Hi, and welcome to The Former Lawyer Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Cottrell. I practiced law for 10 years and now I help unhappy lawyers ditch their soul-sucking jobs. On this show, I share advice and strategies for aspiring former lawyers, and interviews with former lawyers who have left the law behind to find careers and lives that they love.

Hello everyone. Today I want to talk to you about the different offers that I have for lawyers and how you can figure out which of those offers is the right one for you. You've probably heard me talk about The Former Lawyer Collaborative and the first three offers I'm going to talk about are all built on the base of the Collaborative.

There are three offers that are essentially the Collaborative or the Collaborative Plus some additional stuff. The first one is just the Collaborative itself. The second is the Collaborative plus the Guided Track. The third is the Collaborative plus one on one. I'm going to go through each of those and talk to you about them briefly so you know what is common to all of them and also what's different.

The Former Lawyer Collaborative is my entry-level program for lawyers who are wanting to figure out what it is that they want to do that is not practicing law. That is a program that you can join at any time.

When you enroll in that program, you get access for the life of the program and what you get access to is our community on Circle, The Former Lawyer Framework Curriculum that I've created that you walk through when you're figuring out what it is that you want to do, a resource library of over 40 workshops and panels with workshops about how to optimize your LinkedIn profile and how to rewrite your resume.

Then panels that include former lawyers who have moved into all sorts of other things. Things like DEI, human resources, compliance, legal tech, legal operations, higher ed. That's just sort of sampling of some of the options.

The other thing that you get access to as a member of the Collaborative is our monthly group call. Currently, the group call is month to month, one month, typically they're at 8:00 PM Eastern, typically on a Thursday, the next month, they're typically at 1:00 PM Eastern also on a Thursday.

The timing for those is because we have lawyers in the Collab from all over so we have, of course, many lawyers who are based in the US and also Canada, but then we also have lawyers in the UK, in Germany, Australia, in Malaysia.

Again, the Collaborative is my entry-level program. It's the one that you can join at any time. It is a self-paced program. For those of you who prefer to have something self-paced, it's a great option. Also, the Collaborative and The Former Lawyer Framework are the backbone for the other two programs that I mentioned, which are essentially programs that you enroll in where you get access to the Collaborative and also the additional benefits of that program.

Again, Former Lawyer Collab, and then the next option is the Collab plus the Guided Track. If you enroll in the Guided Track, you get access to everything that is in the Collab. In addition, the Guided Track is for people who want the support of the Collab but also want the accountability of regular live calls with a small group.

When you enroll in the Guided Track, you get everything in The Former Lawyer Collaborative, you get access to the Collaborative as soon as you enroll. But the Guided Track is a 10-week small group experience where we have weekly live calls, and I've created an action plan, a 10-week action plan that you work through you and your small group during those 10 weeks to move you through The Former Lawyer Framework.

Unlike with the Collab where you are working through the framework on your own at your own pace, and people come to the monthly call with all sorts of different questions and all sorts of different states, all sorts of different parts of the framework, for people who are in the Guided Track, you have your small group, typically between six to eight people, attend weeks where each week you're coming and you're you know you're going to be talking about a specific set of exercises or things that you've worked on through the framework.

Then you also get in addition, a 60-minute one-on-one call with me that you can use after the 10 weeks is over for follow-up for additional things that you work on or continue to pursue. Also, in the Framework, I recommend several assessments. Some of them are free and some of them are paid so there's a personality assessment that I recommend. There's also CliftonStrengths Assessment that I recommend. Those two are paid.

If you join the Collab, you can just purchase those directly from the sites. The links are in the Framework. I think the combined total of those two is a little over $100. But for someone who joins the Guided Track, those assessments are included as part of the Guided Track.

You also get access to a half-day CliftonStrengths workshop. I bring in a Clifton Strengths certified coach who specifically walks the Guided Track participants through their results from the CliftonStrengths Assessment and also some additional analytics with more language in terms of describing your strengths and then also thinking about ways to apply them and thinking about how they apply specifically to making a career change. That's something that is included if you join the Guided Track.

Again, the Collab is self-paced. You can access it anytime. There's a community component because you can interact with people on Circle and then also on the one monthly call. Whereas the Guided Track, you get access to all of the things in the Collab, plus you have this small group where you spend 10 weeks together working through the Framework.

You also get an additional one-on-one call. Your paid assessments are included. You get the half-day CliftonStrengths workshop. Again, it's a small group, typically between six and eight people depending on where I have kept things for that particular round of the Guided Track.

