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.

Hi, Amisha, welcome to the Former Lawyer Podcast.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Hi, Sarah, thank you.

Sarah Cottrell: I am so glad to have you here. Let's start with introducing yourself.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Absolutely. My name is Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez. I'm working as a staff member for a member of the Congress. I am still licensed as an attorney, but I do not practice. I'm a mom of soon-to-be two kids and I am married to my wonderful partner Lucas.

Sarah Cottrell: Immediately in my brain, Amisha, I was like, "Oh, we can talk about this. We can talk about this. We can do this." For people who are listening, you probably have seen it if you looked at your podcast app, but I know Amisha threw the Collab and we'll talk about that more. But before we get to that, I think probably the best place to start is where we normally do, which is do you want to talk a little bit about what made you decide to go to law school in the first place?

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Yes. Part of what I did, because I also went through the Collab process, was I actually looked at my notes. There is a part early on in one of the early steps where you ask us to reflect on like, “Why did you want to be a lawyer in the first place?” It was interesting to go over that question for myself and I think there were a lot of different ideas that I had as a kid.

I'm not from a family of lawyers. The ideas that I got about being an attorney or going to law school, really, I just got from people that I met along the way. When I was in high school, I did a mock trial club. That was a really wonderful experience. There was an attorney who ran the program and I got to meet a lot of other attorneys through that.

I think that was where the first seeds were planted for me about thinking about going to law school. But I wasn't set on it even after that mock trial experience. It wasn't even like, “Oh, for sure, I'm going to do this now afterwards.” But that was my first introduction, if you will, to what potentially a career in a legal field would be like.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, it's interesting. It is a very common experience. There are a lot of us who end up going to law school who didn't grow up around lawyers and our ideas of what it was going to be like to be a lawyer were based on the experiences that we saw in passing.

I know some people have talked about Law & Order on TV. Can you talk to me a little bit about what your experience was once you were in law school, and how that came about? Then once you were there, were you like, “This is a great life choice. I feel super positively about it,” or were you like, “I've made a terrible mistake”?

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Yeah, totally. I think the process of deciding a law school program, like I mentioned after mock trial, was not set on it, even though I had a really great experience with it. I went into undergrad, even undeclared, I was very much like, “Oh, maybe I could be a scientist. Maybe I could be a doctor.”

I really was such a little free spirit as an undergrad. I tried a lot of different things, a lot of different internships. I think higher education was a big value that was modeled to me from my parents. They were both first generation to go to college and to pursue graduate education.

I always knew that I also wanted to do a graduate program. At the time, after I graduated from undergrad, I was able to pick up work with a local state assembly member. That was a bunch of different influences at that time, some of which I'd studied abroad, so I had got all this exposure to political activism through studying in Santiago, Chile.

That was a really cool experience. It's 2008, so totally aging myself here. Obama was the first president. I was 18, he was going to be the first president that I could have voted for. Coming out of that, when I graduated in 2012, my mindset was very like, “I want to be politically active.” Still hadn't made set plans about not doing law school, but it was really this open field for me.

I think through that, the job that I got with the state assembly member here in California, it really exposed me to a lot of different areas. I was in contact actually with a lot of attorneys at that time. Fun fact, a lot of attorneys are going to politics.

It felt at that time like I'm getting all this encouragement to do it. It felt just like, “Oh, this is the right thing.” I think there were also these ideas of like, “Wow, this is so exciting.” It felt like there were all these opportunities around in that direction. Then, of course, you know there is always a warning sign and there is always the rude introduction into LSAT prepping and getting these hints of like, “Oh, I have to go into a cave for a while to be prepped for this.”

Like, “Okay. Maybe that’s just this blip,” or I have this attorney who was very adamant. He said, “You are a nice person. You shouldn’t go into law practice.” I thought, “What does he know? He doesn’t know anything.” There were these signs even then prior to me getting into law school.

