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A Young Attorney Wants To Leave The Bar...

So let’s say we graduated law school in the past 3 or 4 years.

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So let’s say we graduated law school in the past 3 or 4 years. Maybe we secured a BigLaw job. Maybe we’ve been working at a medium or small firm. Maybe we’ve had a tough time finding a job and have had to go solo or rely on contract and freelance work to pay the bills.

Whatever the case may be, let’s assume we still consider ourselves a “new (ish)” attorney.

And let’s also assume that no matter all of the rationalizing or denying or mind tricks we have tried to play on ourselves, we feel pretty confident in saying we do not like being a lawyer. We want to leave behind the anxieties and stress and job duty misalignment.

We feel even more confident in saying that if we could find a way, we would seriously considering leaving the law.

But we need to know how to leave. And we have so many doubts and fears.

Let’s first talk about the doubts and fears …
We eagerly want to leave the law, but we doubt anyone in a non-law industry will hire us. We doubt that our legal skills are transferrable to a non-law job. We doubt we can take the risk. We doubt we’ll succeed.

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We fear we may be giving up on law too soon, and not getting our full return on investment. We fear that if we leave the law we won’t make nearly enough money as we make now. We fear we’ll make a mistake. We fear we won’t be able to still call ourselves an attorney.

These are all real doubts and fears.

What we need to do to begin to leave the law …

To define what is best for us to do next, we need to ask ourselves the following four questions:

  1. How can I best mitigate these doubts and fears?

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The best way to prevent our doubts and fears from constituting an obstacle to us leaving the law is to view them as not negatives that weigh us down but rather as experiences that can provide us opportunities.

For example, instead of viewing a mistake as bad, it can be viewed that we tried something, it didn’t fully work, we learned from it, and we either try it again, or try something else. Scientists call this experimenting, tech folks call this iterating, writers call it writing. Mistakes can be very constructive. Let’s give ourselves permission to do them.

And further, when it comes to leaving the law, we’re afraid of a lot of things. Running out of money. Failing our family and friends. Making a wrong decision. And most of all, we’re afraid of what we don’t know. But instead of being afraid of the unknown, let’s instead embrace the unknown.

As E. L. Doctorow said about life and the unknown: It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.

  1. Should I really leave the law? Am I being unfair to the law?

It hasn’t taken that long practicing law for many of us to feel that we want to leave.

So, once we are able to move beyond focusing solely on our fears and doubts, but before we do explore other non-law jobs, it behooves us young attorneys to be frank with ourselves and explore what exactly it is about the law that is bugging us.

Are we bored with our work duties? Is the workload overwhelming? Is there a defined career path? Are we being positively mentored? Are we not passionate about what we do? Is our skill set not in alignment with what we are called upon to do? Do we have little to no confidence in our ability to be a lawyer? Do we enjoy our lifestyle? Do the responsibilities of being a lawyer stress us out?

If each of us answers yes to all or many of these questions, we may want to consider leaving.

But we should also explore whether what bugs us so much about being in the law can be rectified in some way. If we hate the lack of career progression at a large firm, maybe we should consider working with a small firm. If we don’t like the unpredictability of being solo, maybe we should look to a large firm. If we want a better lifestyle, maybe we look to freelance or go in-house.

Before we make the commitment, we should do all we can to confirm whether we should leave the law altogether or just change how we practice it for the better.

  1. If we do want to leave the law, then we need to self-assess our skills and strengths

If we’re going to leave the law, we want to find a job and a career path that ultimately is in alignment with our skills and strengths.

We do not want to go down a path to a new job that we really aren’t good at or don’t like, because ultimately this won’t make us happy. We younger attorneys did that when we pursued law, and we don’t want to make that same mistake again.

So, we need to reverse the paradigm and instead of choosing a job primarily for security and stature and title and because of what others think, we want to do some upfront work and create a self assessment assess of what we do well (our skills and strengths, or our Unique Genius) enables us to more confidently pursue jobs and roles that are in alignment with what we do well and enjoy.

And when we do a job day to day that we are good at and enjoy, we are confident and motivated. And when we’re confident and motivated, we can stoke and better realize our inner happiness and self-worth.

  1. Get out there and network

As a young attorney, we may not have grown our professional network that much, so this is a great opportunity to do so.

First, let’s look at the job descriptions of roles that may call for our Unique Genius’ skills and strengths.

Once we identify these jobs, let’s network and reach out to find people in these jobs for an informational interview. We can reach out to them (over email or phone) meet them for coffee and ask them about their day to day job so … (i) we can research if we like this job (if we don’t like their job, we can cross it off our list and move on to the next one), and (ii) if we do like their job, ask this person to introduce us to other people in the space with this type of job.

Let’s keep networking, let’s keep researching and let’s keep building up our courage and momentum. The opportunities will follow.

As you can see, for us struggling young attorneys, all is not hopeless. If, after critical thought, we believe leaving the law is in alignment with our professional skills and strengths, there are steps to follow. We just need to be prepared to redefine ourselves.

Casey Berman (University of California, Hastings ’99), a tech executive, and former investment banker and in-house counsel based in San Francisco, is also the founder of Leave Law Behind, a blog and community that focuses on helping unhappy attorneys leave the law.

 

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