Sarah Cottrell: 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.

Today I'm sharing my conversation with Heather Davies. Heather practiced law for 12 years and she now owns her own business and she is a professional organizer. I know this is something that some listeners have considered because you've emailed me and mentioned it so I was really excited to bring Heather on to have this conversation to talk about her transition from practicing law to becoming a professional organizer. Let's get to my conversation with Heather.

Hey, Heather. Welcome to The Former Lawyer Podcast.

Heather Davies: Hi, Sarah. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Sarah Cottrell: I am excited to talk to you. I'm pretty sure I found you on Instagram through a former lawyer hashtag. Why don't you introduce yourself to the listeners and we'll go from there?

Heather Davies: Sure. Yes, my name is Heather Davies and I am a former criminal prosecutor turned professional organizer. I practiced law for 12 years and left and I'm now a professional organizer that helps people deal with the clutter and disorganization in their lives by creating tailored systems that save them time, money, reduce their stress, and improve the overall quality of their lives.

Sarah Cottrell: I love it. I hear from a lot of people who listen to the podcast and I have had several emails from people over the years who have mentioned that organizing is one of the things that they are considering moving into. I'm sure there will be some people listening who are very interested to know more of the details. But why don't we go back where we always do on this podcast and talk about what made you decide to become a lawyer in the first place?

Heather Davies: Yes. It's a funny answer. Honestly, I decided when I was eight years old and it was because my parents watched Matlock when I grew up. I don't know if I'm older than most listeners who would remember that. It was an old show starring Andy Griffith and I just thought it looked amazing. I never veered from the time I was eight years old on wanting to do anything else. That was the only thing I ever thought about. I did my undergrad in criminology, then I went to law school, and then I was a lawyer.

Sarah Cottrell: Actually, it's interesting, it's not as uncommon as you would think to a lot of people, one of a couple of things happens, either they're told as a child, “You're good at arguing, you should be a lawyer,” or they or family members watched something like Law and Order or something similar and they thought it looked interesting and cool.

There are a lot of us who ended up becoming lawyers because of what our child self thought being a lawyer was and then get into the practice and are like, “Maybe this is not the best fit for me.” So tell me, you had been planning to do this since you were eight years old, when you got to law school, at that point, were you still like, “Yes, this is the path. I'm on the right path. This makes sense and feels where I should be,” or was it something else?

Heather Davies: No. I really enjoyed my legal education. I loved law school. In Canada, we have the bar ads and then exam, after which would be equivalent to your bar exam in the States, I enjoyed all of that. I've always enjoyed school and done well in school and law school was no different.

It wasn't until I actually started practicing that and I did realize pretty quickly upon starting to practice that that's when it hit me that this was maybe not the best fit for me.

Sarah Cottrell: Okay, so tell me about that. What made you start to think, “Oh, I'm not sure this is actually the right thing for me”?

Heather Davies: Yeah. Honestly, if I'm being really honest with myself, I think I knew from day one as soon as I stepped into a courtroom, I think I just knew the environment was not for me. Our systems are different in Canada than US to some degree so I think I just knew when I went in the first day, I felt like every day, my first few weeks felt like I was just entering a massive exam that I had not studied or prepared for even though I had obviously done the work for the cases that I had and stuff.

But I knew from day one that it didn't feel good. It did not feel like a place I wanted to be. I initially was like, “Well, it's new. You'll get used to the pace. You'll get used to all the changes that happen,” because you can plan for one thing on a day in court and it completely goes another way. You could be doing a completely different case by the time you get into court.

I thought it was just a matter of getting used to it and adjusting but even when I did, and that was definitely part of it, I still never enjoyed it, I still never liked it. I didn't want to talk about law in between court, I didn't want to talk about it in the evening. I don't know. Sure, there are lawyers who love it and they love talking about law and that's all they want to talk about, I never wanted to. I never wanted to talk about it outside of what I had to deal with it. For me, yeah, it was pretty much right away I knew that it wasn't a good fit.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. I work with so many people who, in many cases, have been practicing for 15, 20, or 25 years and they will tell me, “I knew on the first day or I knew in the first year or even I knew in law school that something was not right about this for me,” but then you get on this path, then you're down the road, and there's this feeling of “How am I this far into it and I'm still doing this even though literally from basically the moment I started, I knew this is not a good fit?”