Sarah Cottrell: It's interesting because I think so many of us for a very long time tell ourselves, “Oh, this experience that I'm having must be the exception or I must be making it difficult somehow.” That comes up a lot, especially once people are practicing law, there is often this sense of, “This doesn't really feel like a fit or it feels actively bad. It's isolating me from people in my life.”

But I think for many lawyers, we tend to cultivate this sense of like, “Oh, but this is an exception. This is a blip. This is maybe my fault” kind of thing. It takes a while to get to the point where it's like, “Oh, wait, maybe this is just not for me.”

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Yeah, definitely. I would just say also, to your question of like, “Oh, after you did it, did you think this was a big mistake?” I think after the first year I was very much like, “What did I just do to myself?” It hit me like a train. I did not fully enjoy it. I cried a lot. It was very, very intense. An intensity that I had never experienced before.

I was listening to other podcasts of other people, “No, I really enjoyed law school. That was unfortunately not me.” There were aspects that I enjoyed, but I felt personally like I got hit by a bus after the next year.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. Okay. You were like, “This was not great. Did not love it,” but you continued. Talk to me a little bit about the decision-making there and what direction you hoped you were going.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Yeah. I think part of the influence of me sticking to it once I found out that I passed all my classes, some of it was really reflecting. Especially my mom's side of the family, my mom's first generation. She was born in Mexico. My grandma came to the United States when she was a teenager to work in the fields.

Just really overcame a lot of barriers to get where they were at, to be homeowners, to attain any educational achievement. I also didn't take for granted the opportunity to even be able to pursue as a young woman higher education. I think I felt a little bit of this responsibility to stick with it.

[inaudible] I am a woman. I am a Latina. I have this opportunity. This is really, really hard. If my grandma could come to this country with a sixth-grade education and make it here, I can too. It was almost convincing myself, this is bigger than myself and this is why I really need to buckle down.

That was really my North Star compass when I was really hitting the wall at different points because it wasn't even just after first year. I think in my third year, my grandpa, so my grandma's partner, passed away. Then there was a whole series of huge family events that happened after that.

My grandma ended up in the hospital, my mom, and my uncle. It was just this cascade of events. I remember even having to take back classes at that time and thinking like, “Oh, my god, a death.” If there's any major life event while you're trying to pursue this education, it can totally derail you. Even in those moments, my North Star compass was like, “No, I need to just finish. Even if I don't practice, I have to just get through this experience.”

Sarah Cottrell: It sounds like at that point you already had a sense of like, “Maybe I am not going to use this degree to practice law necessarily.” Can you tell me what happened next in terms of graduating and how you decided where you wanted to go?

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Yeah. Definitely, the plan was always to practice. I think that was always my underlying goal. I think I had experienced a level of self-doubt that I had never, ever experienced, ever. All my years of education, I've always been a student that's excelled. I was always in the top of my class. It was easy.

I could wake up if there was some kind of assignment due the morning of get an A. I went to a UC for undergrad, so to me it was a very rude awakening to not have that ease in law school. I think maybe even some of that rationale like, “Oh maybe I won't practice,” was a little bit of this seed of self-doubt already having been planted of like, “I'm not really excelling in the way I thought I was going to be excelling in this environment.”

It was almost like a way to help me process. The whole point of this degree was to have options and to be able to do things in my career. This doesn't have to be just what I had in my mind of litigating and practicing in that way. But I think if I was being real with myself, that was always my goal. It was absolutely always my goal.

I had fortunately really great law school mentors and I went to Santa Clara University. I can't speak highly enough about the professors there. They really provided me support, and when I wanted to do internships, guiding me in that direction, whenever I needed connections with an idea for a job opportunity, they were always willing to help. I was very fortunate in that way.

I was able to get an internship with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and undergrad it. I minored as global studies. I guess I majored in global studies and minored in Latin American studies. It felt very much like I got to practice in an area that I felt very passionate about. While I didn't ultimately think that I wanted to practice abroad, I think that the value of working for the Spanish-speaking population was always there for me.

