Career Alternatives, In-House Counsel, Job Searches

The Road Not Taken: Finishing Touches

Find the good in your experience as a lawyer and articulate it, not just for your non-law interviews, but for yourself as well.

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Happy student girl showing thumb up sing. Closeup portraitOver the past few weeks, we’ve discussed finding your interests and skills outside of a legal career for those who want to make the transition out of the law. We’ve talked about researching jobs that are available, what you like about non-law jobs, and identifying the skills you have and how to translate those skills to a non-law context.  You have revised your résumé and, if all has gone well, you have an interview.

At this interview, your interviewer will see a legal history on your résumé. Your interviewer will ask, in one form or another, “Why don’t you want to be a lawyer?” You have to be prepared with a response that is truthful, genuine, and makes you stand out as an attractive candidate for the position.

As lawyers, we are trained to see the negative. After all, issue spotting is really figuring out how many ways things can turn into disaster. Negativity does not win friends, influence people, or get you a job. Outside of the law, people have learned to see the good in others, the opportunity in existence, the joy of a new adventure. You have to fit your past experiences into a narrative of opportunity instead of regret. This means that, much like coming to terms with a broken romantic relationship, you have to figure out how you benefited from the experience instead of resenting the experience altogether.

You may have a difficult time finding a positive way to describe your time in the legal industrial complex. You may be angry with your law school experience. You may resent the time your legal employers took from your life that you will never get back. Nonetheless, none of that matters to the non-legal interviewer who wants to know why he should hire you, a person with legal training and experience, for a non-legal job. What matters to your interviewer is how you will perform at this non-legal job and how you will fit in with the team.

Obviously, I can’t tell you what you got out of your time in law, but I can help you come up with ways to think about your experience as an asset. Lawyers have a reputation for being pugnacious, obstinate, argumentative, and sometimes obnoxious. Maybe these words accurately describe your best attributes. You can use these stereotypes to your advantage. Most people don’t like confrontation. You are probably desensitized to the conflict that paralyzes most people, but you have enough social awareness to refrain from taking it too far. People like having a fighter on their team, but someone who knows how much to fight. You also have been trained to look at issues from all sides, likely have excellent communication skills, can think on your feet, work hard, and are intellectually curious. These are all valuable attributes to bring to a non-legal employer.

Something to keep in mind during a non-legal interview is that you are a normal person. Lawyers have a reputation for being pompous and you have to show that you are not going to come in on the first day and expect to be treated with deference because of your education and experience. Yes, both are valuable, but they do not mean that you will immediately perform this job you’ve never done before better than your colleagues who have been doing it for several years. Be modest. Be humble. Make it clear that you welcome being a new member of a team and learning from your colleagues.   

Most likely, the non-legal job you find will be a job you could have done without law school or working as an attorney. You have to make your peace with that when you make the transition or else risk letting the resentment of your life choices sabotage your second chance at a career. Find the good in your experience and articulate it, not just for your non-law interviews, but for yourself as well.

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Celeste Harrison Forst has practiced in small and mid-sized firms and is now in-house at a large manufacturing and technology company where she receives daily hugs from her colleagues. You can reach Celeste directly at [email protected].

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