Biglaw, Career Alternatives, Drinking, Texas

Departure Memo Of The Day: A Beery Farewell

How would you like to drink beer for a living?

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Working at a major law firm can be great — it’s profitable, it’s prestigious, and for some people, it’s fun. But it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.

Some people view working in Biglaw like eating a bucket of cockroaches. Some people would rather be farming.

And still others would rather get paid to drink beer — which brings us to today’s departure memo, from an associate who left a leading law firm to work in a brewery. No, seriously….

Meet Justin Pauls. Until recently, the Penn Law grad and former Fifth Circuit clerk was an associate at Weil Gotshal in Houston. A few weeks ago, though, he left WGM after sending out this great departure memo:

As many of you know, today is my last day at Weil. Starting Monday I will be a brewer for Saint Arnold Brewing Company here in Houston. It has been a wonderful 4 years and I enjoyed working with all of you. I can be reached at [redacted] or [redacted]. Please stay in touch and drink craft beer!

To quote the tipster who shared the memo with us: “You win, sir.”

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Over the weekend, we caught up with Justin to talk about how he traded Biglaw for brewing. Here’s a (lightly edited and condensed) write-up of the interview.

ATL: Congratulations on your new career! So tell us: what exactly does being a brewer entail?

Essentially, I make beer. I am one of nine brewers at Saint Arnold and we are in charge of different parts of the process — either brewing the beer or filtering the beer. Most of what I do is pushing liquid around, either beer, or cleaners and sanitizers. Being a brewer requires paying attention to a lot of different processes at a time, maybe running beer through our centrifuge to clarify it while at the same time sanitizing a fermentation tank for the next beer we brew. I often run back and forth across the brewery to monitor several tasks at the same time. The best part of the job is the beer, which we do have to taste to ensure quality.

ATL: How did you get interested in this world?

I have been interested in beer for a long time, but I got into homebrewing when my now-wife bought me a homebrew kit for Christmas a few years ago. I loved every part of the process, which was really just what I do now on a much smaller and less sophisticated scale. I got into tasting craft beers especially from Texas, but at the time my wife was working in New York so I would make a point to enjoy some great New York beers while visiting her. Beer was addicting once I really got into it and I kept buying more homebrew supplies and brewing lots and lots of beer. I became very passionate about beer and would talk endlessly about it with anyone who would listen.

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ATL: Being a brewer sounds interesting and fun — especially the part about sampling the beer! There aren’t many jobs where you can — and in fact must — drink during the day. But let me play devil’s (read: lawyer’s) advocate and ask: is it less “intellectual” than working at a large law firm?

In some ways yes, but in other ways no. Sure, there’s nothing particularly intellectually stimulating about scrubbing a tank to prepare it for its next use, but the same can be said about doc reviews I’ve been on. I find it pretty intellectual to discuss the finer points of brewing with the other brewers, whether it’s discussing a rare beer release from another brewery or discussing what ingredients and methods work best in our recipes in order to keep making delicious and innovative beers. My new job is certainly more taxing in physical ways that are definitely not intellectual but since it all has to do with a product I’m so passionate about, I may be even more intellectually engaged than I was previously.

ATL: How did you go from this interest in homebrewing to an actual job at Saint Arnold? Had you been planning that transition for a long time?

I started thinking about a different career right around the time of the Weil layoffs in June last year. A lot of folks in my office were laid off by no fault of their own and while I felt lucky to still be employed, I started to think about my position at the firm and where I thought I would be in a few years. I couldn’t see myself chasing partnership and I was not sure I wanted to do that at another firm either. My wife encouraged me to do something I really cared about and that was brewing. I read more and more books about brewing and kept thinking about how I would make it my career. I became more serious this spring and realized that I couldn’t take my interest to the next level while I was still a big law firm associate.

I eventually ran across a posting for my current job. Saint Arnold is a great brewery that I started drinking as soon as I moved to Texas — I would even go to local liquor stores and bars and wait in line for their limited release beers, which are really a big event since they’re so tasty. I sent them a cover letter expressing my passion about beer and my old legal résumé with a homebrewing section describing beers I had brewed. I guess I impressed them enough in two rounds of interviews and they hired me. I consider myself very lucky that they took a chance on a passionate homebrewer with no professional brewing experience.

ATL: Your story is awesome — and hopefully inspiring to other lawyers out there who want to leave the law to follow their passions. Congrats again, and best of luck in the world of brewing!

UPDATE (7:00 p.m.): As a reader recently reminded us, Justin Pauls isn’t the first lawyer to enter the brewing business. We’ve mentioned others, such as Bailey Spaulding of Jackalope Brewing in Nashville and the three guys behind Black Acre Brewing in Indianapolis, in a prior post.

Former Lawyers Who Followed Their Passions [One 400]

Earlier: Prior ATL coverage of departure memos

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