There were a lot of different areas I could go in, but I knew I wanted to do something in public interest law. All of my mentors and people I really looked up to pursued careers in public interest. I knew it was going to fall and something in that category. I did an experiential clinic also in law school with the nonprofit. It's called the Katharine & George Alexander Clinic. It's affiliated with Santa Clara.

They had an attorney who did consumer rights. They had another one who did labor and another attorney who was in charge of their immigration practice. I got to dabble actually in all three of those areas, which was really, really cool. Just gave me a little bit more exposure to what working in the public sector, non-profit specifically would be like.

I think I was hoping that that's where I would land after graduation. I was able to do that. I ultimately, after taking the bar three times—yay, third time's a charm—I was able to land with a legal aid after that.

Sarah Cottrell: Okay, tell me what that legal aid experience was like.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Yeah. I really am just so grateful that even how I got in contact with this particular legal aid was through a mentor of mine, Carmen Ramirez, so I would be remiss if I didn't just share a hot second about this woman who was ultimately County Board of Supervisor in our county.

Unfortunately, in the last two years, she was hit when she was crossing a crosswalk and she passed away. It was a big thing for a community and she was an attorney who had worked the majority of her career with a non-profit, a legal aid. I met her early on before law school, but when I worked for the state assembly member, so I would be remiss if I didn't say a couple of things about her just because she had a big influence and wrote a letter of rec for me for law school.

Just her as a person was in my mind a model of the career I was trying to more emulate and what I was looking up to. When I was retaking the bar, she was someone who I reached out to just commiserate with what I was going through. She was always so lovely. She had lunch with me.

It just so happened that while we're having lunch, two attorneys who walked by, she was like, “Oh, hey, do you know these two attorneys?” She introduced me to them. They happened to be two attorneys who worked for the legal aid clinic that I eventually applied for and got a position with.

Even prior to me being licensed, I was still in the process of retaking the bar and waiting for results. But I was able to get connected through that, which was really wonderful. I was really grateful for that. Pretty shortly after I applied for that position, I got it and they categorized me as a law graduate. Not as a licensed attorney since I was still waiting for results.

I got to work in our migrant unit, which was primarily with farm workers. It was primarily around labor and employee rights. I felt in the midst of my angst and anxiety and all of the intensity of waiting for bar results, I was just very grateful to have any job opportunity. I was able to work for this office for about nine months. I would say it was a great learning experience. It was also intense.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah. I was going to say the number one word people tend to have for their legal aid experience is intense.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Mm-hmm. It was intense. I really loved all the people. I think that everyone really was doing great work. Even when I interviewed, I remember asking how long have you been with this organization? One of them had been there 15 years, another person who was 10 years or something like that so it was people who had really been with the organization for a long time so to me those are good signs even going into it. And as I quickly learned, it was a steep learning curve for that area.

I think by the time I got my bar results by the end of that year, I had another surprise so it was like, “Okay, I'm trying to learn this new job, everyone’s nice but we’re working at least 50-60 hours.” That’s the “balanced” job. I’m just noticing that. Then I find out I’m pregnant.

Sarah Cottrell: Just add that to the next.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Yeah, yeah, and it was just one of those life-changing moments that you're like, "Oh, wow, okay, so this is happening now, too." So yeah, what to say about…

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, that's a lot of things converging at one time.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Yeah.

Sarah Cottrell: Tell me what happened next.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Absolutely. Then my then boyfriend, now husband at that time, we find out we're pregnant, and I do not have my bar results yet so I am having to assess the trajectory again of where I'm going with this career. I think seeing that there was an opportunity to practice in an administrative law area of law that didn’t require license was comforting because it was kind of like, “Okay, you’re going to be able to use your legal skills, these ways to use your license,” and I think there was a part of me of like, “No, I really want to get my license and I want to be barred in and I've spent all this time and I've committed and sacrificed and gone through all these ups and downs and this crazy journey, I want to do it.” I remember committing to retaking the bar even in the event that I found out I didn't pass. Luckily I passed, so thank God.