Heather Davies: Absolutely. I think for me, I had to just come to identify myself because as I said, I've been thinking about this since I was eight years old, it just became such a part of me and my story. By the time you're practicing, you've invested my undergrad, my law, school my bar ads, so much time and energy into this that it felt like, “Well, I need to make this work.” I get that, every day I would wake up and think, “Okay, today's the day that's going to feel right. It's going to feel good,” and it never did.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. Well, I'll speak for myself, I certainly had that experience when I first started practicing, of being like, “Okay, I don't love this but maybe that's just because it's all new.” But there are a lot of people, so many lawyers, especially people who end up doing litigation or trial work who, you said you walked into the courtroom and you felt like you were constantly having to take an exam that you hadn't prepared for even though you actually had prepared, I think that is such a common experience for people who become lawyers and do not find it to be a good fit.

Part of it is a personality thing but then I think there's also an element of just the way lawyering actually is not the way that you perceive it to be, especially if it's something that you've decided on at a very young age. I'm curious if you can pinpoint specifically what it was about that being in the courtroom experience that made it feel that way for you because I'm sure there are lots of people listening who would relate.

Heather Davies: Sure. It's hard to distill it down to one thing. I'm sure it's the same in the US but the system here, the criminal justice system, which is obviously all I can speak to, is a very underresourced system. We're called crown attorneys here, which is the equivalent to a prosecutor in the States. As the crown, I felt you are so often called upon to make up for those lack of resources.

For example, if a defense lawyer missed their filing deadline and then you did not get your deadline extended, you just had to make up for it in the amount of time you had left, whether that was a day or an hour kind of thing. If something didn't get done administratively that needed to get done, you were meant to pick up on that and do it.

I just felt that it was you could prepare your list, we would have a trial list say of four or five cases for the day, they could all fold for various reasons, maybe they resolve, maybe charges are withdrawn, for whatever reason, and then you go and pick up five new trials that you have basically 20 minutes to look at and figure out how you're going to prosecute before you start.

I just didn't like working in that environment basically. It was constant picking up the slack basically and just getting thrown into a situation that I personally didn't feel ready to do the best I could do on a case.

People are in a criminal trial because something has happened and we're representing the public and the victim in the case. Sometimes it was just really hard to explain to them why things were happening the way they were happening. Justice moves slowly in my opinion here, and to explain that to people who aren't understanding all of the reasons why we're taking a recess now, why a piece of evidence wasn't being allowed in, or why we're arguing about this certain point, sometimes I struggle to explain it, to understand it myself because a judge you get on a day can really impact the outcome of a case.

Sometimes I would know before even going in that I'm not going to win this case or I'm definitely going to win this case because I know the way this judge leads kind of thing. It just felt like you put so much work into things that sometimes wouldn't go anywhere for various reasons or that didn't matter because of the draw that you got or because defense council decided to completely change up their strategy for the case. I just found that all very frustrating for myself and having no control over those things that ran my day.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. It's interesting, of course, my background is on the civil side so that's often what we talk about on the podcast but I have worked with a number of lawyers who have either been prosecutors at some level or public defenders. Two things that you mentioned. One, the resources, the lack of resources, and then also just the systemic issues that you face just operating in that system are, as much as on the civil side, things related to the lawsuits can feel arbitrary, on the criminal side, I think it's exponentially more difficult when you are operating with and in such an underresourced area.

The thing is a lot of people who go to law school, especially if they go either on the prosecution or public defender side, the reason they're doing that is because they have this deep interest in justice and community good.

As many things as can be challenging when you're a lawyer on the civil side, I think that it's been very clear to me that so many of the problems that lawyers experience when they are in private practice, while they might not be the exact same sorts of challenges that are experienced by people in the criminal side, there are so many parallels. Ultimately, there's this shared experience of futility, which is extremely demoralizing.

