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.

Hi, Kelcey. Welcome back to the Former Lawyer Podcast.

Kelcey Baker: Hi, Sarah. It's good to be back.

Sarah Cottrell: I am excited, as always, but particularly excited, because this is not your first time on the podcast. So can you introduce yourself to the listeners and give them a little bit of background on who you are and what they might have heard you talk about before, on this podcast?

Kelcey Baker: Sure. So my name is Kelcey Baker. I am a former guest, a former collab member. You might have heard me on some other podcast episodes, told sort of my story of going through the collab. We've also talked about narcissism in the legal profession. And people might know me the most, because I'm the person who said that I kind of wanted to be hit by a bus. So that may be my former lawyer claim to fame.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, one of the episodes that I hear the most about, because people relate to it so much, which, you know, listen to that episode for all of my thoughts about that. But today, Kelcey, we're talking about something that I think, this is one of the things that keeps people from even thinking about what else they might do, the most. Out of like all of the many hurdles that lawyers have, when they're thinking about leaving the practice of law. One of the things that tends to be the most discouraging of like any sort of dreaming or imagining, is this this concern that like but what if I make a mistake, like especially what if I make a mistake and like go somewhere else and it's even worse than this, but It's also often not even like, oh, what if it's worse than this? Which I've talked about before. This idea of like, is the grass actually greener on the other side? But also there's this idea of like, what if I make a mistake and I think this next thing is the thing and that it's not the thing? And you are here to talk about that.

Kelcey Baker: Yes, I can talk about it from all perspectives, both, being out of the frying pan into the fire and getting to another place and thinking back and saying, like, oh, did I fuck up?

Sarah Cottrell: Which I have so many thoughts about, but can you talk a little bit about sort of like your thoughts, feelings and experiences with this idea of like, oh no, I've made a mistake and the way that you have navigated it?

Kelcey Baker: Sure. So I think the first time that I really had this thought of, oh, did I make a huge mistake, was actually not in law school and it wasn't even when I graduated law school. And I know that a lot of people have that feeling of feeling something isn't quite right, when they're in law school, or maybe they've just graduated and they've thought, what did I just do with the last three years of my life? That I did not have. I felt very confident going into law school. I was formerly a paralegal. I was ready to go back to the same firm, where I was a paralegal and I thought that was my future. It was decided. I was comfortable with it. Once my experience as an attorney was really different than what I thought it would be and I realized, oh, this is, something's not right. That was the point in time where I was having the feelings of potentially wanting to be hit by a bus and realizing, oh, I'm feeling very burnt out already. Then I actually decided to quit my job without anything else lined up. Because things had just gotten so difficult and toxic in that particular environment. After I quit my job, without anything else lined up and this was after talking to everyone and their mother, including mine, you know, I even called my law school career counselor, after having graduated a year, or two before, for advice. And all of them said, you know, you might just need to get out of there. And I still did everything that people said. I asked everyone for help and their advice. And once I did it, I thought, oh, did I make a huge mistake by quitting without anything else lined up? Did I ruin my career? Am I never going to get another job? What are people going to think of me? So that was probably the first time that I had that feeling. And then after I had left that job, I ended up in big law and felt like, hey, I'm making it, right? This is what the so-called definition of success is, is finally getting into big Law. I essentially lateraled in, even though I wasn't currently working at the time and I felt really good about that quote-unquote accomplishment. And then once I started having more time in big Law, that was sort of my second time of, oh, did I make a mistake? What have I done?

Sarah Cottrell: So many of us have asked that question.

Kelcey Baker: Yeah. And that really did end up being an out of the frying pan into the fire situation. I thought that the first firm was bad, bad enough that I quit without anything else lined up. And then I got into big law. And then I realized, oh, it actually can be worse.