Sarah Cottrell: Yes, seriously.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: I dodged that bullet, which is, oh. But in another way, as I reflect back, I was seeing a therapist at that time, and--

Sarah Cottrell: We love therapy.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: You know what, Sarah, thank you always for giving a shout-out for therapy, because I don't know if people think you're joking, but you're definitely not joking, and it's definitely not a joke, therapy is very real and very necessary. I am so grateful for my therapist and this particular therapist, I voiced for, I think, out loud the first time I was more seriously considering, “Hey, I do want to explore potentially what it would look like if I didn't practice law.”

That was all happening while, and now I can have compassion for myself, at that time, it's like, “Okay, Misha, this was your first job that you get practicing labor law outside of law school, it was going to be intense regardless. I think just it being the first job on top of which you're waiting for bar results, on top of which you have this huge other life event of finding out you're pregnant.”

It was just a lot happening so I can see why my brain, if already it had been toying with the idea of not practicing, especially at that time I was like, “Uh, yeah, no, this is overload for me.” I think that having a kid can sometimes make you prioritize work decisions over your own comfort. I just wonder, had I not gotten pregnant at that time, if I would have more seriously explored, the hindsight is always 20/20, but it's like, yeah, had I not passed that time, had I not been pregnant, would I have more seriously explored a non-legal path right after that? Maybe, maybe not.

But that didn't happen. I did pass the bar, I did find out I was pregnant, and then I felt like, “Okay, I need to find maybe another opportunity in law that works for me and my family.” That was my thought process at that time, right or wrong, but that's where I was at.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, which I think it's interesting, there are these big life events that happen, sometimes it's like a health thing, sometimes it's having kids, sometimes it's something with family, whatever it is. Often people will tell me that and it makes sense is a point at which they either pivoted or made some sort of decision to not pivot because there are so many moving pieces.

Can you talk to me about what you did next and where you were headed at that point?

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: I got an opportunity through again, another attorney that I had worked with. I had done an internship earlier in undergrad with a local attorney and she worked for a state agency, the Agricultural Labor Relations Board, and similar work to what the nonprofit I was doing work in, just a little bit of a different angle, I think more on the labor side than more employee right side, but still working with farm workers and its benefits and so this opportunity came up with an attorney that I really respected and I thought, "Okay, great. This might be more of the ‘work-life balance’ that I might need for this big family change that's going to be happening."

As much as it pained me to leave the nonprofit, I think I was a little bit operating like, "Hey, I need to really think about an opportunity to work in the legal field that at least on paper seemed like it should be more balanced. I took this position pretty soon after I got my bar results. Actually, I didn't. I chose to share with them that I was pregnant because I was nervous about it and I thought, “Okay, yeah, technically they can't discriminate against me but regardless, if this is going to be a problem, I don't want to work here.”

I just don't even want to deal with it so I'm just going to let him know, “Hey, this is a thing. If I'm going to be joining your team--” I knew the attorney who was letting me know about the opportunity, she was a mom of two. I had a really great rapport with her. I knew of other moms potentially who worked for that agency so I thought, “Well, maybe.”

So I had a really good interview and they were very receptive and very warm and were like, “Yes, you can make it happen with a family,” all of us basically, or the majority of us have kids and this is a good place if you're looking for more of-- they never use the word balance, but just raising your family and being able to practice, if that makes sense.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, yeah. Okay, so tell me what happened next.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: I had about five months working there and it seemed, at least initially, very much what they promised. I was working a little bit over the 40-hour workweek, but it did seem like there was a lot of collaboration. The team seemed pretty cohesive. I went onto a team with a lot of experience, and so that was very helpful for me, being the youngest attorney brought on that team.