Heather Davies: Yes, 100%. I agree. You do your best every day and it honestly never seemed enough because there's enough work that you could work 24/7 and there's just not enough hours in the day to do everything the way I want to approach doing cases for me personally. There are amazing people doing this work. I have many friends obviously who are still crown prosecutors and stuff. I just think they're built a little differently than I am as far as their threshold for dealing with those feelings and frustrations.

Sarah Cottrell: I think that's such an important point because lawyers, in particular, I think tend to have this bent towards, “Well, that person over there seems to be able to do X or Y so why can't I just do it in the same way without feeling it so deeply or without feeling things in a certain way?”

Part of it I think is that we have been trained to think that if we're lawyers, we are basically all the same and so if we're not doing something someone else is doing, then it's because we're not trying. As opposed to, like what you said, that we all have different personalities, we all have different strengths, weaknesses, things we like and things that we don't like, and then all of the other factors outside of us that influence even like we're talking about our nervous system, our window of tolerance and how much strain a particular person that their actual nervous system is able to handle is going to be different but it's so easy for us I think as lawyers to look at other people and be like, “Well, why am I not like that person?”

Heather Davies: Oh, 100%. In my particular case, my husband is actually a prosecutor as well and he handles it very differently than I do. Definitely, I could see him every day and I'm like, “How do you deal with all of this?” and he does, he's amazing at it. But I learned eventually that it wasn't a fault with me, it was just not the right fit for me.

I did spend a lot of time thinking, “What was wrong with me? If I just work harder, if I just try this new strategy, if I just do this, then it's going to be okay, better for me,” and ultimately, I just finally realized that, “No, this is just not a good fit for me. This is not the environment where I want to be in.”

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. That's okay. We talk about this in the podcast all the time, it's so easy to be like, “Well, I decided to do this thing when I was eight and now I think I don't want to do it.” Instead of being like, “Yeah, hey, maybe the thing I decided I wanted to do when I was eight years old isn't going to turn out to be the thing I do forever and that actually seems quite normal,” there tends to be a lot of self-recrimination.

Especially to your point about the identity piece because when you start thinking about it at such a young age, it does really embed itself in your psyche. I'm curious, I know you said you practiced for 12 years, at what point in that period did you start to realize, “Oh, this isn't just like this is not great or I need to become more familiar with it but actually don't think that I want to be doing this”? Talk to me about that process.

Heather Davies: I would say somewhere between one to two years, I was feeling like, “Okay, I've been doing this now for a while and if anything, I hate it more at this point.” I used the word, “Hey, I really was unhappy doing it,” and at that point, I sought out some career counseling, I saw a career counselor to help me figure out if there was a way I could make this work, use my law degree, make it work, were there any changes I could make.

Unfortunately, at that point, and another part that played into it, I came out of law school with a lot of debt and I needed a job that I could pay back the money. For all of my complaints about my experience as a prosecutor, I did get paid well to do the work so that was also hard to walk away from when I was looking at some student debt. I just left it and was like, “I'm just going to have to figure this out,” again, work harder, find new strategies.

But I would say for me, the real turning point where I got serious about needing to leave law was after my daughter was born. She was born in 2013 and I had these ideas about wanting to leave law and I started researching some options at that point. It still didn't seem really feasible for me at that point for various reasons.

Part of it was at the time I was a lawyer, my husband and I met at work and we were in the same office, but the office we were in was a specialized prosecution office. We worked an everyday trial office at this time where I was working. We did mega gang prosecutions so we would spend a lot of time out of court preparing giant cases with lots of accused involved and then you'd be in court for three or four months straight.

It was easier to plan your life around that because you could do the doctor, dentist, and all of that stuff, make sure you've got that taken care of before you're about to go into court and we were lucky to be in a situation where we could work our schedule so that we weren't in court at the same time.

One of us was always able to be the parent that had to stay at home on a sick day or had to go leave early to pick up from daycare. But then we moved cities actually and offices and we were in a regular day-to-day trial office. Our days were long, we were both in court every day, we weren't getting home in time to get a proper dinner on the table.

