Sarah Cottrell: Hi, and welcome to The Former Lawyer Podcast. I’m your host, Sarah Cottrell. I practiced law for ten 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’ve left the law behind, to find careers and lives that they love.

Today I wanna talk about layoffs. First of all, if you are someone who has been laid off from your legal job, whether it was at a law firm, or somewhere else. No matter what, no matter why, no matter how little control or responsibility you had over being laid off, it sucks. And, I just wanted to acknowledge that upfront. I don’t want it to seem like I’m being flip about the experience of being laid off, and also, the realities that come with it, right? Because, of course, for many people, being laid off can create a lot of anxiety, financial and otherwise, and that’s completely understandable. So if you're someone who’s going through a layoff, or you’re afraid of being laid off, or you were recently laid off, or you were laid off in the past and it was super traumatic, all of those things. Like, I just want to acknowledge that that is all extremely valid, and normal, and I don’t want anything that I say today to seem like I don’t think any of those things are true.

But I wanted to talk about layoffs, because there’s something that's come up with clients multiple times. And it's come up so many times that, as you know, when something comes up a certain number of times, I’m like, okay, “This is something I should talk about on the podcast.” And the thing that has come up with clients around layoffs, is that, I have had the experience now, of having several clients who either came to work with me after being laid off, or were laid off while we were working together. And one of the things that many of them tell me, is that they don't think that they would have recognized how unhappy they were, and how much of a poor fit their job was for them, for their, like, mental, physical, and emotional health, if not for being laid off.

I can remember having, like, a recent conversation with someone when they were saying “I didn’t even realize how much pressure, and how much stress this job was creating, like in my body, until this layoff happened.” And it was, basically, like this huge weight was lifted.

So, if you’re someone who is in a position where you’ve laid off, or you’re contemplating the possibility that it might happen, I just wanted to say that I would encourage you to think about whether you actually want another legal job, after the layoff. Now, here in the real world, we all have bills. We all need to be responsible adults. And the reality is that even if you are laid off from a job that you absolutely hate and you never want to be a lawyer again, there might be reasons why you decide to get another job practicing law in some capacity. And I’m certainly not saying “Oh that's, don’t do that. That’s terrible.” Because we all make practical choices, and like, balance various factors. I’m talking, more specifically, about people who feel like “Oh, I was laid off, so now I like, I need to immediately start looking for another legal job because that’s just what I should be doing.” Without asking themselves “Like, do I actually want another legal job?” Because the reality is that if you feel an immense amount of relief when you’re laid off ? That feeling is information. That tells you something, right? Like, as I said, being laid off is a very stressful experience. And causes anxiety for most people. And understandably so.

So if one of the overwhelming emotions that you have when you’re laid off is relief, that you’re getting away from that particular job. That's really helpful information, that really basically means that feeling is breaking through all of the other feelings that we think of as more typical around a layoff. If you’re someone who has been laid off or, or is contemplating that it might happen. I really strongly suggest that you ask yourself “If I’m laid off, or, since I’m laid off, do I actually want to go get another legal job?” And again, you might ultimately decide “Yes.” For various reasons. But. There’s a difference between going to another legal job because you’re like “Listen, basically I need a bridge job. I need a job to bridge me from being laid off from the one job to whatever I ultimately want to do.” There’s a big difference between that, and feeling like “Well, I lost,” for example “ a law firm job, so I just need another law firm job, to like, prove that I can.” Because you don't, need to do that, you might choose to do that, and that makes sense. But if your first reaction to being told you're laid off was a relief, then I really, really strongly suggest that you at least consider what else you might want to do. And even if that isn’t what you end up pursuing, in the immediate aftermath of being laid off, the experience of being laid off can be a really helpful catalyst for thinking about what it is that you actually want to do. And whether you really want another law firm job, or another job practicing law. Or whether you want something else, or whether you try to move in that direction, even if you’re going to like, you know, bridge with another job practicing law.

For anyone who is listening to this, if you have gone through this experience. I am sorry, because being laid off sucks. And it happens a lot in our industry, a lot more than people, I think, are willing to talk about because of the way that, especially law firms, tend to, like, shame people around layoffs. It sucks, and it's hard, and you’re not alone. You’re for sure not the only one. And, being laid off can help provide an opportunity to help think through what you might really want to do next. Or what you ultimately want to be doing with your career. And one of the most important things that you can do is to learn to listen to yourself, right? And so if, the message, the internal message your body sent when you got laid off, was like “ Thank goodness!" Then listen. Listen to that, figure out where that came from, why that was, and what that might mean for you going forward. Because I’ve worked with a lot of clients who, got laid off and ultimately, for them, it was a catalyst into something much better. Because it did allow them to do this, kind of, self reflection that I’m talking about. So. 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.