I have to say those first five months before I took my maternity leave, I felt like, “Oh, this might be it.” I'm able to work with an attorney. It was making me feel like, “Okay, maybe these other experiences of intensity and all that, it was just that I've now found something that can work for me and maybe I can grow here.” That was my mindset for those first five months.

Then I take my leave and the abbreviated version is just that being a first-time parent for me was very intense. I use the word intense a lot but let me actually use a different descriptor. This was more than just intense. This was like, “Oh, I have never understood what hard work is.”

Sarah Cottrell: I was going to say super freaking hard is what I would say about that first year especially.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Yeah.

Sarah Cottrell: A sensory nightmare if you are sensory sensitive as many people who are lawyers are, and to be clear, I love my kids but that first year in particular, I tell people for me with both of them, that first year was like survive, that was my goal.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I mean I thought I had a thinking, “Oh, I'm going to get six months off. That should be more than plenty.” Then six months is getting closer,” then I asked for another extension. They're like, “Okay, yeah, you get another month,” which I still was like, “Oh, my gosh,” because yeah, oh my gosh, six months felt like a drop in the bucket in comparison to all the things.

I really struggled with postpartum, honestly for years after that. We're talking about 2020 now. If I could just also put that in context, I could leave June of 2020. My life really blew up as so many did. Life blew up there, but we muddled along, we were surviving through postpartum and all the things. I thought, “Well, maybe part of it is wanting to get back into a ‘normal routine.’”

Maybe it's something-- I'm even catching myself, “Maybe there's something else,” and explain why I am feeling so intense about all these things, and I definitely had a great therapist during this time, but just lots of tears again. It harkened back to my first year of law school where it was just like, “Wow, this is the hardest thing I've ever done.” Breastfeeding, it was a rude awakening, all of the things, the lack of sleep.

My daughter was colicky, and so that was just brutal, breastfeeding and the sleep, it was just, whoa. Seven months, I took off, I came back, and my first day back at work, I was assigned a case that we needed to prepare for litigation. My understanding with the agency is we didn't litigate that often but when you do litigate, it's go time.

Unfortunately, this was a case that did not settle so we litigated it. I found out what litigating as a new attorney, mom of an infant, was. All I can say is that I do not recommend that experience for anybody.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, yeah, fair. I mean, everyone who listens knows my feelings about litigation in general. Can you remind me where in this timeline did you discover Former Lawyer?

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Yes, I discovered Former Lawyer about a year after this. We're talking about 2021. We're still in the middle of the pandemic. I discovered The Former Lawyer Podcast, I believe it was in July of 2022. It's still after, it's still after this.

Sarah Cottrell: Okay, so tell me what happens next. You're litigating with an infant, when postpartum is already a challenge really sucks a lot. What happened next?

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You would think at some point, I'm like, “Amisha, enough is enough.” This has been many years where I'm still beating a dead horse of like, “No, I can do it. No, I can do it.” It's like, “You're clearly falling apart. This is not working.” Really, I think some of it was, at that time, there was no childcare options. So it finally forced our family's hand of that like my husband, he is a co-executive director at a nonprofit. It was not an option for him to not go back to work.

I'm trying to power through this huge trial and coming out the end of it still learning that our agency was involved with the appellate process as well so I’m also responsible for the appeals which I found out was basically another year-long process of this huge rewrites. So I decided basically, I needed to step down. We didn't have a good plan for how we were going to get our daughter full-time care.

I was part of that workforce that had to pull back during the pandemic and just say, "Hey, I just need to be with my kid now full-time." Once she hit at least 12 to 18 months, actually even 12 months, there was no good childcare options for us. At that time, she was still under 12 months. I had this six-month gap before anything will remotely pop up for consistent childcare. I left on good terms. I wished everyone well, but my body was a wreck. I mean, we weren't sleeping, trying to get to that process was really, really intense for me. I took a whole year and some change off basically from my 2021 through 2022. Then during that time off was when I was really starting to explore like, “Okay, what’s next? Am I going to apply for other legal jobs at this point for real? Because now I’m out.”

Sarah Cottrell: Do I really want to go back? It was so fun the first time.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: I know. I decided, “No, I'm not going back. I am going to seriously explore how to transition out.” So I looked high and low for what that would mean for me. Luckily, I had this example of my husband's workplace and all the professional development that they were able to provide for their staff. There was coaching opportunities and there was all this support that I really had not seen or experienced in that way particularly and I thought, “No, that seems a really cool opportunity to be able to bounce back ideas with someone who understands this pathway.”

I really thank Google for coming across your podcast. I have the highest things to say. What I will say is that ultimately, I gravitated towards your coaching program was because of the plethora of podcasts that I could just listen to and really get a sense of what the program was about, what people were talking about, and yeah, just get a real sense of what this could be if I joined the program. So, thank you for all of these amazing podcasts because it's like a hug for my nervous system. I tell my husband every time I listen to them.

Sarah Cottrell: Oh, that makes me so happy.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Because there are just so many points that I can relate to with all the different stories, even if I haven't been on that particular journey of being a “Biglaw firm,” I can definitely attest to the culture of Biglaw firm. It's firmly entrenched in the nonprofit sector and the government sector, quite frankly, in the higher echelons of any of those agencies, more than not, you have someone who was trained in a Biglaw setting.

Ultimately, they are bringing that culture within that agency or organization. Even though I thought, "Oh, haha, I'm so smart," I'm never going to do Biglaw, I'm going to do public interest. I'm going to do the thing that there's “work-life balance” and then finding out, “Oh no, this is not what I thought it was going to be.”

I think hearing stories from so many of people who've been through your program or people you've invited on the podcast have really affirmed to me that this is a bigger trend within the industry that just really supersedes any individual person or office or organization.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, I agree with you. I mean in my situation, my background was having worked in Biglaw and so that was what I could speak to the most, but now having done the podcast for five and a half years, wild, it's clear, it is an industry-wide problem, phenomenon, whatever you want to call it, it is not just present in certain types of legal workplaces.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think that's also been something that's helped me process my experience too. I also want to thank you for that because I think you can definitely feel like it's you when you're going through it. I definitely had my moments earlier on where I thought, “Man, I just can't hack it and there's something maybe I'm not smart enough or maybe I'm not whatever,” all those false ideas or thought trains, it's logical when you're in that bubble that pop up, but I think it's been very helpful to process, “No, this is not a me thing, this is an industry thing. What can I do realistically to move myself to where I feel like I'm excelling again and my life is balanced again and I'm feeling excited again?”

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah, okay, so tell me how you got from, “Okay, I'm going to start really looking because I've stayed home with my kid because childcare, pandemic, et cetera,” which anyone who had young kids during the pandemic knows what that was like. You're thinking about doing something that isn't practicing, you found the podcast, and then where you're somewhere today, so do you want to walk everyone through how that happened?

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Yeah, absolutely. I find the podcast, I talked to my husband. God bless him, he was very supportive of me making this transition. He had been my champion from day one. In fact, it had been a sticking point early on in our dating experience that he had his feelings about the law, even prior to, and we had to work through those things.

But he's always been like, “Yay. I believe that you could get out.” I'm going through the program, and working through the steps. One of the first questions was like, “Oh, what did you think law school is going to be like?” I had all these ideas of the prestige and these options.

Some of them were about feelings I had about, “Oh, I'm worth more than this job.” This law degree can somehow help me help others in a more independent way. It's just like, “Oh, man.” Some of those ideas I had at that time, one, I didn't have enough information, but two, it was operating from a headspace where I really needed to process that through therapy. I didn't need to go to law school or get a law license for that particular issue.

Sarah Cottrell: It's so real. That is so real. I just need everyone to stop for a minute. This is part of why I talk about therapy all the time because the reasons that we have for making the career decisions that we do whether it's becoming a lawyer or anything else related to our career path, I guarantee you there are things that you are working out that go way beyond just like, “What skills do I have?”