My daughter was eating grilled cheese every night, which she loved of course, but made me feel like a terrible parent. It was then that I was just like, “No.” We made the move, we changed cities to have more family time to be closer to family. It was the opposite because we were both working so much preparing for every day being in court.

That was the turning point for me. I was really unhappy. I was not having time to do the things I wanted to with my daughter. I really didn't like the example I was setting for her that this is what she's seeing as her mom hating work. I didn't like that. I wanted her to see that you should enjoy your work. It's possible. I wanted her to see that it was okay you take a chance on yourself and make a change and that's fine.

That is finally what prompted me. It was about 10 months after we moved and then we were both in a regular trial office that I was like, “No, I'm done. I don't want to do this anymore. I need to make a change.”

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. It's so common in people's stories, whether they have a kid or they have a second kid, they move, or there's some health crisis or family crisis, something that shifts the circumstances where it's like before that, it wasn't that it was great and they didn't think, “I love this,” but they were making it work and then whatever the shift is that happens, it exposes the reality of how bad of a fit the situation is.

I'm curious what you would say, I've had people say to me, “Yeah, that really sucked but also I'm really glad that it happened because I was limping along and would have continued if not for basically having this realization of no, this is not it.”

Heather Davies: I think there's a very, very high probability that I'd still be practicing if not for my daughter coming along and making me completely reshift because as you said, I didn't like it but it was only really impacting me personally at that point but then when we had her and I realized this is not how I want my family life to be, this is not what I want for her, that is 100% what finally gave me the courage to make that change.

It was one of the hardest things I did was leave law for some of the reasons that we've talked about but yeah, I'm really, really happy that I did. I have no regrets at all and I'm grateful that I was able to. It was hard but worth it for sure. I met my husband through being a lawyer and I met some really great friends that I have so I can't say everything was terrible about being a lawyer but yeah, I certainly am happy not to be doing it anymore.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. I met my husband in law school so I relate and some of my best friends are lawyers or former lawyers. I'm curious, when you hit that point of “No, I actually know that I want to go,” did you already have an idea of what you wanted to do next, or was it like, “I know I want to leave but holy crap, what am I going to do?”

Heather Davies: Yeah. The latter, I had no idea. Initially, when I left, I thought I had to use my law degree and so I tried. I actually did some remote disclosure review for a company for a firm and did not like that. I did that for about I want to say year and a half to two years, really did not like it either.

That was when I got very serious. I read books like “What Color Is Your Parachute?” book and things like that. I researched. I reached out to similar to what you offer, Canadian versions of resources for former lawyers like lawyers looking to make changes.

Eventually, it was actually a book called Careergasm is one that really for me resonated. A lot of the other ones just felt like I was playing uncomfortable icebreaker games when I was reading them. They didn't resonate with me. But there was something about the tone of this book and it's by I think someone named Sarah Vermunt.

It really resonated with me and it really made me dig deep and answer those questions about what do I want to do, what things do I like, what skills do I feel I can bring to a new work situation. Then I discovered professional organizing.

As soon as I started talking about it to my close friends, they were literally like, “Oh, my god, of course, this is exactly what you need to do. I was always the person who made exam schedules, study schedules for myself like map them all out. I had friends who asked me to make them for them.

I really always enjoyed that. I moved a lot as a kid. I've lived in a lot of small spaces as a student and it just all fell into place as far as what's something you get lost to doing. I loved moving into a new space, organizing it, maximizing the space, making it work efficiently. I loved doing that. That's sort of how I got to professional organizing.

There is actually a national organization here in Canada. I know in the States, you have I think it's NAPO is the equivalent that we have here. We have the Professional Organizers in Canada so I took their courses, wrote their exam, and I started my business.

Sarah Cottrell: That's amazing. I want to come back and talk more about you starting the business. Can we circle back just briefly? You said something that think is so common for people to feel, which is when you first left your job as a prosecutor, you felt like you needed to use your law degree. Can you talk a little bit about why that was and how you ultimately moved away from feeling that way?

Heather Davies: Yeah, absolutely. I think I felt that way just because, as I said earlier, you've just invested so much into getting that degree and identified with being a lawyer so much, like I said, it was a part of who I was and who I'd almost always been. As you had mentioned at the very start, people say, “Oh, there's the future lawyer. Are you a lawyer yet?” These were common things I heard growing up.

