A Wachtell Lipton Partner Leaves the Law For....
This former Wachtell Lipton partner could retire already; what is she doing instead?
Many moons ago, around this time of year, I worked as a summer associate at Wachtell Lipton. I enjoyed many a fine meal that summer (although Wachtell’s program is more work-focused and less lunch-focused than many others). One of my favorite occasions was a dinner at Jean-Georges with partner Karen Krueger, her husband, myself, and a girlfriend of mine.
Oh how times have changed. It’s rare to see partners leave the gilded cage of Wachtell Lipton, where annual profits per partner regularly exceed $4 million. But Krueger had the guts to make the jump. She left the practice of law and now works as a nationally certified teacher of the Alexander Technique.
What is the Alexander Technique? If you suffer from pain, perhaps as a result of your stressful law firm job, it could be your salvation. And it might help you with your poker game, too….
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Karen Krueger practiced law, focusing on employee benefits and executive compensation, for 25 years — five at Patterson Belknap and twenty at Wachtell Lipton. She enjoyed the practice of law, which she found stimulating and fascinating, but she eventually started to experience debilitating headaches and neck pain. In the course of trying to deal with this pain, she learned about the Alexander Technique, as she explained in a recent interview with Spencer Mazyck of Bloomberg Law:
As a longtime partner at Wachtell Lipton, which pays its former partners very generous retirement benefits, Krueger could have retired to a life of leisure. Instead, amazed by how the Alexander Technique helped her overcome her own pain, Krueger completed a three-year, 1600-hour training course to become a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique. She now teaches private lessons in the discipline here in New York City, where many of her clients work in law firms — not a surprising development, in light of how spending long hours in front of computers can give rise to chronic pain.
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If you’d like to learn more about the Alexander Technique, check out the websites of the American Center for the Alexander Technique, where Krueger trained, and the American Society for the Alexander Technique, which features an animated video about the technique. You can also visit Karen Krueger’s website, to access additional resources about the Alexander Technique and to learn about signing up for lessons with her.
If your law firm job is giving you headaches, talk to Karen Krueger. As a former Biglaw partner, she can feel your pain — and offer possible solutions.
Karen G. Krueger – Teacher of the Alexander Technique [official website]
Stealth Lawyer: Karen Krueger, Alexander Technique Instructor [Bloomberg Law via YouTube]
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