That isn't a criticism. That isn't what's wrong with you. That's just the reality. I think that is part of why therapy is so huge because so many people are like, “Oh, I didn't feel like people would take me seriously so I did this in order to get respect or prestige.” The prestige will get you every time.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: But the prestige.

Sarah Cottrell: Good times.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: I can say that now even humorously because I think at the time it didn’t feel humorous. I seriously want people to take me more seriously. Then now it’s like a reflection of more lowered self-esteem. What were the things in my life at that time that were contributing to that?

Sarah Cottrell: It's not even like, “Oh, what an irrational decision.” Here in this capitalist, post-capitalist, late-stage capitalism, patriarchal hellscape, there are many ways in which that decision makes sense for a lot of us. The challenge of course is then when you find that it's detrimental to your own individual well-being.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Mm-hmm. Absolutely. I think for all those reasons I embarked on this path of working through the steps of the program and thinking, “Okay, what realistically makes sense for me, because I do not want to go back to school? I do not want to feel like I'm just sucking up and taking it.”

I think I can also say I'm very grateful I did have the support of my partner to make that transition. I know that's not possible in everyone's situation, and you have to slide into maybe something that's equally high-paying or whatever the case may be. In our situation, I was able to have that flexibility of taking something maybe that was a little less well-paid.

Although I guess what I can say in public interest, it's not like they're luring you in with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in the first place. Is this really a huge pay jump? I don't know, but more seriously, it was like, “How do I feel day in, day out coming to this job?”

I was just working through the steps, looking at different job opportunities, really trying to think through, “Okay, what are the things for me that probably made it extra challenging for working in this job?” One of the things I can say I identified was, as much as I loved the writing, I've always excelled in writing. I was always a good writer.

I realized that for me, I really wanted to be in a position that was more people-facing. It was more dealing with people and not as heavy on the writing. Yes, I'm good at those things. I'm an avid reader, all of those things. But I think identifying specific things where I found myself really struggling, being an extrovert person and then having a job while you're just locked behind your desk is really tough.

Whereas, I remember there was a particular attorney at the state agency that I had left that was his total happy space. When he got assigned to do appellate briefs, he was all over it. He was like, “Great. This is going to be me in my happy place and I'm just going to be riding away.”

That was not my experience with that appeals process. I think identifying that in the jobs I looked into moving forward feels even more basic. I did go a little bit more into depth, but that was a huge one. I knew that whatever I ultimately was going to land in, it needed to be bringing me closer to more interaction with people in a subset of way.

An opportunity came up with my current job. It's with a member of Congress, and it was a district representative position. It is in some ways similar to the position that I got right out of college. I remember my husband saying, “Hey, I'm seeing this job posting. I don't know if you'd be interested because I know this is something you've done in the past, but it's between a state and a federal office, it is going to be different.”

I was like, “No, I'm open to it.” I think I had to just work through, “Okay, what is that going to look like for me?” Just take a chance. I had seen enough from the working groups, from the coaching program, just the idea that the next step doesn't have to be perfect to move forward.

I think I had this real sense of like, “It's okay to just try this opportunity.” I didn't have to. I already had a part-time position actually at that time. I found another job working for an immigration law firm that was actually a good experience, but it was part-time, and that was not where I wanted to stay long-term.

I thought, “I'm going to try it.” We are now almost a year and a half in. I have not practiced essentially since, and I have loved this job. It has been such a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful change. A reminder of the great work that one can do still, in a different capacity, doesn't have to be in law, people facing, a really healthy team dynamic.

I could go on and on and on, and I mean this very, very sincerely. It's been such a difference for me, and I think part of it, I'm just grateful that I really took to heart the advice through the program of really not forcing the next step as you're moving away from law practice to have to be perfect.

