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.

I'm super excited to share a conversation with another Collab member with you this week. On the podcast this week, I have Dan Branagan. He is a Collab member and now a data analyst, former lawyer, and he talks about his process of figuring out the types of roles that were really going to work for him using the framework inside of the Collab and lots, lots more.

I'm always so appreciative when anyone who I've worked with wants to come on the podcast and share their story. As I tell people frequently, my goal is always for everyone who works with me to ultimately get to a place where they could be someone who comes in the podcast and shares their story about being a former lawyer. Without further ado, here is my conversation with Dan Branagan.

Hey, Dan, welcome to The Former Lawyer Podcast.

Dan Branagan: Hi, Sarah. Thanks for having me on.

Sarah Cottrell: As is almost always the case, I'm very excited to have you share your story. Why don't we start with you introducing yourself to the listeners?

Dan Branagan: Sure. Yeah, my name is Dan Branagan. I am currently in my first post-law or non-practicing job. I'm a client intelligence data analyst at a large law firm. Prior to that, though, I did practice. I was an associate at a mid-sized firm for about five years doing bankruptcy and creditors rights work. Then I'm sure we'll get into my background and how I ended up there, but I don't want to jump the gun on that.

Sarah Cottrell: Yes, yes, and also spoiler alert, Dan and I know each other because he is in the Collab. So, we will also touch on that part of your story when we get there, but as people who listen regularly know, we generally start at the same place with everyone, which is what made you decide to go to law school?

Dan Branagan: Yeah, that's a good question. Frankly, I don't have a good answer for it.

Sarah Cottrell: Highly traditional.

Dan Branagan: Right, exactly. Very familiar story for folks who listen to the pod, I'm sure. Yeah, I mean, I was a liberal arts major in college doing history and political science, kind of some of my close friends and dorm mates were in those majors and were planning to go to law school and I think had a lot more conviction about it.

I was very interest-focused in choosing the major and not really practically thinking, “Okay, yeah, this is how I'm going to build a career.” Yeah, I mean, law school is like, “Okay, yeah, it makes sense. The arts generally feed law school and you can succeed because you're doing research analysis, writing papers, things like that.” It kind of translates. As a 20-year-old, I was like, “Oh, yeah, six-figure salary, I'm in, prestige and being a big important lawyer sounds great.”

Sarah Cottrell: So it sounds like when you went to law school, you weren't like, “Oh, this is what I've always wanted to do. All I've ever wanted is to be a lawyer,” it was more just like, “Oh, this seems like the next step that makes sense.”

Dan Branagan: Yeah, That's definitely the case, looking back. Honestly, that was an upsetting revelation as I was going through the Collab stuff and doing the self-examination, figuring out why I ended up in the law and everything. I really was very passive in the process and just like we talked about the conveyor belt metaphor a lot and that was definitely the case for me. I was just kind of going through the motions thinking that it would be like a means to an end to make a lot of money and be happy and rich and thinking those two things would go together.

Sarah Cottrell: Okay, so I'm curious because of course, this is something that comes up for so many people in the Collab when they're working through the process, I mean, and just lawyers in general who are thinking seriously about leaving, you said something, I can't remember the exact word you used, but basically it was sort of upsetting to have the realization that this was a big driving force.

Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I think some people who are listening probably intuitively get it, but maybe not everyone. I'd be interested to hear more about that experience.

Dan Branagan: Yeah, Absolutely. I think part of the Collab and I think any attempt to systematically think about what you want to do and what kind of work actually is a good fit for your personality starts with just checking in with yourself and getting to be more thoughtful and deliberate about understanding your work style, what you value, what you enjoy, things like that.

Through that process, I just came to realize what I had kind of alluded to earlier that I feel like I was going along with my friends on the conveyor belt because it just seemed like law school was the thing that made sense as the next step. I mean, even beyond that, going back a little further, I was the stereotypical gifted kid throughout grade school, high school, so on so I think that fit in with the prestige angle and the idea that there was an expectation from family and early life peers that I would go and do something important, and that sort of thing.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. You are gifted, therefore, there are extremely high expectations for what your life is going to look like.

