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 want to revisit something that comes up on the podcast a lot because it's something that pretty much every lawyer encounters when they're thinking about leaving the law to do something else, and that is the sunk cost fallacy. As I'm sure you know, the sunk cost fallacy is basically the reality that when we consider making a change or doing something different, we tend to overly weigh things that we have already invested in that thing that we might be walking away from than the costs that might exist if we continue.

Practically speaking, what that means with lawyers is thinking, “I spent all this money, I have all these student loans, or had all these student loans to go to law school, I spent all this time. I spent three years in law school. I've practiced for whether it's a couple years, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 years.” There is this sense of “I have invested a lot of myself, a lot of my life, a lot of my time, a lot of money into becoming a lawyer. Now I'm thinking about walking away,” and often there's this visceral sense of “That would just make it all a waste.”

It's a very human instinct. I think the challenge of the sunk cost fallacy, because of course it is a fallacy, is that it is rooted in something real. The thing that it's rooted in is this sense of “I want to be thoughtful about making a change when I have invested a lot of time and money into something.” That's a good impulse.

The problem is that for many lawyers, that good impulse quickly tips over into the sunk cost fallacy controlling their decision or not even controlling the decision, often it's that lawyers don't even let themselves really think about “Do I want to continue doing this?” Because the sunk cost fallacy sweeps in and it just cuts off any consideration.

One, I think if you're someone who's thinking about leaving and you find yourself concerned or worried that if you leave the law to do something else professionally, then that means that all the time you spent going to law school and practicing and all of the money that you invested would be a waste, I think the first thing to remember is that in general, people who are making this decision, you aren't someone who's just, if you are thinking about that, you are not someone who's just "Don't care, throw it in the trash, move on."

If you find the sunk cost fallacy really having a strong influence on your thought process about potentially leaving law, by definition, you are not just tossing something away without being thoughtful about it. But I think the other thing that's so important, and it's come up in a lot of episodes with guests, and it's something that I want to highlight. In fact, I did a sunk cost episode several years ago now, and this is one of the things that I talked about on that episode as well, which is, it is so easy as lawyers for us to look at the things that we have already invested and to forget that staying also has a cost.

As you look forward, whether you're going to practice law for another two years, five years, 10 years, however long, there is a cost to staying. We often are very focused on the things that we are giving up when we leave or the costs that we've already invested that might be “wasted,” but we don't think often about the costs to stay, the costs that we are incurring daily as we're working in an environment that is not a good or healthy environment for us because many people who think about leaving law, part of the reason they're thinking about leaving is it's very bad for their mental health. There are some real costs associated with that emotionally, physically, relationally, etc.

I think Part of why lawyers in particular struggle so much to give the ongoing costs that they will incur if they stay the proper weight is that a lot of those costs are borne by them internally, again, related to mental health or even physical health or just in terms of life enjoyment.

For many lawyers, it is difficult for them to value their own mental wellness, happiness, and overall well-being, and to consider it as important as other factors. In many cases, in fact, lawyers treat all of the things about their own well-being as almost costless, there's almost a sense of, “Well, if I just toughened up, then I wouldn't feel these negative effects. I'm not going to consider the cost to myself if I continue because if I tried hard enough, I wouldn't incur those costs.”

That is, I think, an even more damaging fallacy than just the pure sunk-cost fallacy. That is why, as with so many episodes, that is one of the many reasons why I strongly suggest therapy for all lawyers, also, I think it's really important to listen to those around you who care about you, especially if they are concerned for your well-being.

Sometimes we can't muster the appropriate concern for our well-being, but we can borrow that concern and that sense from the people who care about us. If you're finding yourself in a position where you're trying to think about the costs if you leave, the costs if you stay, and you don't think of the cost to yourself and your well-being as a significant and valid weight on the scale, the decision-making scale, then that is definitely a sign to you that something is off. Something is off in your perception.

Because the reality is that for many, many people if they are able to actually wait, not just the things that they've invested, the sunk costs, but also the things that continuing in a role or in the profession will cost them, all of a sudden, it doesn't look so lopsided.

I think for many lawyers, the sunk cost fallacy creates this very lopsided sense of, “If I leave, I'll be losing all these things, and if I stay, basically it's costless,” But it's not costless. It's not costless, and in fact, for many, many people, staying is extremely costly, and in a lot of cases, staying is actually more costly than leaving. Also, there's the reality that a lot of the strength of a sunk cost fallacy lies in the idea that if you leave the law, then every piece of your previous training and experience is completely worthless.

If you've listened to the podcast for any period of time and the many interviews with many people who have left there, you know there are lots of things that you take with you into another profession from your experience as a lawyer. The other thing that I think is really important to remember if you are a lawyer who's thinking about leaving but really struggling with a sunk cost fallacy is that there is almost no circumstance in which you leave the law to do something else and everything about your legal experience, profession, law school, whatever is just completely useless to you, the end.

That is not the reality for pretty much anyone; anyone who I've worked with, anyone who's been on the podcast, the people who I know who are just friends who are also former lawyers. The sunk cost fallacy is something that really tends to become a very sticky point for many lawyers thinking about leaving and I think there are a lot of reasons to give the sunk-cost fallacy the side-eye as a lawyer who's thinking about doing something else and to know that sunk costs are not by themselves a compelling reason to not consider doing something else.

Boo sunk-cost fallacy. Okay, that is what I have to talk about this week because I know this comes up for so many of you. Thanks so much for listening and I hope you have a great 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.