Even at that time, I had temporarily taken a part-time immigration law firm job, but it's like, “Okay, this is part-time. This is not full-time.” So I'm not going back, there are little baby steps forward. It's going from that to, “Okay, now I'm going to completely transition out of law practice.” It's green over here, Sarah.

Sarah Cottrell: I love that because one of the things that comes up the most is for people, especially if they've been in law practice for a while, there's a sense of like, “Is it really better anywhere else? Maybe this is just what it is to be an adult with a job.”

I tell people I've seen people move into all sorts of things at this point and it really is different. It really can be different even though it can be hard to see that when you're in the thick of practicing.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Oh, absolutely. It's very, very different and I'm happy to connect with anyone if they want to go more in depth. But I would say even with all the changes right now with administration in terms of working for Congress, generally, there are just so many opportunities for career growth. I think that's the other thing too. Moving into this position has meant just opening up a whole different world into policy for me. It's been really great to also affirm some of my earlier interests of just being a generalist.

I went into undergrad, undeclared. There were a lot of things I liked and I get to do that again with this position. I work in a lot of different areas of policy. I get to interface a lot with constituents. It is just a very exciting time. It's also a very intense time.

I work for a Democratic member of Congress, so I'll just put that out there, but I think there's a lot of great work that can be done. At least on the district side, we're providing nonpartisan constituent services. It feels like you can really reach a lot of people regardless of whatever the politics that are going on right now.

Sarah Cottrell: Yeah fighting the good fight. Okay. I want to be mindful of our time. As we're getting to the end, there's one more question that I wanted to ask you, which I'm sure there are people listening who've thought about joining the Collab but haven't yet for various reasons, I'm wondering if there's anything that you would say to those people?

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: I have this to say. I am a millennial who does not regularly listen to podcasts. It's not my thing. Honestly, it was not until listening to Sarah's podcast that I felt any affinity to listening to a podcast. I want to say that if this is the tidbit that you're getting right now just from the podcast, for me, it has provided such an opportunity for professional growth.

It honestly has been life-changing to hear all the stories of all the professionals. These are real people. I am a real person. I have never recorded a podcast in my life. I am doing this to spread the good word. Sarah is leading us, all of us, or the rest of us in the dark.

I mean that very, very sincerely. There are a handful of attorneys that I would say have fundamentally shaped my professional growth that I admire. Sarah is in one of that handful. I mean that very sincerely in terms of just how different now my life is in terms of my different career choice and moving from legal practice to non-legal practice. I would just really encourage you to consider this coaching program if you were on that fence of the next step. It is absolutely worth it. She is not paying me to say this at all.

I have chosen voluntarily to be here and I think there are moments in your life that you can really make that change that you want to see and this could be one of those, honestly. I would just encourage you to do that, and also if you're not in therapy, I would also highly encourage therapy along with Sarah.

Sarah Cottrell: Oh, yeah, plus one. We all know if you don't have a therapist, definitely do it.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Absolutely.

Sarah Cottrell: Amisha, if people want to connect with you, where can they find you online?

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: They can find me on my LinkedIn. I'm a little bit of a secretive fish, I'll call myself. I do like my privacy, but I'm definitely open on social media. I have an Instagram. It's my first and last name, Amisha DeYoung. I have a Facebook, also Amisha DeYoung, and then in my LinkedIn, I think it's my full name, Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez. Feel free to hit me up on any of those channels, and I would love to connect with you.

Sarah Cottrell: Great, we can put your LinkedIn in the show notes so that people can find you easily.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Absolutely.

Sarah Cottrell: Amisha, thank you so much for sharing your story, and for all the kind things you said. I'm just going to sit over here and be like, “Oh, my gosh. I'm doing something with my life.” It makes me really happy. Making the decision to leave the law is really challenging on all sorts of levels, so I just really appreciate your vulnerability and sharing today. Thank you.

Amisha DeYoung-Dominguez: Absolutely. Absolutely Sarah, I am so ecstatic to be here today.

Sarah Cottrell: 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.