Sarah Cottrell: It's truly another level. Okay, before we sort of like carry on, I want to pause and just like amplify something from what you've described about these two experiences that I see happen for lawyers all the time. And I know this is something that I experienced as well. If you're someone, especially if you're someone who goes to law school and you're like, you're not someone who like, on the first day is like, maybe this was a terrible mistake. If you're someone who's like, yep, I want to be a lawyer, going to be a lawyer, this is the path. I think that it, for a lot of lawyers, starting to practice and realizing this isn't a good fit, or like this doesn't feel right, really, damages their ability to trust themselves to make career decisions. Because I think, and you know, I don't think everyone would necessarily describe it this way, but I think what is typically happening for a lot of people is they're kind of like looking back and thinking like, well, I followed all the signs and all the signs said that this was what I, quote unquote, should do. And now I'm doing the thing that I should do, but like something about it is clearly off. Basically, how can I know that I'll make a good decision, if I do something else? And also, what can I even look to? Because I thought that I was looking to all of these external things that were clearly saying this was the way to go and now I feel stuck. I'm curious if you can talk a little bit about your experience with that.

Kelcey Baker: Definitely. Yeah, I thought I was making the safest choice in the world by going back to the same firm, where I had summered for two summers. I was their summer associate two years in a row. I had been there as a paralegal. I was working as a paralegal there throughout law school. I had known everyone for years. And so I felt like there's no risk here. I have a safe place to land, because it's just going to be more of what it's been. And it really wasn't. Being an associate and having to be treated as an associate turned out to be very, very different from how they treated paralegals, or summers. And so that really was a moment of, oh my gosh, I banked everything on this and now I feel like I can't. And so just not knowing what to do and never really having to, we'll say exercise, what do I do next? Where do I want to go? I really felt like I was sort of just drowning in doubt. I thought this was a sure thing. I thought this would be a safe place. I thought I was going to work here the rest of my life. And then the rug got totally pulled out from under me, in terms of experience and treatment and I just didn't know what to do. I really did not trust my judgment, because I hadn't had any doubts or reservations. You know, going back to a firm, where I had known everybody and felt very much like I knew the culture and knew the expectations. And so that was a real moment of, oh, I don't know that I can trust my gut on this anymore.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, and I have found that that happens a lot for people who worked as paralegals before law school, even if they don't go back to the firm where they previously worked. There's still this, often this sense of like, well, I mean, I worked at a firm. I saw it. Like, I know what I'm getting into. I'm very confident that this is the right thing. And so there's like even more so than someone like me, who went straight through from undergrad and had very little exposure to like the practice of law, before I started practicing law. I think people who have worked in law firms as paralegals often have this extra sense of like, but I, you know, I wasn't just relying on like what people told me. I was also relying on like things I experienced, so like WTF.

Kelcey Baker: Right. And I think, in terms of people who were paralegals beforehand, I think mine is a little bit unique in that I was a paralegal going back to the same, you know, firm. But when I wrote my law school admissions essay, right, it was, why do you want to be a lawyer? And I said, because I know what it's like, because I'm a paralegal in a law firm. And I look back on that and realize, wow, I knew nothing and that was a total lie, but I didn't know that then. And for people who are paralegals, or who have worked in law firms, or even people whose family members are attorneys, mine weren't, but I think even people who have parents who are lawyers and think like, oh, they know what it's going to be like, because they have some sort of tangential experience. It can be really different when you're in it and you can think, oh, I thought I knew what I was getting into and now I'm realizing, I didn't know what I was getting into. Did I make a huge mistake?

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, okay, so you use the phrase, like, I didn't know that then. And I think that is such, I think that a lot of lawyers, who have had prior experience with the profession, either, like you said, because they have a family member who's a lawyer, or because they worked in a law firm in some non-lawyer capacity, I think a lot of people almost have this sense of like, well, I didn't know what I was getting into, or I didn't know that then, but I should have. So I'm not allowed to change what I'm doing, based on this new information, because it shouldn't be new information. Like I quote unquote should have known. I'm wondering if that was something that you experienced at all or no.