I worked hard for it. I did work really hard for that degree so the thought of not using it was scary to me. That's why I tried to wedge myself into other legal avenues. I landed on the disclosure one because one of the things I really wanted more was control over my schedule.

On the surface, I felt that would offer that to me but I realized that I was still doing the work and as I was doing it, I still had all those same feelings of unhappiness, not being fulfilled, and just wanting it to be over for the day kind of thing.

At that point, I was like, “Maybe I just need to look outside of law to see what makes me happy.” Then ultimately, that's what led me to the book I read that really, really turned a page for me and helped me leave it behind basically. I did keep my license for a few years even after I started my business because I still wasn't quite ready to let it go but I did let it go a couple of years ago now. So no turning back.

Sarah Cottrell: How many years ago was it that you started your business?

Heather Davies: In 2019, just shortly before the pandemic.

Sarah Cottrell: Oh, amazing.

Heather Davies: Yeah. A great time to start an in-person home service.

Sarah Cottrell: Well, I started Former Lawyer in 2019, so good times. Lots of lawyers think about starting their own business. For some people, they've had experience with it, either they have run businesses before or maybe they had a family member who ran their own business, but I find that often, the idea of running your own business and the actual experience of it can be very different.

I would love it if you could talk a little bit about what it was like for you to start a business and then give people an idea of what percentage of your time goes to what. Let me just sidebar. The reason I'm asking this is that someone might really enjoy organizing and think, “I think I want to be a professional organizer,” but there's a big difference, and I know you know this, between doing the organizing and running a business as a professional organizer, doing the substantive work versus doing the whole deal.

I would love for you to talk about that because I think it's something that's important for people to think about when they are thinking about what they want to do, how they want it to look, and whether they might want to run a business for themselves. Where would you like to start with that?

Heather Davies: Yeah, 100% agree with everything you just said that it is very different. I had no experience. As a prosecutor, I didn't have clients, I didn't have to go find work, I didn't have to invoice people. In today's world, there wasn't social, I didn't have to run social media for my work or anything like that. It was literally just go and do the work.

So when I was looking into becoming an organizer, my city had a small business resource center so I went there to figure out the logistics of that, what did I need to have in place in order to do this? I read books again, which is my go-to when I'm trying to figure things out, research, research, research.

A particularly good one that I read I believe it's called The E-Myth Revisited and it was all about exactly the point that you made that liking doing something and then making a business out of doing that are two very different things. I would say for me, it was a steep learning curve for sure.

I'm also not very technologically savvy so that part scared me as well, being responsible for a website and for social media. Before starting my business, I literally had one Facebook account that I shared with my husband and we had it under a fake name. That was just for family and friends because his family lives provinces away from us so it was a great way to stay in touch with them and keep them up to date with our daughter and stuff.

It's been a whole new experience and that part was definitely the hardest. The organizing is the easy part for sure. I love that part. But as far as the time split, I would say it's honestly pretty close to 50/50. I think I'm a little better at it now. In the beginning, it was definitely easily 50/50, if not more running the business part than the organizing. I was just learning so much and making mistakes and then learning from them and correcting.

Now obviously, I figured a few things out I hope and things go a little more smoothly. But yeah, you have to invoice, taxes. If you are running a website, social media, and then just dealing with clients and customers. You get various inquiries from other businesses or people who want to talk to you or inquiries about “I can help you with your SEO,” there's so much of all of that.

I don't love the business part of it if I like to be honest either but I love the work, the results, and the clients so much that I don't mind. It's a different kind of heart. I think it was Glennon Doyle who says, “Pick your heart,” and I choose this heart because I love the other part of it so much and it makes me so happy that dealing with the business side, it's not my favorite but I don't hate it but it's the price I pay to get to do what I want to do. That's a trade-off that I think is completely worth it for me.

Sarah Cottrell: I relate to that a lot in so many ways. One, like you said, probably 50% of your time goes to all of the non-glamorous pieces. I think that is definitely true. A little bit less so now that I have a podcast production team but I love doing the podcast, I love working with people, and everything else is just supporting, getting to do that piece of the work.

