I can’t even tell you how many times I Googled “alternative careers for lawyers” while I was working in Biglaw. It was . . . a lot. I hated being a lawyer. Since you’re here, I’m guessing that’s you as well. You realize that you want to leave legal practice, and you’re trying to figure out the best alternative careers…
Legal tech comes up constantly when lawyers are thinking about leaving practice. It’s legal adjacent, the field is growing, and there seem to be a lot of jobs. But when lawyers actually try to make a move, they usually don’t know where to start. The roles aren’t standardized, the titles don’t mean the same thing across companies, and it’s hard…
Responsibility is one of the things that makes lawyers good at their jobs. It also shows up, over and over, as one of the things that makes it hardest for them to leave. Not because they don’t want to go, but because leaving means someone else has to pick up the work. And for a lawyer who is wired around…
For a lot of lawyers, hearing “just do your best” as a kid didn’t feel reassuring. It felt like a requirement to give every ounce of everything they had until there was literally nothing left. That’s not incidental. The kind of person who interprets “do your best” that way is often exactly the kind of person who ends up becoming…
Lawyers thinking about leaving often get stuck on a question that feels practical but actually keeps them waiting longer than they need to. Do I need to quit my job before I start figuring out what I want to do instead? It sounds responsible, but for most people, it’s part of what keeps them in a holding pattern. Sarah Cottrell…
Lawyers who are unhappy at work often tell themselves they’ll feel things later. When they retire, maybe. The sense is that feeling the full weight of what’s happening would make it impossible to keep functioning, so the feelings get pushed down and the grinding continues. The problem is that feelings aren’t actually optional. The physical sensations that come with emotional…
Being good at your job and being in the right job are not the same thing. For lawyers who are high achievers, that distinction can be almost impossible to see when every external signal, strong reviews, steady advancement, a reputation for getting things done, is telling you that you must be in the right place. That disconnect often has roots…