Kelcey Baker: I think it was. I mean, especially because for me, my first job as an associate was at the same firm. And so there was definitely a sense of, oh, I should have known. Again, in retrospect, I couldn't have known. They hadn't hired any new associates for years before I came on. Their most recent associate had been a partner by the time I came back. And so when I look back on it, how could I have known? I had no examples of how they were treating associates at the time. But when I was going through it, I definitely felt like, oh, I should have known. I should have seen signs. I should have spotted red flags. I should have, you know, taken note of how they, you know, maybe treated other people or comments that they had made, you know. And it just, I felt totally blindsided.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. And I think part of it is that so many of us who became lawyers are like confident in our, like in our minds and like our intellectual ability. Like many of us were like the gold star getters in school. Right. And so I think there often is this sense of like sometimes for the first time, people having this sense of like my ability to reason has failed me and it's like just as they're kind of embarking on this career that is in large part sort of like dependent on your ability to reason and so I think it's very disorienting.

Kelcey Baker: Really disorienting. And I think, for me, that sort of, oh, all of my reasoning that I've had up to this point feels like I was wrong, is kind of what led me to even get into big law. Because all throughout law school, I had sworn up and down, I was never going to go to big law. I wasn't going to do the traditional thing. I didn't want to get into that, you know, big grind environment. And once I had gotten out of, you know, sort of a smaller medium firm and thought, well, that was not what I thought it was, maybe big law won't be what I thought it was. And so that's part of my reasoning that I had at the time as to, well, maybe I can do big law. Maybe it won't be that bad. Maybe it actually will be worth it. And this thing that I've been actively resisting, ever since law school, might be a good choice.

Sarah Cottrell: And it's interesting, because as you're describing that, one of the things that I was thinking about is how and I know we talked about this at the beginning, but how this experience of choosing something that then feels like such a bad fit, can impact people's ability to trust themselves. But I also think that part of the challenge for lawyers, in particular and so if people are listening and you're someone who's thought about leaving and maybe you've moved around a few times, thinking, like, well, maybe if it's a different type of firm, or like, maybe if it's a different type of practice, or maybe if it's a different, like, you know, in-house versus a law firm versus whatever. One, I'm not saying, like, don't do that, because, you know, go nuts. But I think that for so, so, so many of us, we went to law school, based on an idea of who we were and what it was going to be like, that wasn't necessarily actually fully consistent, or congruent with who we actually were and what it actually is like. And this is something we talk about in the collab a lot, but there's a certain set of skills that you need to develop, in order to be able to understand yourself and figure out what is going to be a good fit. And I think most people, who go to law school, did not have to use those skills, did not have to develop those skills. Because of the fact that what sets most people on the path, are these external markers of like, either like, someone said, like, you're good at arguing, you should go to law school, or like, you like research and writing, you should go to law school. Or even, you know, having an interest in social justice, is setting someone on the path to law school, because there's this connection of like, well, I care about this and therefore I want to do good things in the world. But without sort of like digging into, okay, but how do I operate individually best and what will this profession require? And again that's not to say like, if you don't like being a lawyer then like you just don't like working hard, or whatever, which I think is like the myth that some people think is what's going on, when they're thinking about going to law school and people are saying don't do it. It's more this question of like, do you actually know yourself enough and are you relying enough on internal factors to make this decision, or are you just sort of like following external markers of like what you should do, which of course our profession just like perpetuates. Because then you have law school and you take the bar and if you go to a firm, there's like a path and there's so much reinforcement of this idea that you follow the external path, or the path can be set out for you by someone else and you should follow that path.

Kelcey Baker: Totally. And when so many people go to law school, there's no way that we've done any of that inner work to understand that. Most of us were too young. I mean, really, if you go straight through, I had friends who graduated law school at 25, 26. So you're graduating law school and becoming a lawyer at the same time your brain is being fully formed.

Sarah Cottrell: I was just going to say, like your prefrontal cortex has just like wrapped itself up.

Kelcey Baker: You're not even a full person. And then you're a lawyer, you know. And even for me, you know, I had three years between when I graduated, undergrad and then when I went to law school that I was working for three years. And at the time, again, I felt very mature and oh I knew what I wanted to do and because I wasn't going, you know, straight from undergrad and I had worked and I had been an adult and paid rent and had an apartment and had the big adult job. But even then, you know, I decided to go to law school, when I was 25, 26. So again, I was just, my brain was just fully formed when I made that decision. There was no hope for me to have done any of that inner work to think like, well, who am I as a person? And what is it that I need to feel purpose and completeness and feel like I can thrive and feel like I can do good work and find meaning out of what I do? And what's my work style? I mean, no one answers those questions for themselves, when they're the age that most people go to law school.

Sarah Cottrell: Right. And I don't think either of us is saying like, oh, what's wrong with those 22-year-olds? They really didn't have their acts together. I think that part of what can cause a lot of anxiety for lawyers is the sense of like, back then I should have done something different. And I didn't and therefore I failed and therefore I have to live with the consequences of my actions or whatever. And so I think what you and I are saying is like, hey, whether you were 20, 21, 22, 25, 35, much older, there are a lot of different reasons that we make the decisions that we make. And it is a very punitive way to look at yourself, especially your younger self and be like, well, you didn't do this in the way that I, a person with much more life experience and knowledge now have, know to be a better way. So, like, too bad, you just have to live with it.

Kelcey Baker: Right. Yeah. If we looked back at most 20-somethings and they made it, you know, a choice for their career and then decided, oh, maybe I didn't make the best choice, I don't know that we would harshly judge them the way that we harshly judge ourselves.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, which I think we are to some extent trained into by the profession, which sort of asks us to like never make a mistake, because malpractice.

Kelcey Baker: That requires us to never make a mistake. It's not just an ask. It's a demand. It's an imperative.

Sarah Cottrell: Right. It's like if you want to stay. Okay, so I'm curious, because what happens for a lot of people is they end up in the position that you are in, when you were in big law. And they realize like, oh gosh, I am, this is not good for me. I am not, it's not just like, oh, I'm unhappy, although being happy does matter, but also like this is having an extremely negative effect on my like emotional health, mental health, physical health, et cetera. But what often keeps people from actually doing something else, is this sense of like, but if I chose something else and it wasn't the Thing, you know, capital T, the capital T thing, then like, that would be the end of the world for various reasons. But I think part of it is this idea of like, other people will judge me, if I leave and do something else and that's not capital T, the capital T thing. Can you talk a little bit about sort of that phenomenon and how that sort of like played into your experience of making a decision to ultimately leave big law?