Dan Branagan: Yeah, for sure.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. I'm sure there are many people who can relate. I certainly can relate. Okay, so talk to me about, so you're in law school, and you're about to graduate and start practicing law. At that point, did you have a sense of “I don't know if this is the best fit for me,” or was it more like, “I'm still in the conveyor belt and that's just where I am”? What were you thinking your legal career would look like at that point?

Dan Branagan: I think towards the end of 2L and in the 3L, I feel like that's when the disillusionment process, for lack of a better word, began. I'm not a great interviewer to begin with and then I think again, kind of not having a real plan and just going along for those two reasons, I did horribly in the on-campus interview process.

My 2L summer, I was just working for a judge in DC, which is not a bad thing at all. But all of my co-workers, fellow interns were all rising 2Ls so you're younger than me, and they were all going to George Washington, Georgetown, UVA, these bigger prestigious programs and I feel like that was my first real introduction to the stereotypical law and Biglaw culture.

There was just this permeating attitude of just being 100% all in on “I am an attorney and that is the essence of my being and everything is work-focused and what firm I'm working for, how much I'm making,” etc. Yeah, I realized that I'm definitely not anti-career, but the balance is important to me. I didn't find myself being like, “Yeah, this is what I want to do. I want to work 12, 14 hours a day and do all this stuff.” That was the first inkling when something felt off.

Going to 3L, so then obviously not having a 2L summer associate position, it was kind of hard for me to go the traditional Biglaw route where you kind of do the summer associate thing and then you get an offer and so on and so forth. I ended up getting lucky and getting accepted to do a clerkship with a federal bankruptcy judge who is a fellow alumnus of my law school.

Again, not having an overarching interest in bankruptcy prior to, but it being a good opportunity and something that I thought I could parlay into a good job, another year or two out.

Sarah Cottrell: Actually, one of the things I was thinking about, I was thinking about how you said during your summer between 2L and 3L, how you realized you had a different sense of the balance that work and other things should play in your life as compared to the other people that you're interning with, which is so interesting because having now worked with many former gifted kids who ended up on the law school conveyor belt, a lot of us are not able to tap into our natural sense of there needs to be balance because we tend to have been conditioned to “mind over matter.”

People don't necessarily think about, “Is this what I want? Do I think this makes sense? What sort of balance?” So I'm wondering for you, if you have a sense of where that came from, and why the gifted track did not beat it out of you, basically.

Dan Branagan: Yeah, I mean, I think in somewhat contradictory sense, school just came so naturally to me that I didn't have to work all that hard to get through school. I was a gamer and a nerd and kind of did all of those things and it seemed like that kind of interest hobby part of myself was completely alien in the Biglaw environment. I think that me always putting a pretty substantial value on having time to get into hobbies and things like that was what helped me realize that.

Again, I mean, the benefit of all of this is looking back in hindsight, I'm not sure I could have articulated it at the time as well as I have here, but definitely just something internally was off and I was aware of that at the time.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because I think one of the things that I've observed is the more that people have stuff outside of the lawyer bubble as I call it, that they're like tethered to whether it's hobbies or just friend groups that are not lawyers, the less likely they are to just be able to disappear into the “I am a lawyer and that is all that I am.” But I think the process, the conveyor belt, as you talked about for many people strips away a lot of those things.

Okay, so you're clerking for the bankruptcy judge, the plan is to ultimately try to parlay that into some sort of associate position. But it sounds like you already had this sense of “Maybe that's not going to be a great fit.” Can you talk a little bit about what your thinking was, how you ended up at the firm, and what your experience there was?

