“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
A Biglaw partner once closed a presentation I attended with this quote. I don’t know if everyone else’s eyes had simply glazed over or if they were drinking the Kool-Aid (the presentation was on something like How To Be A Better Drone Associate), but it seemed me and one other associate were the only ones who found this quote wildly inappropriate. Explore, dream, and discover by being chained to a Biglaw desk? Um, what?
Plato’s Theory of the Forms postulated that in some transcendent realm there are ideal forms of objects that we see/hear/touch here in the material realm. When you imagine the ideal attorney version of you, what do you see? Forget about your current life for a moment. Imagine the very best or the greatest version of you as a lawyer. Are you being mobbed by reporters on the front steps of a courthouse because you just won a huge case? Freeing an innocent man (or woman) from death row? Being the trusted neighborhood lawyer? Or maybe jetting around the globe putting together complicated deals? More than likely in this ideal version of you you are not typing up a senior attorney’s changes to a document at 4 a.m. in the morning.
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Free your mind. The only thing holding you back is you. You can leave Biglaw and become whatever you want to be. Doesn’t even matter what you did in Biglaw, or least whatever you did in Biglaw isn’t going to prevent you from being what you want to be. If you spent X years in litigation and want to begin helping startups, you can quit and then start posting on the Internet (and on fliers) that you’re an attorney with X years of experience at a big firm and you will draft shareholders’ and subscription agreements for startups. Sure, the first couple you draft will take you forever and a day, but then you’ll be on your way. (By the way, don’t be so sure potential clients are only going to hire someone with experience. Clients want to be with someone they’re comfortable with, and whether you have on-point experience will be secondary to that. I’ve had clients say, “We’ll learn together!”)
What’s the alternative? Waiting around for Biglaw to let you change practice areas as a senior associate? To say, “Well, since you want to get mobbed on the steps of the courthouse, we’ll move you from real estate to litigation and then fast-track you to the first chair.” You can fast-track yourself to that first chair role (or head deal-person role) by removing every layer between you and the client. Then there won’t be anyone to stop you!
Assuming that after judgment day there won’t be a need for any more lawyers, this is your one shot at being a lawyer. Do you want to spend it doing largely meaningless work until the wee hours every night because that’s what you’ve been doing for the past X years? At 80 it may not seem so significant that you paid off your loans at 35 instead of 40. Or that you never paid them off but you had a life you’re proud of.
And while a lot of us might be tempted to imagine ourselves as something completely different from a lawyer, like an actor or a lottery winner, let’s not forget that armed solely with a law degree you can right wrongs, fight on behalf of people who don’t have anyone fighting for them, make a person’s dream of owning their own business come true, and hey, if you have enough gumption, I suppose you could go to Egypt or some other oil-rich yet unstable country and negotiate a contract on behalf of unnamed oil companies, and then go to oil companies in Texas with that contract in hand and try to get rich as a broker. Nearly everyone who is truly successful took a big risk somewhere along the way. Ask the sharks on Shark Tank if they ever took a chance.
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Imagine you succeed. You become that best version of a lawyer you can be. Twenty years from now are you going to be disappointed you went out on your own?
And if to you sailing away from the safe harbor and catching the trade winds means going as far as you can in Biglaw, by all means stay focused on that. It’s no small feat to make partner at an Am Law 100 firm. I wish I had made partner. But if you are one of those who when you imagine your perfect lawyer life it’s not in Biglaw, then what are you doing?
Gary J. Ross opened his own practice, Jackson Ross PLLC, in 2013 after several years in Biglaw and the federal government. Gary handles corporate and compliance matters for investment funds, small businesses, and non-profits, occasionally dabbling in litigation. You can reach Gary by email at [email protected].