Solo...?

One question I'm really grappling with is whether to go it alone or not. I've known some people who've gone into practice for themselves in the past. I keep considering whether this is the right option for me. I guess, in many ways, I'm lucky because the practice areas I've been trained in are those you can do alone. And I live in an area where a lot of people are self-employed, and where there are a lot of innovations that would keep overhead low, such as virtual offices so I wouldn't have the expense of a full-time office.

I've been trying to figure out the pros and cons of going it alone. The pros are sort of obvious: working for yourself = flexibility, autonomy, freedom. Freedom to set my own hours, and to practice law the way I want to practice it. This would include taking cases I want to take, handling and taking clients I want to take, and practicing areas of law that I enjoy and am interested in. The cons are that its scary as hell because I have no safety net, no security, no guarantees. It also might take me a long time to become profitable. In the long run, I'll probably make more money working for myself than working for someone else. But it might be lean and scary for some period of time.

I think what I've decided, after discussing with my sister (thanks C) is that I'll go ahead and do the research, make a plan to go it alone. In the meantime, I'll keep looking for full time or part-time work, and if I find something I love, than solo practice plans can go on the backburner, or if I don't, I can keep working on a plan and eventually put it into place.