Rachael Bosnjak is the founding director and principal solicitor of Passage Migration Consulting in Fortitude Valley, Queensland.

Speaking recently on The Boutique Lawyer Show, Ms Bosnjak outlined why she started her firm amid border closures — and why the niche micro practice is on the rise within the legal sphere.

After starting Passage Migration in the midst of a global pandemic, Ms Bosnjak is now focused on growth — after mainly relying on herself and a few outside support people, such as a social media manager and a bookkeeper.

“At the moment, I’m not exactly sure what growth looks like within the migration practice, but certainly, I think the idea would be to have at least a couple of teams, one [for] skilled migration, and then one in partner visas or love stories, to really push and drive those types of applications. The other thing that I want to do, [which] is in the works at the moment, is the ultimate collaboration or complementary service with immigration, and that is international recruitment,” she explained.

“So as part of that, my business partner and husband is building a business called Passage Co, which I’ve founded with him, and the idea is to really be that end-to-end service for migrants coming from overseas, and then being able to travel into Australia, with a job, with placement at an employer and then getting dropped to work on their first day of work, knowing that that process is going to be seamless, and us offering that service to companies that are really struggling.”

Passage Migration is a niche micro firm, which Ms Bosnjak described as either a sole practitioner or a firm with less than three people, that focuses on a specific practice area.

“There [have] been a lot of lawyers over the last few years, and it’s probably as a result of the pandemic, is that these really amazing lawyers walking out of pretty big law jobs, where they’ve got a decent amount of experience, that seven to 10 years of experience, and there’s been a bit of a realisation that maybe we can do things better, so they’re going out and creating these practices, but because we’ve all been practising for so long, it’s inevitable in law land that you get pigeonholed into whatever your area of law is or that is what you end up really being an expert in after having practised for seven to 10 years,” she explained.

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“So, people are niching down into that practice area, but also what they love within that practice area, and I think that’s what makes the micro firm different. I think it’s purposeful niching, so I practice in immigration, for example, but I love working with people that want to write their own love story, and apply for a partner visa. I love seeing migration law, but I also love working with companies to solve their labour solutions.

“And what [these lawyers are] doing is really specialising in an area that they love, which really allows for this purposeful practice of law and more excitement, more values-based practice rather than just turning up to work every day.”

Being a firm like this has numerous benefits, particularly to those who own and run them, according to Ms Bosnjak.

“The big thing of running a niche practice is that A, you’re doing what you love. You’ve made a decision, an active, purposeful decision to say, ‘This is what I want to do with my career. This is what I want to do with my day; this is how I want to spend my time’, so purposefully practising as a lawyer is something, I guess, that you get this beautiful benefit of,” she added.

“Also, a lot of the micro-practice owners that I know are young mothers, and one of those big things is that they’re able to pick up their kids from school or spend more time with their children or have some sort of arrangement where they can also foster that for people within their organisation as well, because they really understand the issue.”

Micro niche firms are also on the rise — a trend Ms Bosnjak said is a result of lawyers realising there are alternative pathways to BigLaw.

“In immigration alone, over the last probably five to seven years, I think at least six of my colleagues have set up their own practices. I’m also part of a group of pretty amazing lawyers, and within that, there continues to be little practices popping up, and I think it’s a trend, because people are realising that we don’t have to go down this traditional law pathway of graduate, get your clerkship, work top tier, make partner, and then die,” she explained.

“There’s this ability to do a different pathway and to really create your own legal career in the way that you want it to look like, and so people are just making that realisation, that purposeful practice is something that’s exciting rather than [just] sitting in your office and rocking yourself into anxiety.”

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Rachael Bosnjak, click below: