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.

Hello. So, this is sort of wild, but today's episode is going to be devoted to me reflecting on what it has been like to have run the Collab for five years, which is, honestly, so surreal to me.

For anyone who isn't aware, if you're new, the Collab is the program that I have for lawyers who are wanting to figure out what it is that they want to do that isn't practicing law. It's something they can join at any time. It's the most affordably priced of all of the offers that I have.

Essentially, when you join, you get access to the community on Circle, but you also get access to the framework, which is curriculum that I created based on the work that I was doing with individual lawyers and groups of lawyers to figure out what it is that they wanted to do that was not practicing law. And it's grown a ton over the years, that's probably not that surprising.

More than 350 lawyers have enrolled. The beta for The Collab closed—so the beta enrollment round closed—on April 1st of 2020, which as you might imagine, was not a particularly auspicious time to be starting a new thing in a business.

Obviously, it's something that I care a lot about, and it's something that I work very hard on. A huge reason why I created Former Lawyer, apart from wanting to create the podcast, was that I really felt compelled that lawyers who didn't want to be lawyers needed some place that they could connect with other lawyers who understood what that felt like and what that was like. Because there's so much about both the profession and the kinds of people who are drawn to the profession, and what it is like when you decide you might want to do something else, that makes it really, really difficult to feel like you're not just crazy.

The other thing is to have this sense of, "Oh, well, I just can't hack it in some way." As much as the podcast was the initial driving force behind the creation of Former Lawyer, the closest second thing was that I wanted to be able to offer something like this that gave people access to that type of community.

But also, realistically, not just community—even though it is incredibly powerful, and I know I've talked on many episodes about this—but also literally step-by-step, like, "Okay, what do I do? Because I know I don't want to do this, but I do not know where to start."

Most of the lawyers who I work with are people who would say, "I don't want to do this thing that I'm doing." And either, "I'm not sure that I want to leave law, but I think it's possible," or, "I definitely want out. But I have no idea where to start."

Just that sense of, "I don't know where to start. I don't even know what my options are. I don't know how to figure out what my options are. Where do you even begin?" That’s what I created Former Lawyer for. That's what I created the podcast for, and ultimately, that's what The Collab is all about as well.

For me, a really important value is making sure that I offer as many things as I can that are accessible in terms of price point. So yeah, that is what The Collab is and has been, and it is truly wild to me that it has been around for five years.

If you listen to the podcast at all, you know that we've had quite a number of people who were or are in The Collab. Because when you join, you are in for the life of the program, which, you know, has existed for five years. I don't have any plans to shut it down anytime soon.

All of that is to say there have been quite a number of people on the podcast at this point who are Collab members. We will put in the show notes and the blog post about this episode a list of links to those episodes if you're interested in hearing from people who have been a part of the experience.

Even today, even though The Collab has existed for five years, of course, there are people who find me through Google and have never heard of me or The Collab. And because they're lawyers, they are skeptical. There's this sense of, "Is this real? Are you real? Are these people real? Is this program real?" Which I completely understand and think is a totally reasonable question to have.

It really makes me incredibly happy now to be able to say not only is it real, but here are all of these people who are telling their stories. And yes, you are not alone. There is another way you can figure out what you want to do. You are not the one person in the world who is destined to be a lawyer forever. Everyone else has their options, but not you?

To be honest, I feel like five years went ridiculously fast. It feels like I just started The Collab and here we are.

When I reflect on everything that has happened in these past five years—which is, wow, a lot on a lot of levels—and I don't just mean Former Lawyer, I think the thing that I would hope people take away from today's episode, other than, "If you've been thinking about joining The Collab for a while, maybe now is a good time," tried and tested for five years.

But the other thing is I think one of the things I'm always talking about on this podcast and with my clients, whether in The Collab or elsewhere, other than "go to therapy, it's important, and it will help you," is the value in really coming to know yourself. And not just whoever it is that you think you should be, but the ways in which being in community with people who are willing to see you as you actually are can be so life-affirming.

When we talk about changing careers and going from law to something else, there is this element of, "Oh, just use your skills and revise the resume," etc. And yeah, those things are all part of it, right? But if you're wanting to make a move that's really a successful move, where you're really setting yourself up to be in a position where the thing you're moving to is a good match, the way to do that is to become acquainted with yourself.

Your true self. Not the self that you thought you should be when you were 18, or the person you think you should be now.

I'm really grateful that The Collab has been part of so many people's stories in moving through that process. I'm looking forward to another five years plus.

Thank you so much for listening. Again, if you've been thinking about joining The Collab, I am personally an advocate for: it's never too early to start thinking about what you might do next if you know you're going to want to do something else eventually.

You can always join us. You just go to formerlawyer.com/collab and all the info is right there. You hit the enroll button and you're in Circle with all of us, and the framework, and yeah. It's a good time in, you know, dorky lawyers-who-want-to-be-former-lawyers way.

Okay, well, this was fun. I'm going to pat myself on the back because I'm not always great at that. The Collab has hit its five-year anniversary and I'm really, really grateful that you are all here and listening.

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.