solicitors, barristers, patent attorneys, trade mark attorneys, independent consultants -- and therefore encompass a wider range of skills, interests and training requirements than a group that is as homogeneous as the SPG.
We even have the potential to be a Multi Disciplinary Practice in our own right! I haven't given this any thought whatsoever, but the thought popped into my head when I saw Jeremy's remark in this post. Certainly, having experienced both groups I found them very different. Solo IP has been by far the more useful and positive of the two groups for me - by miles.
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