We do have a Guided Track coming up here in just a couple of weeks. I think from the time that this episode releases, it's going to be starting in three or maybe four weeks. If the Guided Track sounds like something that you would be interested in, you should go to formerlawyer.com/guidedtrack to see all the information about this round.

The round that is coming up starts on Tuesday, September 19th. We'll be meeting at 8:00 PM and then we will meet for the next 10 weeks. If you're interested in joining a Guided Track, there are somewhere between six to eight spots, and right now I'm running the Guided Track twice. Once in the fall and once in the spring for all those of us who miss the school schedule and wish it would return.

Now there are some people who want more accountability than you can get in the Collab but just the Collab alone with self-study. Also, for various reasons, people might prefer to meet with me one on one. Often this is because with the Guided Track, obviously, we're meeting at the same time every week, and sometimes that time doesn't work for people for whatever reason, or they just like the option of meeting with me one on one because they feel like it will be more helpful for them and for the way that they process information.

In addition to the Collab plus Guided Track option, so again, Collab, Collab plus Guided Track, and then the third option is the Collab plus one on one. When you enroll in the Collab plus one on one, you get access again to everything that you get in the Collab that I talked about at the beginning of this episode. I create an action plan for you to work through with me in eight weeks and you get 45-minute one-on-one coaching calls with me over those eight weeks.

You also get an email and Voxer access to me in between those coaching calls or during those eight weeks. Like with the Guided Track, the paid assessments that I recommend, the CliftonStrengths, and the personality assessments are included. You also get one 60-minute one-on-one coaching call with me that you can use within six months of enrolling in the Collab plus one on one.

In other words, we've worked together for those eight weeks and then you have an additional one-on-one call that you can use. People use that in all sorts of different ways. Some people schedule it before they end the eight weeks with the idea of having an additional check-in that they know is going to be coming. Some people wait until they have particular questions that come up after the eight weeks. It's very dependent on the person. That's the most lawyerly answer ever, “It depends.”

But these are the three options that exist for clients where the Collab is the base. Again, Collab, which is for those who prefer self-study and virtual community. The Collab plus the Guided Track, which is for people who want the accountability of regular live calls with a small group. Then there's a Collab plus one-on-one which is for people who want the highest level of support, accountability, and one-on-one coaching within the Collab.

In addition to those three options, I also have a six-month one-on-one package that I offer, which is for people who don't necessarily want or need to join the Collab but who want to work through some of these questions, and who also want more of my time, and my ability to focus on things like giving feedback on their resume rewrites, like additional time for brainstorming in terms of other options, in terms of people to connect with, fields of interest, or potential options.

For my clients who opt for the six-month one-on-one package, it's generally people who want more flexibility, who want to be able to potentially meet four weeks in a row and then not we meet for a while and then meet again several times in order to just work with their schedule, to work with where they are in the process, and who want a more bespoke path.

Often I might suggest people do things that are included within The Former Lawyer Framework structure but for people in the six-month one-on-one program, they are not, in most cases, going through The Former Lawyer Framework Curriculum per se. I am giving them the pieces of the framework that I think are going to work best for them in their particular context.

If you're someone who is interested in the Collab but wants to work one on one and wants some of that additional accountability, you're probably going to be someone who's going to want to opt for the Collab plus one on one. Whereas if you're someone who is maybe a little bit farther along in your career, you have some broader questions about what it is that you could potentially do, you need more flexibility in terms of your schedule, and you are looking to have more one on one time, then the six-month one-on-one package is going to be a better fit for people in that position.

I hope this has been helpful because I know that when there are multiple options, it can feel a bit complicated. Of course, if you ever have any questions about any of these options, you can always email [email protected] and I'm happy to answer any of those questions.

As you're thinking about these potential options, if you're considering working with me, remember again, that our next round of the Guided Track is going to be starting a month from now. You can go to the website right now formerlawyer.com/guidedtrack to enroll and enrollment for that round of the Guided Track is going to close on the Monday before the Guided Track starts or whenever the spots are filled, whichever one comes first. Thanks so much for listening today. I hope that this has been helpful. I'll talk to you next week.

Thanks so much for listening. I absolutely love getting to share this podcast with you. If you haven't yet, I invite you to download my free guide: First Steps to Leaving the Law at formerlawyer.com/first. Until next time, have a great week.