Career Alternatives, Job Searches

alt.legal: Can A Lawyer Change His Or Her (Pin)stripes?

How does a lawyer really stop being a practicing lawyer?

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“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called EVERYBODY and they meet at the bar.” — Drew Carey

You thought law school would be a good investment.  “Even if I don’t become a lawyer,” you proudly announced, “I will have many, many options.  A J.D., after all, is so valuable.”  When staring down a crushing mountain of student loans, you signed on the dotted line.  “Who can put a price on the doors a J.D. will open up for me?” If you knew this guy back then, you might have thought twice, but you didn’t.

Today, four, six, or ten years later, you spend late nights staring at your J.D. in its pristine frame, tears of rage streaming down your face.  “Where are MY DOORS??” you scream at it, sobbing into your sea of briefs or closing sets or brown liquor. Instead of doors, why are there enormous walls and sets of handcuffs (and not the good kind)? Why is it that you hate every job opening you might qualify for? I mean, you got your J.D., and you’re a grown-up lawyer who brilliantly catches typos.

I’m eight years out of law school and many of my classmates – including some of the gunnerest of gunners – are now in industries like legal technology, legal practice products, deal consulting, and law firm professional development. A director at a global fashion house in Latin America. A professional poker player. And my favorite: founding a service for renting gentlemen.

So how do you get from here to there?  How does a lawyer really stop being a practicing lawyer?

This week, the internet taught us why “follow your passion” is sometimes terrible advice (Mike Rowe), which is a stark dose of reality in the face of the famous, widely quoted maxim of “find what you love.” We also learned that among the richest lawyers in America, only the “poorest” rich lawyer is an actively practicing attorney. I can’t say whether being a lawyer was their passion or not, and some of them had a big head start in terms of family money, but one thing we know: they got rich apart from legal practice.

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So to sum it up: don’t follow my passion, but maybe don’t be a lawyer.

While I made the move out of practice in 2012 myself, I’m far from an expert.  So I’ve consulted with my friends at the RMN Agency, a national recruiting firm founded by Raj Nichani.  Raj is a recruiter who was previously at several large law firms, and someone who has given me good career advice through the years.

Based on their input, here are a few practical pointers if you’re thinking about leaving the practice:

1. Measure your risk. Raj warns, “It is likely that if you do join a firm again in the future, it will not be on any kind of partnership track, and your peers will have surpassed you and possibly even made partner by the time you decide you want to go back to practicing law.” Certain firms might consider putting you on partnership track, but you are definitely checking your firm cred on your way out the door. If you fail and want to come back to practice, you’ll either be crawling back to your old firm, where you’ll have to re-establish your cred, or you’ll be at a different firm, where you’ll have to start from scratch anyway.

2. Have a reason. Running to a job simply because it’s different or less demanding than what you’re doing now is likely to end you up at a good soft landing spot at best. Are you sure you want to quit practicing? Raj urges you to test your hypothesis. “Maybe you aren’t entirely ‘done’ with practicing law and are merely ‘done’ with law firms.  In that case, maybe you would want to consider working as in-house counsel.” Unless something else has a gravitational pull on your life, it’s worth exploring all your options in legal practice.

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3. Do your research. Talk to people who have left the practice and get the whole story. I remember being so impressed with ex-lawyers-turned-restaurateurs that I was convinced I had to start my own food truck—only to later discover that most of those ex-lawyers had other factors (read: lots of money) that I didn’t have. There’s always more to the story, right? Now there are definitely those who have gone out on a limb with scant resources (I know of a few amazing legal startups, like this one), putting all they have on the line. But none of them took that risk lightly, so spend some time on Google and go talk to people to get the full picture.

4. Conduct a personal inventory. Know thyself! Take stock in your legal and non-legal career assets, and measure your readiness. For me, I had an unused computer science degree, five and a half years doing business litigation at a large firm, e-discovery expertise, and a desire to live in India. Turns out there was a job made just for someone like me, which was harnessing armies of bright Indian attorneys in document review and fact finding… in India. Highly fortuitous, but I put myself in a position for such good fortune. So take a look at what you bring to the table.Also, on this point, consider the relationships you built at your current position as some of your most valuable assets. As a recruiter, Raj is obviously big on this one. “If you are planning to leave your law firm in the near future to pursue a different career, the most important thing you can do is maintain relationships with your colleagues.  Having been an associate and then leaving to pursue a different path as a legal recruiter, the relationships I started as an associate still come into play today.”

5. Investigate options that play to your strengths. After taking stock, take a page from Mike Rowe and think about where your skills actually intersect your passions. Do you constantly feel like all your real estate clients are making a killing while you do all the hard work? Maybe join a real estate investment firm—a lot of the richest lawyers from the Forbes list made their fortunes that way. Sick of patent prosecution or litigation when you have the chops to innovate better? Consider joining the right tech startup. Great at legal research and writing but not a fan of litigating? Come work for us at Westlaw or Practical Law Company! Hungry to be on the business side of things? Try looking for J.D.-friendly roles that can vault you into a management ladder, like sales or consulting. The point is, often the step away from the law has a short stride.

6. Commit to giving it a real try. Spend real time and energy giving it a real try, because the world outside of legal practice is pretty different and it takes getting used to.  This is especially true for all of you for whom practicing at a law firm is the first and only job you’ve ever known—you’re in for a real shock. No secretary to enter your expenses or bill your time, no more high-rise downtown office. At times, you’ll even miss people returning your emails past 10 p.m. And one of the hardest adjustments when working among non-lawyers: communicating the value of your work to people who have no idea what you do. It’s a challenge and a different world, but give yourself a number of months to adjust and give it a serious try.

7. If at first you don’t succeed… shake it off. Thanks to the immortal Taylor Swift, we now know what to do when the haters gonna hate hate hate. Look, if after giving it a real try, you fail, then fail quickly and have confidence when trying to re-enter the legal market. It won’t be easy; your peers will have surpassed you while you were away. But if some place will overly penalize you for stepping out and taking a risk, it may not be the type of place you want to work. Convert all of your failed experiences into unique bullets for your resume and interesting talking points for your interviews, then go find your re-entry point into practice. Raj notes, “Most attorneys that go back into a law firm role would be a situation where the firm needs a specific set of skills that you may have developed in your last role.” At minimum, your return to practice will be at a more habitable situation than what you left.

Look, some of you love being lawyers. If so, I’m genuinely happy for you. Thanks for reading the article and congratulations on already having the job you love.

For the rest of you, give your career a long hard look and think about taking the plunge. I can’t promise anyone a better tomorrow. But some planned steps can help measure your risk and take control of your career.

Drop me a line and let me know if you’re thinking about leaving the practice or if you’ve got a great story about actually doing it. If you have Taylor Swift stuck in your head, hey, no one put a gun to your head to click that link. That’s on you.

(Research note: others have written about this, including here at Above the Law, and some of them had very similar things to say. Check here, here, and here. It’s all pretty interesting reading.)

Ed Sohn is a Global Director at Thomson Reuters’ award-winning legal outsourcing company, Pangea3, which employs approximately 1,000 full-time attorneys globally. After five and a half years as a Biglaw litigation associate, Ed spent over two years in New Delhi, India, managing hundreds of Indian attorneys and professionals in delivering high-value managed legal services. He now focuses on developing integrated technology and outsourced legal solutions. You can contact Ed about e-discovery, managed legal services, theology, chess, Star Trek The Next Generation, or the Chicago Bulls at edward.sohn@thomsonreuters.com.

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