Lawyer Career Changer Profile

Nick Lindsay

Company Secretarial

Legal Career

Olswang LLP, Solicitor, Corporate, London

New Career(s)

Starting a business
Company Secretarial

Career Change Story

I left private practice to set up Elemental CoSec, a corporate and company secretarial firm. We provide professional company secretarial services to SMEs, large corporates and law firms. As a corporate lawyer, I've been setting up companies and dealing with company secretarial businesses for years. It's a very old fashioned industry and I always found that the service I received was poor and the prices too high.

I had an idea that the business could be done better and through researching the industry and how firms in other areas worked I became convinced of it. Despite this, it remained just an idea for a while, but an idea I kept coming back to.

In the end, the idea became so fixed in my mind that not doing it seemed the bigger risk as I would regret it for the rest of my life. That was when I knew I had to make the jump.

I scoured the internet, learning about people who had done similar things in different areas. There are plenty of law firms and accountancy firms that operate using a disbursed model like us and it means that I could learn from the way they had set their businesses up.

I also had to learn how to build a website. I decided to do it myself to save the money of an agency. I'd highly recommend this approach if you're willing to spend the time. I hired freelancers through the internet to help with the graphic design elements but it meant that I kept a lot more control over the look and feel of the site than I ever would have otherwise.

Career Change Reflections

Working for your own business is incredibly rewarding and I would highly recommend it. It's a lot easier finding the motivation to do the work when you're not working to line someone else's pockets.

However, the life of a start-up is incredibly hard and although we now have an established business there is still a lot of work to do. It's not a route for the faint hearted, but if you want to make a break and work for yourself, then I can't recommend it enough.

I'm always happy to discuss my experiences with people, so please feel free to get in touch with us.

Contact Details

Address: London
Tel:0203 2866 222
Email: nick.lindsay@elementalcosec.com
Website: www.elementalcosec.com