Dan Branagan: Yeah, absolutely. Again, at that point, I don't know that I was fully out on private practice wholesale. I think a lot of it was like, “Okay, well, maybe I'm just not a big East Coast, DC, or New York lawyer.” I'm from Western Pennsylvania area originally. My then fiance, now spouse, is also from this area. So I was like, “Okay, well, we have family back there, maybe let's go to a place that's a little more low key, a little more laid back. Then maybe that's the move and maybe that'll strike the right balance that I'm looking for.”

I finished the clerkship, moved back, lived with my now mother-in-law for a few months while I was still hunting for work because, shocker, very hard to job hunt and network when you're 300 miles away from the place where you're trying to work. I got fortunate enough after six months of hunting to get connected with a partner at a firm that, at that point, like I said, had a prominent, regional midsize firm who was doing bankruptcy and they had lost an associate within the last year and kind of needed someone to help take some of the volume.

Again, I mean, the folks I met with in the interview process and particularly the folks in the bankruptcy group all seemed pretty down-to-earth and approachable. The paycheck was nice so I went for it. It was good at first. Again, I think you've talked about it with others on the pod, but I was like, “Okay, this is a me issue. I just need to change my perspective and my work style to kind of just make this work. But it's fine. I can do that.”

But yeah, as time went on, I felt like I just wasn't connecting well with the other junior associates. Part of that is I'm just not a social person and even less so a networking person.

Sarah Cottrell: Relatable. Very relatable.

Dan Branagan: Yeah. The bankruptcy group was small, it was me and three partners. That didn't help to get me exposure to other people in my same experience cohort. I took that job in March of 2019 so I had a whole year before the COVID lockdown happened and then became even more isolated, working remotely in 2020 and beyond. I think a big thing for me too was just the absolute horror show that is working on the billable hour model.

Sarah Cottrell: Yes. It's the worst.

Dan Branagan: No one really taught me how to approach it, how to make sure you're tracking your time correctly, what counts as okay, if I'm sitting there thinking, “Okay, if my thoughts wander, can I still bill?” I was very out in the cold and jumping out a little bit. It turns out I got diagnosed with ADHD.

Sarah Cottrell: I was going to say is this going towards I got diagnosed with ADHD because the signs are there. It's very common on this podcast.

Dan Branagan: Absolutely. Yeah, I listened to the episodes you did with Annie Little about ADHD in the legal profession. I was like, "Oh, oh, this is me."

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, billing in particular is something that is just very difficult for people with all sorts of neurodiverse brains, but especially ADHD. Like everything you're describing, I think there are so many people who will relate to that.

Dan Branagan: Yeah. Beyond that too, I feel like with ADHD and executive dysfunction, it's hard to get started on tasks if they aren't interesting, which leads to procrastination and then you hyper-focus in the 11th hour because you get the dopamine and the adrenaline to get you over the hump.

The problem with that being, on top of that ADHD procrastination, there's also I think every lawyer ever always leaves things to the last minute, whether it's because they're busy and they literally can't get to it earlier or not. I mean, beyond that as well, you have clients who sit on things for two weeks and then send you an email and ask why you didn't have the answer for them yesterday.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. Manufactured emergencies.

Dan Branagan: Oh yes, the best. I think just all those layers of emergency stress just really added up. I think after the first two years as an associate, I think it occurred to me that okay, this isn't the long-term plan. I'm not going to be a partner and that's okay. But again, vague ideas of “I'll just go and house somewhere or I'll do something else.” Then I guess skipping ahead to the next milestone, in the spring of 2022, I had a really just awful client, awful matter get foisted on me.

It was an out-of-state bankruptcy case that was brought in originally for like a litigator in a different place that then, after a bankruptcy was filed, kicked it to us and the most senior partner in our group was on the verge of retirement or stepping back into a contract role as a way to phase out to retirement and basically said, "Here you go, this is yours now."

I think that made me realize that it's just the nature of the traditional law model that you're part of a "practice group" or team. But at the end of the day, everyone is siloed, you're handling your own book of clients, you're responsible for your own billables. I was frustrated by that lack, that inefficiency of getting left out on an island. But also, I felt like I always struggled to meet my billables because I was never plugged into other groups to supplement my work. That was frustrating.

This truly awful matter just kicked up the anxiety to a level where I was having panic attacks, not eating I think during about a two-week period. I lost 15 pounds because I literally just wasn't eating and yeah, I went to my doctor and got her to sign off on an FMLA leave and got the blessing from other partners.

Actually, I should say too it got so bad that at one point I literally tendered my resignation, and then the person who was the head of the corporate umbrella group called me personally. It was like, “Hey, do you want to just take leave instead? We value you,” etc.

That was the alternative, but it was at that point that I was like, "Okay, I need to make a plan to get out of this and do something," and as many other prior guests have done, went to Google and searched "alternative careers for lawyers" and thankfully, came across the Collab and I downloaded the, I can't remember. I don't know if you're still calling it the same thing but the first steps hit and read through that and you actually reached out personally and were like, “Hey, how's it going? I think that sold me on the Collab and the process because I perceived that this wasn't just an empty thing, there was a personal touch.

Sarah Cottrell: It’s not just cash grab.

Dan Branagan: Yeah. Yeah.

Sarah Cottrell: Yes. I know I've said this in the podcast before, but people are always incredibly surprised when I actually respond to them. They're like, “Oh, my gosh, you're a real person. It's not a robot.” It's interesting because a little bit earlier, you talked about how when you first started at the firm, you had this sense of, “This doesn't feel like a great fit, but I just need to fix the way I work, and then everything will be fine.”

I think that's such a common experience for so many lawyers when they start out, when it's not a great fit, there's a sense of, “Oh, this feels terrible, but maybe somehow, I can make it not feel terrible by essentially being a different person.”

I think again for a lot of us, eventually, we're like, “Oh.” Your stories shows that for many of us, ultimately, there's the realization of like, “Oh, yeah. I just don't like this. This is just not the right fit.” Also, I just wanted to briefly amplify, you talked about taking mental health leave, I think it is so common for people in the Collab to either have taken mental health leave or just lawyers who I've worked with in general, or decide to take it or be thinking about it for all of the reasons that you talked about because these environments are so difficult.

It can be so problematic for our nervous systems. It's interesting because I think often someone will ask a question in Circle, which is the platform that the Collab is hosted on about taking mental health leave. You often get the sense that people feel like it's rare or they're the only ones who might need such a thing.

I just want to say for people who are listening, there are literally hundreds of lawyers in the Collab at this point and a high percentage of people have taken leave because these environments are not a joke. I think, Dan, your experience shows that.

Dan Branagan: Yeah, I would highly recommend it because it's so hard to just have time to breathe and think sometimes. That's what you really, at least what I needed to understand, get a better grasp of who I am, how I work best, and what I value.

I feel like a lot of law firms talk about balance and they're like, "Oh, yeah, take vacations, rest and recharge." I'm like, "Okay, yeah, well, a week on a beach isn't all that great, especially when I'm still getting emails every hour.

Sarah Cottrell: Oh, how relaxing. Typing emails on my phone and sending them on the computer.

Dan Branagan: Right, right. The other thing I want to say is, I want to be clear that the people I worked with were actually really great. I had no negative things to say about the people at the firm I worked for. They were very supportive and very pleasant day to day, but I just think it's a confirmation that there are just inherent forces, behaviors, and structures in the traditional law model.

A lot of people, even with the best intentions just accept it as this is how it's been, that's how it's always going to be. I just couldn't see myself doing that for three, four decades more and then being anything close to happy.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. Well, I'm sure there are many people listening who can relate because it’s relatable. Okay. You Google alternative careers for lawyers, and you find Former Lawyer. One of the things that people often find me for or they're looking for some sense of like, “How do I figure out what it is that I want to do that is not practicing law because I basically have no idea what that would be,” so I'm wondering for you, how are you going into that process? Then can you talk a little bit about the role that the Collab and the framework played?