Kelcey Baker: Yeah, definitely. My… Most of my, you know, family, friends, acquaintances, whoever, had no idea, what I was really going through and experiencing and feeling and dealing with in big law. And really the only people who I think could relate to me truly were other people in the collab. Because I was in the collab, when I was still at my big law job and trying to, you know, determine how do I get out of here? What do I do next? And so there were absolutely those feelings of they're not going to understand. No one is going to realize, you know, oh, you need to get out of there and things are bad and you're in a really toxic work environment. I mean, other than my therapist and the people in the collab, no one else was as emphatic about like, oh, yeah, you should probably leave. You know, and I even, I tell the story from time to time, but even my spouse, who was fully supportive, you know, saying, do what you need to do. But there was this moment where he said, you know, I can't understand entirely what you're going through. From my perspective, it sounds like sometimes you just deal with mean emails. And I was like, oh, God and it was just that moment of like, oh, people… It just triggered this fear of, oh, people are just really not going to understand. And so if I leave, no one's going to understand that decision. And everybody is just going to think, what are you doing? You're walking away from big law. You're walking away from, you know, a top 20 law firm. You're making so much money. This is the definition of Success, right? Capital S success. And it was crippling for a long period of time to be able to think about leaving and certainly leaving just for the sake of leaving, right? Because I couldn't see it for a very long time, what could be better and I say that with air quotes, what could be better than the position I was in, right? Because I was making so much money. I was in this definition of success, in terms of jobs. I was in this prestigious firm that looked great on my resume and had brand name recognition. But it was very, very difficult for me to think of, like, how would leaving not be a mistake? How could I walk away from this? How can I, quote, give all of this up, when really the thing I was giving up was a terribly toxic work environment, with a narcissistic boss and insane billable requirements and my life being reduced to six minute increments. So, it was a really challenging thing for me to think about, like, what could be, quote, better than this, right? Because I was still thinking in terms of the traditional definitions of success and very much thinking in terms of how can I justify this decision to other people? If I'm not leaving for something that looks, quote, better on paper, everybody is going to think that I have failed and I am going to, you know, have made a huge mistake walking away from this. And when it got to the point, where I walked away from it and quit without anything lined up at the time, because things had just gotten so intense and so toxic, I just... so bad throughout the entire practice. I did have those moments of it was an absolute relief and feeling like, oh my God, I did it. I'm so proud of myself. And then immediately, oh my God, if I made a huge mistake. It's just, it was like a movie scene, right? Where you have the main character and you see like the relief on their face and they're grinning and they're like, yes, I did it. And then all of a sudden you just see their smile kind of fade. They're like, oh my gosh. Yeah, turn into a thousand yard stare of what have I done? Did I just totally ruin my life? And, again, now, years later, looking back, no, I didn't. I did not ruin my life. But at the time, I didn't know that. I felt like, oh, did I just make a huge mistake to walk away from that salary and that title and, you know, the name of that firm and everything else that, you know, goes along with big law that attracts so many people to it in the first place. It was a real moment of like, oh, did I just fuck up big time by leaving this? The reality is, no, I didn't. And I have absolutely no regrets about having left. But yeah, there's definitely that moment of like, oh, what did I do? But it was a feeling of you know, oh, it was a mistake, probably, to get into big law in the first place, at least for me. And so, because I said earlier, it really was an out-of-the-frying-pan-into-the-fire situation, I think part of the thing that actually allowed me to leave and to say, like, okay, even if I can't think of what's, quote, better, it was getting hard to think of something that would be worse.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. So first, as you were talking, one of the things that I was thinking and Kelcey and I have talked about on a previous episode, about narcissism and narcissistic systems. But so many of the things that you were describing, in terms of dynamics, Kelcey, are things that other people also describe, when they have left their law firms, or when they're at their law firms. And I know you and I have talked about this, but the parallels to the ways people describe being in a relationship with abuser are like, I mean it's truly, it's uncanny and some of the like beliefs that we as lawyers internalize, are so so similar to the things that keep people in like an unhealthy relationship. So I think that's just really important for people to recognize, especially when they're experiencing something like you described with your spouse, where you're trying to explain to someone why it's so bad, even someone who's close to you and they can't fully get it. And that, of course, makes people go, well, maybe I'm just crazy, maybe it's not really that bad. But the other thing that I wanted to say is that one of the things that I have seen that tends to keep people from making a move, is that there is this sense of, like, it's one decision. Like, there's this sense of, when I leave, wherever I go, like, there's one decision and either that one's going to be a pass or a fail. And, like, the likelihood of it being a fail is, like, feels kind of high, because I am, you know, in many cases, like, burnt out. I'm realizing how little I know about myself, or what the other options are. And so it creates this huge amount of pressure around that single choice, when the reality is and I think your story demonstrates this and you can share some more about it, is that it's not just one decision. It's not like you just make the choice to leave and go somewhere else, or do something else and then like that's the last time you make a decision about any of that for the rest of your life. But I think, because people want to, understandably, want to feel like they have sort of like a guaranteed good outcome, they tend to have this sense of like, well, it's just like it's the one additional decision that I need to make and therefore it has to be the right one and that in and of itself can keep people where they are. So I'd love for you to talk a little bit about like what happened when you left and sort of this whole idea of like it's one choice and then like you either pass it or fail it and that's the end.