I think that's true for a lot of people and I think that's really important for lawyers who are thinking about doing something else, especially when they're thinking about possibly starting their own business because I think if the only thing that will really work for you is if you're just doing that substantive work, whatever it is, whether it's organizing or something else most of the time, then starting your own business isn't necessarily going to be a good fit for someone who is not wanting to do those other pieces. If you don't want to do those other pieces, it will not be a great fit basically.

Heather Davies: Yeah. It's funny because my husband would ask in the beginning when I was still learning and obviously, I just opened my business, I didn't immediately have my schedule filled kind of thing and I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to be on social media and setting boundaries is a really hard lesson to learn I think when you're running your own business as well and so he would see me being frustrated and he'd be like, “Is this better? Are you sure you don't want to come back?”

It's hard to explain to him that it is. I still have frustrations, my life isn't all sunshine and roses now in my work, there are still challenges, but it's so different, like you said, when you enjoy the actual work. When it's for yourself, and I am in charge of the boundaries and I have no one to blame if I overbook myself or if I don't, it's just a really different type of part for me that is completely tolerable and worth it on that end of it.

Sarah Cottrell: I think that's such a good thing for people to hear because we talk a lot about, and it comes up a lot with clients, this like, “Well, I really don't like my job as a lawyer, it makes me super miserable. But isn't that just what it is to be an adult with a job?” Whether you leave law to start your own business or just to take a different type of job, the reality is, to your point, you're still an adult with a job and there still will be things, even if you work for yourself where you're like, “I don't love this, this is not great, or there are frustrations.”

I'm curious if you would relate to this, but to me, there's a difference between there are frustrations, there are challenges, there are days where you're like, “Ugh,” and just this abject misery of “I am doing this thing that is fundamentally wrong for me.”

Heather Davies: Yes, big difference. That's a perfect characterization of what I felt as a lawyer and what I feel now in my own business absolutely.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. In general, I think that anyone who's asking themselves, maybe it's just like this everywhere, in most cases, it's been my experience that you're experiencing a level of misery that is beyond just like, “Hey, I'm a human being and being a human is not always perfect,” and so you can trust how you feel and if your job is making you miserable, that actually means something.

Heather Davies: 100%. I was at that point where I was thinking, imagining, “Wow, if I could just get some sort of illness that I didn't have to work but I could still live a life,” I thought about that a lot. I had no energy to see friends or to see family. I was constantly irritable, frustrated. That seeps into all areas of your life. For me, it reached that point and I just thought, “This can't be it. I don't know what's next but this can't be it.”

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. It is so common for lawyers to have this like, “Well, maybe I could have an illness or get hit by a car but it would be mild but it would be enough that I would not have to do this or would not have to do this even further.” I've seen that exact thing referenced in articles so this is not like an uncommon experience but if that is you, if you're having that kind of experience, that is a huge sign, to Heather's point, that is a huge sign that what you're doing is not good for you.

It's like your body and your nervous system telling you to get out. It might be common amongst lawyers, that is not a typical response to being an adult with a job. It's a sign that there's some real misery. As we always talk about on the podcast, if you don't have a therapist, get a therapist because every lawyer should have a therapist, especially any lawyer who's thinking about doing something else and especially if you're having experiences like feeling like, “If I could just be in a minor car accident, that would be helpful.”

Heather Davies: Yeah. I should say as well, when I got serious about leaving after we made the move to our new city, I did seek out a therapist who specialized in women in transitions and she was instrumental in helping me figure out what I wanted to do and to have the courage to take that chance on myself basically. Again, that was another big piece of my journey as well was those sessions with her.

Sarah Cottrell: I think it's so huge. I'm sure listeners are like, “Yeah, we get it, Sarah, you literally talk about it every episode,” but I truly believe, especially for people who become lawyers who have been Type-A, high achievers, learn to do the things that gain approval, all of those things, when you ultimately decide, “I don't think I want to be doing this job, I want to do something else,” there is so much to unpack that will be so helpful for you to unpack if you're trying to make a move like this that goes beyond coaching, that goes into see a mental health professional, they will help you. So therapy.

