Books, Career Alternatives, Technology

alt.legal: Taking It Offline -- What Happens When A Biglaw Associate Quits The Internet

What's it like to transition from attorney to published author? Allow this former Biglaw attorney to explain it to you.

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A corporate lawyer without her Blackberry? Quelle horreur! This seemingly unthinkable situation is the premise of Love and Miss Communication (affiliate link), the smart, charming debut novel by former Biglaw attorney Elyssa Friedland.

After discovering devastating information about an ex on Facebook and being outed at work for her voracious online activities, Evie Rosen decides to break-up with the Internet. At least for a year. What happens during Rosen’s hiatus will make you think twice before double-clicking that browser or refreshing your Instagram feed.

ATL readers will particularly appreciate Friedland’s expert rendering of Biglaw life and the brilliant twist that launches Rosen on her Internet-free life.

I sat down with Friedland to discuss Love and Miss Communication as well as her transition from attorney to published author.

What inspired you to write a book about a lawyer quitting the Internet?

EF: It became very clear to me a few years ago that social media and our obsession with the Internet isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it’s just increasing. When I started the book, Instagram didn’t exist. Now there’s SnapChat, Tinder, Instagram, and many more. Our brains are changing to keep up with this new technology — I swear I sometimes find myself thinking in hashtags. I attended my college reunion and found it weirdly unsettling how much I knew about my classmates — many of whom I didn’t even know by name in college. But we were connected through Facebook and so I knew what they’d had for breakfast that morning. I knew there was a good novel in there somewhere.

I know when I was a lawyer I certainly wasted a lot of time online. Do you think lawyers have a particularly acute case of Internet addiction?

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EF: The lawyers I know, myself included, tend to be very Type A. And I think Type A people are particularly susceptible to Internet addiction. We aren’t patient by nature and there is a fear of missing out that comes along with being sort of a control-freak, eager-beaver type. I also think — and I hope I don’t get shunned for saying this — that legal work can be pretty boring at times. So when you’re slogging through a 100-page contract, it can be all too tempting to toggle over to Facebook or reach for your smartphone to text.

It’s funny that so many former lawyers were desperate to get out of the law, but then end up writing about it. Did you think when you were practicing that you would use your time at a law firm in your writing?

EF: It never occurred to me until I started this book to write about being a lawyer, mostly because I didn’t have that many interesting stories to tell. I only worked at my firm for three years. But when I sat down to start the book, it just made sense that my main character Evie was a corporate attorney. People say to write what you know. I took that to heart.

In this column, I’ve talked a lot about how to figure out what you want to do in your post-law life and how to take steps to enter a new career while still practicing law. What was the transition process like for you?

EF: I was on maternity leave when I started the book. So I had more time to think about next steps. I can’t imagine writing while I was actively working because I was too tired. So that timing was lucky. I will say it was hard to quit. I felt really guilty telling the partner I worked with that I wasn’t coming back. He was so accommodating of my schedule and knowing that I had children. But I was totally honest and he was supportive.

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In your book, Evie, the protagonist, is completely lost when she leaves Biglaw, but her future career was hiding in plain sight, she just needed the confidence to take her passion seriously. That rang very true to me — I think a lot of lawyers have other talents, but have trouble envisioning a more creative or less structured career path. Do you agree?

EF: 100 percent. Writing being the case in point. This new career of mine is much less structured than the law firm, and it’s very solitary. I think many people go to law school because they aren’t sure what to do after college and think that the training will be useful in other areas later on. I agree with that, but the result is that you end up with a lot of people that aren’t psyched to be lawyers. There’s also the very real issue of loans. You need to work for at least a certain number of years to pay back law school loans. By the time that’s done, you’re so entrenched in the firm it’s hard to reset and move in a totally different direction.

Did you find that your legal background was helpful to you in writing the book and/or getting it published?

EF: Not so much in writing the book because it’s a totally different kind of writing, but I think having law school on my résumé gave me a lot of gravitas. It certainly helped in getting an agent and publisher.

What advice would you have for all the aspiring lawyer/writers out there?

EF: Hm. Have a baby and start working on maternity leave. Kidding!! I guess the expression don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater comes to mind. Make sure you have a solid idea or plan in mind for writing before you quit the law firm. It’s one thing to quit the law and go to work for a magazine, which is social and more of a traditional office environment. But quitting to write a book, that takes a lot of self-discipline. It helps to do some serious thinking about whether that life is for you.

For more about Elyssa Friedland and Love and Miss Communication, visit www.elyssafriedland.com.

Leigh McMullan Abramson is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Atlantic, Town & Country, Real Simple, and Tablet Magazine. She attended Penn Law before working for several years in Biglaw and clerking in the Southern District of New York. Leigh is currently toiling away on a novel set in — you guessed it — a law firm. She can be reached at leigh.mcmullan@gmail.com.

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