Kelcey Baker: Well, you feel like it's just one choice, because that's kind of how it starts, when you get into law, right? That's your choice. You make one choice. You're going to go to law school. You're going to be a lawyer. You're going to go practice law in whatever environment, you know, you're going to practice, whether it's a firm, or a nonprofit, or government, or in-house. But that's it, you feel like you just need to make that one choice. And so when you're considering not being a lawyer, or at least not actively practicing, you think, oh, I can be a lawyer, or I'm not a lawyer. And that's it. And it's just this very kind of scary binary way of thinking, because that was previously, I think, how a lot of us felt. Right. It’s just I only have to make the one choice and it's to go to law school. Done, decision made. When you leave, you think, oh, it's just the choice to leave. It's just the choice to potentially not be a lawyer anymore and then it has to be that one thing. So whatever I pick, it better be good, because then that's going to be the rest of my life. And that's simply not true. But I don't think that it's easy for lawyers to even wrap their minds around. There's so many things that can happen and there's so many choices that you can make. And it's not like whatever you do next, that's it, you get one more do-over and it has to be perfect. And I think that's what makes so many people really hesitant and really fearful to explore potential other options is because it's not that, as you've said, like it's not the conveyor belt, right? You don't just get on the next conveyor belt to take you through that next career path and then that's it. Some people might find something that's easy and, you know, a perfect fit for them and as soon as they leave, whatever they end up doing next, that's what they do for the rest of their career. And that's awesome. But I don't think that that's probably the case for most people. It certainly wasn't the case for me. So when I decided to leave big law and really considered like, oh, well, now I essentially like can't be a lawyer, don't want to be a lawyer, because, you know, that's the choice, that's the one choice I have. Right. So now I need to figure out this like non-lawyer job. And then I realized after really thinking about it that like that wasn't entirely right either. There are not just a door number three but there are so many doors that you can potentially go into. For me, it was, you know, I decided, oh, I'm going to try consulting. And so stay a lawyer, but rather than actively practice, I'm going to try my hand at consulting, using this area of expertise that I have built up over my legal career and do essentially a legal adjacent job and still keep my license. And, you know, still be able to say that I'm an attorney, but my day-to-day work is not practicing anymore, it's consulting. And that was a sort of a strange chimera of different things that I sort of squished together, by taking, like, what am I good at, what do I like doing, what's sort of adjacent to what I was doing, but is not going to impose all of the terrible things that I didn't like about practicing and being, you know, an associate in a firm environment. And even then, you know, to get back to kind of our overall reaching topic, even when I decided to launch my consulting business, I still felt like, oh, did I make a huge mistake? What if I can't grow my business like I want to? What if, you know, people don't understand what I'm trying to do? What if nobody hires me? You know, all of those doubts, I think, still follow you. Only they were just totally new questions. It wasn't like, oh, what if I, you know, can't hack it in the legal profession? It was like, oh, well, what if I can't hack it as a consultant? What if I never land a client? Which, you know, ended up not being true. I have clients. I have, you know, I'm growing my consulting business. It's a good thing. But you still, those doubts that I think you have, for those of us who kind of have that personality of why we got into being a lawyer anyway, right? The perfectionist tendencies, the high achievers, the gifted kids, the eldest daughters that, you know, all of that, it still does follow you. So you do still sometimes have that thought of, oh, did I make a huge mistake? Have I, you know, should I just have gone back to a law firm and sucked it up, because that was the devil I knew?