Heather Davies: 100%. I'm team therapy all the way.

Sarah Cottrell: I have worked with a lot of lawyers at this point and there are many who when we first started working together, they'd listen to the podcast, they know I talk about therapy all the time, they weren't seeing a therapist, eventually they're like, “Yeah, you really talk about it a lot so I started seeing a therapist and I didn't think it would make a big difference but holy crap, it made such a huge difference.”

Heather Davies: Yeah. For me, a part of it that it really helped with was, and I wish I hadn't felt this way but a big part of it was I was worried what people would think like, “Oh, because she can't handle law, she failed at law. Oh, she wants to do this now?”

That concern was unfortunately a part of things that held me back for so long as well and she really just helped me get to the point where I just was like, “It doesn't matter. I don't care. I know I was a good lawyer, I just didn't like it. I'm unhappy and I want to be happy and that's all that matters.” But it took some time to get me there for sure.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. That is another thing that is so common for people who have become lawyers, that concern of “What will other people think? Well, they think I can't hack it,” all of this stuff. Like Heather said, therapy, it is the best and that's what you should do if you have those thoughts.

If someone is listening and they're like, “I also like organizing. This is super interesting,” what would you say to someone who is a lawyer who’s thinking about maybe pursuing something in the professional organizing space? Where do they start?

Heather Davies: Yeah. There are a lot of resources online. I use a lot of American resources actually. There's actually more there than there are in Canada. If you just Google professional organizer, how to become a professional organizer, there's a ton of resources that are going to come up.

It's a good way to get an idea of what it involves. There are different programs, there are paid programs like certified ones like NAPO offers, that's the National Association of Professional Organizers, that's the American version, and Canada, it's the Professional Organizers of Canada but there are also other different courses that are offered by different individuals basically who have had some success I guess in the industry shall we say.

To your point that we were talking about earlier, think about the business aspect of it as well. If you have the equivalent of a small business center in your town or city, I would visit that to figure out what you need to do. Then I would say reach out to somebody who's doing what you like and see if they would chat with you and could offer you any advice.

I've actually had a lot of people, not necessarily former lawyers but people who reach out because they know my background story and they're like, “I'm thinking about making a change. Can you tell me about your journey?” I've had people who've left accounting firms, people who have left other public service offices, teachers reach out and I'm always happy to share.

Because I remember going through it and at the time, when I initially started my journey, I felt very alone and overwhelmed. I think reaching out to somebody who has been through it and is willing to share and talk with you is a really, really helpful thing.

Sarah Cottrell: That is really good advice. Heather, is there anything else that you want to share that we haven't had a chance to talk about yet?

Heather Davies: I think we've covered most but I would just say if you are thinking about leaving law or you're not happy, just look into it. Don't ignore it. Don't push it. Just explore it I guess if it's nothing else because I spent I think 10 years pushing it down and my biggest regret is just that I didn't leave law earlier than I did. Just explore and reach out.

I think you offer a really great resource. I wish I had known about it when I was leaving law all those years ago but yeah, you're not alone, I would say, that's the most important thing I think to know is there are other people going through that, you just have to find them.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. You definitely are not alone. Okay, Heather, if people want to find you, connect with you online, where should they go?

Heather Davies: Sure. My business is actually called BirchTree Organizing and the website is just birchtreeorganizing.ca. I am also on Instagram at bt_organizing. I’m also on Pinterest and Facebook at BT Organizing as well.

Sarah Cottrell: Awesome. We'll put those links in the show notes for everyone who is listening so that they can find it easily. Heather, thank you so much for joining me today and sharing your story. I really appreciate it.

Heather Davies: Oh, thank you for having me. It was a pleasure.

Sarah Cottrell: Thank you so much for listening today. If these stories are making you go, “I think the Collab is something that would be a good fit for me or would be helpful for me,” we would love to have you join us. You can go to formerlawyer.com/collab and see all the information and the enrollment information, and you can enroll there and join us in the Collab today. I'll see you there and I hope you have a great week.