Dubai dream is a reality for enterprising solicitor
TWELVE months ago solicitor Chrissie Wolfe flew to Dubai for “two or three weeks” to get some well-needed sun and a break from the drizzly English autumn and Covid restrictions.
By the time she left the Middle East eight months later, she had quit a well-paid, stable job at law firm Irwin Mitchell in Birmingham and launched herself as freelance lawyer and creative consultant for hire.
It was, by any measure, the boldest of bold steps and one the 34-yearold says she does not regret one bit.
Ms Wolfe is now able to operate completely remotely from anywhere in the world and has just returned to the emirate from Birmingham to continue her quest for the ultimate in flexible working.
She told the Birmingham Post: “It wasn’t my intention to be there for that long - I was fed up with the lockdown and living on my own, staring at the same four walls.
“I just wanted to get away and have a change of scenery so I didn’t even take the time off as annual leave.
“I simply saw it as changing my work location so I packed up my laptop and went but while I was there the second full lockdown started in the UK.
“I asked my boss at home whether I really needed to come back and he said ‘No’. The time difference is six hours so I just adapted my day to fit around my clients’ schedules.”
Ms Wolfe, who originally hails from High Wycombe, came to the city to study zoology at the University of Birmingham amid dreams of becoming a vet.
But her career took a different path and she ended up attending the city’s University of Law before landing a training contract with Irwin Mitchell where she eventually qualified as a solicitor in 2015 and is now a specialist in international medical negligence and personal injury.
While at the firm, she represented UK clients who had suffered personal injury abroad or foreign nationals who had been injured during a visit to the UK.
In 2017, she started a side-project called Law and Broader in which she discusses issues affecting the legal sector, particularly around qualifications
and getting into the industry, via online platforms such as YouTube and Instagram.
Ms Wolfe says that the world shifting online at the start of the pandemic last year caused an uplift in her following to such an extent that she is now able to earn much more money from her social media channels.
It was this, coupled with settling into life in Dubai, that made her question whether giving up the daily office grind with a law firm was something that could seriously be considered as a viable and financially sound career move.
“The decision to quit my job was a gradual process and much of it was to do with the Law and Broader stuff I was doing at that time,” she said.
“During lockdown, I upped my online presence much more, such as doing a live show with interviews on Instagram on Monday evenings, which helped to boost my profile among employers and within the legal industry.
“I started receiving enquiries from people who wanted help to do the same thing which showed me there were a lot of other opportunities available.
“I had cultivated a lifestyle over there which I really enjoyed, having the flexibility to work my own hours and seeing the potential for new work coming through.
“It was a lifestyle I wanted to keep and I didn’t see that being possible if I went back to the normal aspects of private practice at a big law firm. I had reached a point where I was stable enough and had sufficient clients to be able to do that.”
She is now working as a public speaker and freelance lawyer doing traditional fee-earning work alongside advising others in the legal industry on their marketing, creative and social media content.
“It is a very scary transition obviously because you lose a stable income every month and all sorts of perks like medical insurance and sick pay,” she concluded.
“I can’t see myself relocating to Dubai full time but it’s nice to have that flexibility to move around and work from anywhere, particularly when the colder weather kicks in. I have created a lifestyle where I can pretty much do everything from a laptop so I can travel to wherever I like and still do my job.”