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, and I think to your point about the personality types that are often drawn to law, the perfectionists, the people with eldest daughter energy, even if they're not an eldest daughter. I think one of the things that can be very difficult to see if you are someone with that archetype, which I definitely am, is that I think there's often this sense of either I stay in this one place and that's secure, and that's financial security, that's financial stability, that's safety and even if it's absolutely terrible for me, there's security in that. Or I leave and there's like no security whatsoever and like there's this sense I think sometimes of like it's just like incredibly irresponsible, but the reality is that like if you're a perfectionist, eldest daughter type, gifted kid, whatever, you're going to do what you need to do. And I think that for a lot of lawyers, because of the way the profession is, especially because it's so rare that you get positive feedback, right? You're just kind of like grinding and the only time you get feedback it's probably negative, or just kind of like, oh, you did that thing, like check the box. People forget that like, you are resourceful and you will do the things that you need to do. And like, there's often this sense of like, if I make a mistake, then just like nothing will happen. And I will like free fall into like, you know, a parade of horribles. That is overwhelmingly unlikely, if nothing else, just based on who you are and the personality type that is like making you worry about those things.

Kelcey Baker: Totally. I think for all of the parts of being, say, a perfectionist and a hard worker and resourceful and intelligent, it means that you will still find success in something else. And I think that the legal profession, this is me getting a little bit on my soapbox, but I think the legal profession wants to trick you in that kind of abusive partner way of saying, like, well, nobody else will love you like I do. And the reality is, like, no, no, there are other professions and careers that will love you, because you have these amazing skills and you have this, you know, kind of great personality type that makes you responsible and diligent and smart and you can anticipate things way before other people can. And, you know, for all of those reasons you can be an invaluable resource to other people and you can do really well in other areas. I think it's just a legal profession that makes it seem like, no, you can only be a lawyer. The only thing you're ever meant to do and the only thing you'll ever be good at is be a lawyer, which I think can be extra damaging when, you're made to feel in certain environments like, oh, I'm not even a good lawyer, so I'll never succeed in anything, if I can't even be a quote, good lawyer, because I'm not thriving in a big law environment. And then like, I'm not going to be good at anything and that's absolutely false. You know, I think I certainly had the feeling of like, well, maybe I'm just lazy, maybe I just don't like working hard. But that's totally false. You know, I just honestly, I think I probably work almost as much as I did in big law. But it's all stuff that I like doing. Right. It's working in my business, it's working for my clients, it's volunteering, it's joining book clubs. I'm, you know, on the board of multiple nonprofits at this point. I'm busy. And so that's proven to me at least that, oh, it's not that I don't like working and it's not that I, you know, don't want to put effort into anything and it's not that I don't have these, you know, skills to juggle a ton of things at once and to multitask and to be organized and all of that. It's really just, oh, there's all sorts of ways to apply all of these things that's not in the legal profession, or even that's just like legal adjacent. Maybe it's just not practicing.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, Kelcey, what else do you think that people who are listening and have this sense of like, but what if I leave and it's a terrible mistake? What if I choose wrongly? What else do you think they need to know?

