Back to it

Sorry for the long lapse between posts, now that things have for real settled down, I am hoping to get back to regular posts.

Since I last posted, I quit my job as a litigation associate and am officially a recovering lawyer. Email me if you are in the same position (either voluntarily or involuntarily), I would love to hear how you are spending your days!!!

So, why did I quit? I guess it was a combination of never really liking what I did, the soul sucking environment that is biglaw and my current health woes. Despite my serious discontent with the practice of law and the legal community, I didn't actually make the decision easily. It took some gut-wrenching conversations and lots of tears and assurances from my husband, family and friends that it would actually be okay if I quit and that the world would not come to a screeching halt if I ceased to be a slave to the billable hour.

Its been a little over a month since I quit. I have spent the time marveling at how quickly my professional situation snowballed such that I was left with no choice but to quit. I have also realized why actually quitting (as opposed to just whining and moaning about how I was being stifled and wanted out so badly) was so difficult for me. For 7 years, being a lawyer gave me an identity, an easy entrance into a network and community and of course, it paid well (which is certainly no longer the case thanks to the market). I decided I wanted to be a lawyer when I was just a kid and it was a fairly lofty and abstract goal to work towards for most of my childhood and adolescence. My only rational in choosing the law was that I liked to read, write and argue. I didn't know then that about 5% of a litigator's time is spent actually practicing law and the other 95% is spent on BS so that you can justify exorbitant bills to your clients.

I started law school at 22 and had no idea what life was all about. So, when I kept hearing that young associates have to "pay their dues" and work away for the first 6-8years in order to reach the golden kingdom of partnership, it all seemed manageable to me. I mean, I was used to being a poor student and feeling there were never enough hours in the day to get things done already---it couldn't be that much harder in the real world, right? Besides, the firms pay a lot of money, so they must expect you to do some real work, too. . . .Oh, how naive I was!!!

Turned out, the brass ring was totally overrated. Very few people ever make it to partner and even fewer women. Most of my counterparts were single and struggling with dating because their schedules didn't allow them to meet people and develop new relationships. Many had serious substance abuse problems and anger management issues. In short, the profession was just as screwed up as John Grisham makes it out to be. Still, it took me a while to admit it to myself, much less others---even when I realized the profession wasn't all that I hoped, I still enjoyed the feeling of status and worth that came along with having a "traditional" profession. I also didn't want to admit I had made a mistake and honestly, I didn't think I had anything to replace it with. I was single, with many friends and a great family, but everyone else in my life was doing what they needed to do and I thought practicing law was the thing I should be doing. Mentors, professors, friends had long told me I would reach a point in my life where my priorities would suddenly change and I would just walk away, but I was pretty skeptical and figured I would somehow drag myself to the partner-line.

And then, one day in July of 2007, my priorities did suddenly change. I found the love of my life and my bestest friend. Practicing law didn't seem like what I should be doing, it took a backseat to falling in love and getting married and building a home and a life with Chet. And I was really happy---so happy in fact that I actually forgot how much I hated my job and figured with everything else in life finally in place, I could definitely overlook hating my job, right?

Wrong!!! Yes, my personal life was good, but my health continued to deteriorate and despite KNOWING the stress of billing and not billing was taking away from my quality of life, I just didn't have the courage to quit. I was totally paralyzed. I forgot that I actually know how to do other things and that 99.9999% of the world's population does not in fact practice law, nor do they give a crap if I was working for a big law firm. In fact, no one besides other lawyers even understood what I did, much less care where I did it. Finally, I simply lost the physical ability to work and had no choice but to quit.

It took a few weeks after my last day for the big-so-what, my take-away or the big answer to my existential crisis to finally occur to me: I like being a lawyer, I have always liked being a lawyer and I will always be a lawyer---I just didn't like firm life and no one was keeping me there but me. So that was it. After years of agonizing over hating my job and feeling guilty for hating my job and the constant back and forth about leaving or staying, I just allowed myself to say firm life isn't for me and moved on. And now, I enjoy the law again. I follow what's going on in the courts and around the industry because I care and not because I feel like I have to. I re-discovered some of my other professional abilities and am opening my own business and am content and happy with where all the parts of my life are going. It's certainly not easy, but it's totally worth it and I am glad it took me this long to get here---I don't know if I would appreciate it otherwise.