Sarah Cottrell: Hi, and welcome to The Former Lawyer podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Cottrell. I've 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.

One of the questions that comes up most often with people when they're thinking about leaving the law is essentially this question of, am I justified? Like, am I justified in doing so? This sort of correlates to something I've talked about before on the podcast, which is how people tend to almost be looking for permission, even though they know that the environment is not good for them, there tends to be this sense for many lawyers that we need permission, in order to actually leave, in order to actually even think that it is, you know, all that bad. Because here's the thing, like, there is always going to be someone who has it worse than you in your law firm, in the legal profession in general. There is always going to be someone that you can look at and say, well, they're still here, so I shouldn't leave, because if they can do it, I can do it.

Fundamentally, you're just asking yourself the wrong question. And to be clear, I'm not judging, because I too was a lawyer and I too very much had this sense of like, well, I can't just leave, because it's, you know, not good for me, right? Like, I'm doing well and like, I should just keep going. And the thing is that this whole struggle to feel like you're justified in leaving, especially when you're someone who's in like a very toxic environment, is very external. And in a lot of ways, it's just another variation on the problem that got many of us into law school in the first place, right? Because for so many of us, we looked at what other people were saying about what we should do, right? Like, either because we were told, like, you're good at arguing, you should be a lawyer, or because we were really smart and we were really good at getting good grades. And we didn't want to do math or science, so we didn't go to med school and etc, etc. Ultimately this question of am I justified in leaving is a question about who gets to say, right? Like who gets to validate your experience? And for so many of us, the reasons that we ended up in law school were incredibly external. And this need to feel justified is also very externalized, right? In almost all circumstances, if there's someone struggling with this question, it's in part because they don't feel like their own sense that this is not okay, this is not good for me, is enough to justify leaving.

Again, as I always say on this podcast, I'm not saying, like, who cares about practical things? Who cares if you have a partner who, you know, you have to plan stuff related to finances and, like, life stuff? Or who cares if you are single? And in that case, the sole breadwinner. And like, I'm not saying any of those things. I'm talking specifically around the sense of whether it's justified on a mental and emotional level. The practical factors are also, of course, important, but that's a separate question. This is people not being able to trust their own experience. And that is so common for those of us who became lawyers for all sorts of reasons. But one of the biggest ones is that our profession has conditioned us over and over and over and over to look to external sources for validation, right? So you might have been that kind of person anyway. When you decided to go to law school, there's a decent chance that you look to what other people had to say about whether you should go. Then you take the LSAT, you go to law school, you take the bar, etc, etc.

And there are all of these external markers that tell you, like, you're on the path, this is the path. In order to find something better for you, you are going to need to be able to access what actually feels right for you. Like, what actually feels like a good fit. Because a lot of us made the decision to become lawyers, because there were things about lawyering that we were good at and not necessarily because doing those things, especially in the way they're done in the legal profession, felt right. And again, I'm not saying this to be like, I just can't believe that you feel the need to justify yourself to other people, or I just can't believe that you feel like maybe you're crazy to leave this job that everyone else, or all these other people think is the best thing ever, you know, and that there's nothing better than this or whatever, that all sorts of other people would be happy to take, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm not saying that sense of, am I justified or am I crazy for thinking this? I'm not saying that's like, why would you feel that way?

Because the reality is there are so many things in our profession, in our personalities and just in our environment at large, in our capitalist dystopia that like push you towards feeling like, well, am I really justified in leaving? Am I crazy to be thinking about leaving? But in order to find something better, you are going to need to be clear within yourself that this is your choice, not something that you are doing, or that you're waiting to do, until you are validated by an external source. And that is in part, because you want that for your own confidence, but also, as I said a couple minutes ago, it's very important that you are able to access your sense of what is a good fit and what is right,as you are going through the process of figuring out what is next. That is a skill that you are going to be developing in your process moving out of the law. And there's no better time to start than with your own experience within the law and being able to say to yourself, yes, my experience is real. My experience is valid. The fact that this is not good for me on whatever level for whatever reasons is real and valid. And I can be confident in that. And, again, I'm not saying, like, don't talk to your therapist, because Lord knows I love therapy for everyone who's listening to the podcast. If you don't have a therapist, you should get one.

I'm not saying don't ask people for advice. I'm not saying don't bounce ideas off people. It's not so much about what you do. It's about how much you are relying on that external validation to feel okay with the choice that you are making. And if it feels really impossible to feel okay about it within yourself, as opposed to if you are externally validated, then that is definitely something that you could be working on in therapy, even as you're still practicing law, because that is something that is worth untangling before you start, or as you are going through the process of figuring out what's next.

So if you're asking yourself, am I justified in leaving? First of all, it's such a common question. So many people ask it. It is one of the most common things that comes up for people. And when I hear people asking that question, what it tells me is that they need to focus on how to be more confident in trusting themselves and their own knowledge and experience and giving it the weight that it deserves.

Thanks so much for listening. 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.