It all comes down to time. I've freelanced for the past four years, and as soon as I wrap up my three current jobs I'm putting a stop to it - no more freelance work. A person can only stand so many continuous evenings and weekends of having responsibilities to clients before they start to crack. A regular architecture job also demands work on the occasional (frequent) weekend, so free time starts to dwindle away quickly. Add a new child to the mix, and you've got one severely stressed out architect!

Admittedly the money can be great. Freelancing has funded the ongoing renovation of my house. And I've worked almost exclusively for friend-of a-friend type clients, generally very nice people. And I'm proud of the work, and got to explore a little bit of my own thinking, and feel an ownership of those projects that I don't feel about projects at the firm.

Freelancing can definitely be a springboard to starting one's own firm, too. Sadly, I have had to turn down freelance jobs that would have supported me while starting up my own business - which I really wanted to do - because health insurance became the problem. (Damn this country that can't get some kind of universal health coverage, if you ask me THAT is a major obstacle to the entreprenuerial spirit that the Republicans are always carrying on about! Sorry, a slight tangent there...)

At some point liability insurance also becomes a question. Working for people you don't know well or have a previous relationship with, liability is a scary thing. You also want to make sure you are working with contractors you have a good relationship with.

Freelancing is fun, everyone should try it, but pick your jobs carefully, and make it crystal clear to your clients that the work you do for them has absolutely no relationship to your employer.

i've been wanting to get into the freelancing game, but i've just never really known how to go about getting started.

I've been freelancing for the last two and a half years. I started right out of school with a remodel, and from that job came a lot more. I got a full-time job, so I kinda stopped doing side work, eventhough the full-time job was not architecture related. I was let go by the full-time job and started doing more freelance work and I have to say that it brings in a good amount of money when there are jobs, but when there aren't any it can be worrysome. However, I've found that a lot of clients try to take advantage of you because of a lack of license, while others don't quite understand that sometimes we have to negotiate between their dreams and the city rules, or they think we can fix what they have done illegally. At any rate, I've been seriously thinking of quitting the freelance jobs, eventhough I've been fairly succesful at them, and go work for a firm to gain more of the business knowledge and tips and tricks of a project. But the main reason is to get licensed. Even if I go back to school for a M.Arch, after december I still have to do IDP, so I figure make some money and get the IDP out of the way, now.

I did freelance work for a couple of years before starting my own practice and i can absolutely say that I would not have been able to go out on my own without the freelance work. So much of what we do is based on referrals that without freelance work it would be very hard to generate a client base to refer work to you.

The workload is hard, no doubt about it. Once you commit to a freelance job you need to know that you are giving up all of your nights and weekends for however many months the job will last. The unfortunate thing is that if you want to use this to start your own practice, the workload does not get less because you are not doing the work as freelance work it actually increases.

Also, it is very important that you do not do any of the work out of your daytime office. This can be a huge problem. No daytime phone calls, no using the fax machine, no using their printers/plotters, no using their computers, no daytime meetings (unless you work something out with your boss). The problem is that as a freelancer you probably do not carry the liability insurances that a professional should carry. If there is a problem on the job, and the other lawyer figures out that you did business out of/through your daytime office, they can actually sue your employer (or more specifically, their insurance company) for your freelance project.

Anyway, freelance work is difficult, rewarding and (was in my case) necessary.

Good luck.