Kelcey Baker: I know that it can be really difficult, especially if you're in an environment, where you're getting kind of like constantly beaten down and like shit on by, you know, your superiors. But you will be OK, things will overall probably be OK. Even if you leave and you make a mistake and you get into another job and you realize, oh, this job is awful also, you can just leave. In the same way that, you know, like if you're like, oh, I got into an even worse situation or like, oh, I got into this new, you know, career, or this new job, or this new environment, hoping that it would be different. And maybe it is in some ways, but it's just still not right, like, keep going, find something else. And I know that that's obviously easier said than done. There are true financial considerations and… but I think there are so many people who are worried about being seen as like job hopping too much, or you know not being seen as being loyal enough, or you know, well, what if, you know, what how is it going to look if I'm just like moving around to other… I'm sure that most people are not leaving jobs like every other month, right. And so it's, I think, I would just say there's so many other options and there's more than you could even imagine and so if you're getting into a situation and you're like, oh I've made another mistake this isn't… this also isn't right, like, just keep going until you feel like oh, this is a good place for me to have landed. And I'd say too that the perfectionist tendencies, I think, is like it has to be perfect and it has to be forever, right? Whatever my choice is, it just has to be it. I think for lawyers, it's particularly challenging for some of us, to potentially understand that for most people, their job is their job and it's not who they are and it's not their life and like sure maybe they don't love it, but, you know, the hours are good and the benefits are good and you know, it doesn't take up their whole life and identity and suck every ounce of energy from them. And so, like, that's fine. You can find something that, like, it's good enough for now, because it's not destroying my soul the way that my previous job was. And then, you know, land there for a while. I know we talk a lot about bridge jobs, but I would say, there also doesn't have to be just one bridge job. You can have multiple bridge jobs and maybe they're more of like lily pad jobs than bridge jobs, right? We can just hop from one to the other until we like finally find that place, where we can feel fulfilled and like, ah, this is where I'm meant to be. This is what I'm meant to do.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, I think they're really, like, you know, if you're asking yourself the question of like, but what if I choose, what if I make a mistake? Like, what if I do leave and go to something else and it is actually worse? I would say like, okay, like, let's assume the worst case scenario, which is that you decide to leave your legal job and you go somewhere else and it actually is legitimately a worse experience for you. You're going to go somewhere else after that. And honestly, it is much easier in my experience for lawyers to make subsequent moves, once they have like broken this fear of like, oh, no, what if I make a decision that will not be the decision that like governs the absolute rest of my life? Because taking that action shows you like, oh, I can make change. And I, like I do have agency, which within the legal profession, I think, in a lot of ways, we are, especially in law firms, stripped of having a sense of agency that if we do something, there will be a result. And so, again, to your point, it's not to say that there aren't financial considerations and you don't need to think about those things. But I think often people think like, if I make a mistake, I will go somewhere that's even worse and I will be absolutely financially decimated in the end period. And like, that is not the reality of the experience that anyone I know, who has left the law, has had. And there are plenty of people who have left and gone somewhere either that they knew to be a bridge job, or that they thought was a good next step. And it was a good next step, but it wasn't the ultimate step. And that doesn't mean all is lost, or it's the end. It just means you're a person in the world, which is good, like, the legal profession wants you to be a robot, but you're actually a person and that's good.

Kelcey Baker: Absolutely, yeah. And as someone who can say, like, oh, I left a bad job and then I got into a worse job, you'll be okay, because at some point, you'll leave that worse job and then you'll find one that was better than that. And even, you know, to quote my therapist at the time, when I was in just, like, this terrible big law job, she said, like, you don't need it to be perfect. You just need it to be better than this one. And that bar is pretty low.

Sarah Cottrell: Oh, yes, it's so true. Okay, Kelcey, is there anything else that you would like to share with the listeners, before we wrap up our conversation?

Kelcey Baker: I think just, you know, I think that the law, the legal profession, right, just sort of ingrains in us that you are not allowed to make a mistake, right? You cannot make a mistake, or everything will be ruined. Your career will be over. You're going to lose your law… You know, if you make one mistake, it's going to be the worst thing ever. And that's simply not true. And so that also applies to just career choices, right?

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah.

Kelcey Baker: If you make a mistake, your life is not going to be over. You're not going to be, you know, out on the streets and just absolutely penniless and shunned from society. That's not going to happen.

Sarah Cottrell: No.

Kelcey Baker: So just, it's OK to be human and it's OK to potentially make a mistake. And like Sarah said, with every choice that you make, you get better at making choices from that point forward. You get more confident in realizing like, oh, this is what I want, this is what I don't want. You get less paralyzed by fear and your ability to actively choose better things for yourself only gets stronger the more that you do it.

Sarah Cottrell: I literally could not have said it better myself. So thank you, Kelcey, for joining me again and for sharing from your experience with this community. I know there are a lot of people, who will relate to a lot of the things that you shared.

Kelcey Baker: Thanks so much, Sarah. It was great to be here.

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.