Chicago solo practitioner Leila Kanani needed to find experienced attorneys to help her handle overflow work when her docket spiked, but she couldn't hire anyone full-time because she couldn't count on staying crazy-busy. So she reached out to attorneys she knew who had left BigLaw to become stay-at-home mothers but wanted to keep one foot in the legal business.

"Whenever I got busy, I didn't know who to turn to for work," says Kanani, who estimates her practice is 60 to 65 percent litigation and the rest transactional, including estate planning, intellectual property, and corporate, family, and environmental law. "They were just sitting at home. They loved it. I set them up with other projects, and it just grew out of that."

In 2013, she founded Intermix Legal Group, a network of freelance attorneys and those who want to hire them for piece work - projects like drafting pleadings and motions, helping with discovery and depositions, and handling trial preparation - without setting up their own full-time practices. Find out more about hiring freelancers - and being one - in the December Illinois Bar Journal.