Dan Branagan: Yeah, I think prior to going through the formal steps you've laid out in the framework and the Collab, it was just searching job boards and essentially doom-scrolling to try to find things that said legal or compliance or anything like that and getting nowhere because no one just posts attorney jobs on job boards for the most part.

Again, going back to what I said earlier, I didn't really understand what people did when they just went and worked for a company. I was like, “Okay, there's lawyer, that's a clear profession. Doctor, that's a clear profession.” Then there's just this amorphous blob of business folks.

Sarah Cottrell: Not that. Something else?

Dan Branagan: Right, right. Yeah. Then I think the great thing about the Collab is that it's stuff that looking back seems like it should be common sense, but it's hard to structure it and go about it methodically without a framework in place. As I went through the process, it was essentially like, “Okay, we're at step zero. Let's figure out what I liked about my job practicing, what I didn't like, what I valued both professionally and personally, why I ended up here and how I can try to not fall into that trap again.”

I think just inventorying my own self was the key. Then I felt like I got to just understand myself and my thought processes better and could actually make an evaluation of whether I thought a job or a career would be a good fit.

For me, I had looked at, like I said at the beginning, I'm currently a data analyst, and I had found that realm, was aware of it previously, but going through the framework process made me realize that I like the research, analytical work, problem-solving, strategic thinking, all of that, and to do things that are more collaborative and prospective, trying to think about the future, avoid problems in the first place, as opposed to being an attorney when you're brought in, after things have already gone sideways, and you need to fix it before, utter disaster or whatever.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. Like, “Oh, this is messed up now. Can you try to minimize the damage basically?” Okay, so can you talk a little bit more about how you actually move towards doing a role like that? I know we've had someone on the podcast before who moved in a similar direction. Your background is in liberal arts.

I think a lot of people who have liberal arts background hear data analysts and they're like, “Nope, there's no way I could ever do that.” Can you talk a little bit about that and what that looked like practically and how you moved towards those types of roles?

Dan Branagan: Yeah, sure. For me on an abstract level, I analogized data analysis to legal analysis. If you think of the holding of cases X, Y, and Z as the data points, you're taking them and you're making up a rule statement if you're in practice.

It's a similar mental process to look at numbers and try to spot trends based on numbers. That was my overarching view. Then in terms of how I actually made that transition, I spoke to folks in the field, including Greg Jacobs, who I believe you're referring to who was on the pod two years ago or whatever.

Just had to understand, “Okay, I have these skills generally doing analysis, finding patterns, drawing conclusions, presenting and reporting things. Those skills match up. Then, I just needed a little bit of a base level of technical skills.” In this instance, it's just knowing how to work with formulas in Excel, having some competency with SQL or Structured Query Language, which is a language that's used to pull data from large databases in a way that you can actually view it and manipulate it.

I took a structured course by Google on data analytics basics and got a certification from that. Then I did some more programs to work on just the coding aspects of it through a site called DataCamp, which again, to anyone looking to go this route, would highly recommend that.

Yeah, with that base level of experience, started throwing out job applications, and trying to do a little bit of networking. Unfortunately, I ended up seeing a data-related posting for another, in this case, Biglaw firm in the city of Pittsburgh where I'm living.

I was like, “Okay, well, I have the legal background. I understand the business. If I have this base competency in the technical side, maybe this is a really good fit.” So I submitted an application. I emailed the one partner who I'd met during the course of my time practicing, it was like "Hey, can you just see if this gets to the right place?"

Did an initial round of interviews earlier this year. I was not offered that position because they thought I did not have enough technical experience to get it. But then about a month later, saw another posting, sent that in, and sat in the void for a while.

Then it turns out they had brought on another woman who was actually another former lawyer, but who had done some work with a legal ops startup sort of project for a few years, and they were bringing her on to head up this analytics client intelligence function.

