Of all the ways to make a living, running your own studio or private practice looks like it is losing ground, and the trend cuts across industries. Physicians are the clearest example. The American Medical Association reports that only 42.2% of physicians worked in private practice in 2024, down from 60.1% in 2012. Dr. Bruce A. Scott, a past president of the AMA, points to burdensome regulations, payment cuts, and financial stress as the main reasons.
Those pressures are real, but they answer a different question than the one that matters to you. The question is not whether private practice is harder than it used to be. It is whether the fear that keeps most people from trying, unstable income, actually survives contact with the numbers. This article looks at why a private-practice-focused career is still viable and worth taking seriously.
The high-risk fear comes with high rewards
No one blames you for wanting the safer option. Starting a practice is starting a business, and the discouraging statistics are well known: about one in five new businesses closes within its first year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Hesitation is natural. But the payoff, when the practice works, can justify the risk, and the comparison with employment is closer than most people assume.
The earning ceiling is higher than it looks
Imagine you are a lawyer who just passed the bar exam. You can risk it all on your own practice, or join a large firm and earn well without any of the risk. The second path is genuinely attractive. The National Association for Law Placement puts the median base salary for a first-year associate at $200,000 as of January 2025, and large firms in cities like Austin, Boston, Houston, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. have moved entry pay to $225,000. Even smaller firms commonly start new associates around $150,000.
To most rational people, joining an existing firm looks like the sensible choice, and often it is. But those paychecks are not generosity. They price in long hours, and the firm keeps most of what your work bills. Meanwhile, the revenue side of a solo practice is less far-fetched than it sounds: settle twelve $17,000 matters in a year and your practice has grossed over $200,000.
