I can’t even tell you how many times I Googled “alternative careers for lawyers” while I was working in Biglaw. It was . . . a lot. I hated being a lawyer. Since you’re here, I’m guessing that’s you as well. You realize that you want to leave legal practice, and you’re trying to figure out the best alternative careers…
For a lot of lawyers, hearing “just do your best” as a kid didn’t feel reassuring. It felt like a requirement to give every ounce of everything they had until there was literally nothing left. That’s not incidental. The kind of person who interprets “do your best” that way is often exactly the kind of person who ends up becoming…
Lawyers thinking about leaving often get stuck on a question that feels practical but actually keeps them waiting longer than they need to. Do I need to quit my job before I start figuring out what I want to do instead? It sounds responsible, but for most people, it’s part of what keeps them in a holding pattern. Sarah Cottrell…
Lawyers who are unhappy at work often tell themselves they’ll feel things later. When they retire, maybe. The sense is that feeling the full weight of what’s happening would make it impossible to keep functioning, so the feelings get pushed down and the grinding continues. The problem is that feelings aren’t actually optional. The physical sensations that come with emotional…
Being good at your job and being in the right job are not the same thing. For lawyers who are high achievers, that distinction can be almost impossible to see when every external signal, strong reviews, steady advancement, a reputation for getting things done, is telling you that you must be in the right place. That disconnect often has roots…
Lawyers are, as a group, highly responsible, hard on themselves, and convinced they should be able to handle more than anyone else around them. That combination does not just make for a stressful career. It makes it genuinely difficult to acknowledge that something is wrong, let alone do anything about it. That is where perfectionism becomes a trap. When you…
For lawyers who know they are unhappy but are not ready to make any real moves yet, the waiting period can feel like dead time. There are things you can be doing right now, though, that will set you up for success when you are ready to go through the process of figuring out what comes next. One of those…