She reached out about interviewing for this second position. That interview is harrowing because we basically walked through a data dashboard that I had put together as a technical competency test and she ripped it apart and questioned all my things and made me think that I was a complete fool.

But at the end of it, the legal practice kind of experienced paid off because it was essentially answering questions in a courtroom or doing some kind of examination. Despite the flaws in the technical aspects of what I had done, I think just my attitude and approach impressed and ultimately led to me getting offered this position that I'm in now.

Sarah Cottrell: Nice. I was just going to ask for people who are curious, you talked about taking some classes. So what kind of timeline? Is it a weekend class, or a multi-month class, how did that work?

Dan Branagan: I started taking the first Google course in May of 2022. This was during the medical leave I was taking, which, again, fortunate enough to be able to, actually have that time to focus on something else and develop an exit strategy. That took about six months working inconsistently, because again, I did go back to working after eight weeks or something.

Obviously, the capacity to do that kind of work tailed off. That was about six months, then I think I took another maybe two or three months to complete a second formal track on a DataCamp. Then from there, it was just ad hoc trying to do practice, do example projects to build a portfolio so that I could, again, have something to point to when I was applying or interviewing to say, “Look, here's proof that I know what I'm talking about. I'm not just a guy with a slip of paper who is asking for a job.”

Sarah Cottrell: Okay, so I'm wondering, you've touched on this several times, your experience in the Collab and working through the framework, for you, is there a particular thing that stands out in terms of what was helpful for you in being part of the Collab?

Dan Branagan: I think probably the number one thing for me was just seeing that I wasn't alone and getting the validation that like, “Okay, no, it isn't just a me problem. There are other people who are feeling this way. This isn't weird. I'm not lesser because I'm feeling this way and feeling like I don't want to continue down this route.”

I think that was the biggest thing, just getting me in the right mental space to embrace the idea of making a change. Then beyond that, all of the CliftonStrengths and the Enneagram and those kind of evaluations really helped me to just better understand my work style and realize that I am, at my core, a people pleaser. Again, becomes very toxic in the law firm environment where if you offer yourself up, people will take it and they will ring you out.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. What is your Enneagram type?

Dan Branagan: Oh my gosh, it's been a while since I looked, but I think it was three, six.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. On brand. Okay. I have one more question, which is, a lot of people when they're thinking about joining the Collab, have this fear of like, “But what if I'm the one person who this process doesn't work for? What if I'm like the one person who's just destined to be a lawyer forever?” If you could talk to those people who are thinking about the Collab, what would you say to them?

Dan Branagan: You can seem like you're destined to do something but is that real or is that just because you're on the conveyor belt and you have blinders on and you just don't know what else is out there? Because, again, for me, like I said, I had no idea what the internal workings of a non-law business would be like.

Yeah, you're not destined to do anything and it is possible to change if you're willing to put in the time and do the work. I think the Collab is a really valuable tool for doing that, so don't let the unknown or the fear of the unknown paralyze you into not at least doing some exploration.

Sarah Cottrell: I love that. Okay, so if people are interested in connecting with you, where can they find you on the internet?

Dan Branagan: Yeah, probably just on LinkedIn, Daniel Branagan or I think I shortened it just down to Dan. Again, it's part of my attempt to be less formal now that I'm not practicing.

Sarah Cottrell: I like it. We'll link that in the show notes and the blog post and whatnot. Okay, well, Dan, I really, really appreciate you joining me today and sharing your story. There are just so many things that I think will resonate with people. It's just always super exciting to hear more from someone who's gone through the process in the Collab. Thank you very much.

Dan Branagan: Oh, you're welcome, Sarah. It's been a pleasure and I hope it helps someone, at least one person.

Sarah Cottrell: Are you sick of just thinking about it and ready to take action towards leaving the law? Join us in the Former Lawyer Collab. The Collab is my entry-level program for lawyers who are wanting to make a change and leave the law for another career. You can join us at formerlawyer.com/collab. Until next time, have a great week.