I’ve been practicing law now for 8+ years both at a big firm and now for a major technology company. While the money is excellent and I believe that I’m a very good lawyer, I get little satisfaction from practicing law. Clearly it’s important and we need good lawyers, but it feels “hollow” to me and i’m ready to start my own business completely unrelated to law.
Question for ex-lawyers: Any regrets in leaving the profession? Would you make the same decision again? Other words of wisdom?
Thanks!
Can’t answer that specifically but a lot of people leave chosen professions to do something else. It’s not that unusual to enter an occupation and find that it’s not really for you. I’ve been a chiropractor for twenty years and have been entertaining the thought of trying something different.
I’d keep your license current for awhile. If things don’t work out you can always go back into law.
Jeff,
The question seems to be whether what you are doing gives you satisfaction. I’ve been in private practice, small firm, for 20 years now - I love it and really can’t imagine doing anything else. Well, I do imagine, but really do enjoy what I do. Of course there are some days that really test me, but that would probably be the same everywhere. There is nothing wrong with changing, or changing back either.
Best wishes,
You might want to PM johnthesavage. He just left the profession (big firm, DC, I think) and is training full time. I think he’s going to eventually end up teaching. I was a partner in a big firm but quit about 2 weeks ago because of an impending move to Colorado (hubby’s job). I’m treating this as a “life checkpoint”. I’m not sure what I’ll do, except be a mom for a while. I did like the challenge and the financial reward of practicing law. But, the stress was often overwhelming, and I started feeling there was a certain pointlessness to it all.
Jeff
Your question really could be to anyone that has left one profession for something else. I left architecture for law, and now practice construction litigation, essentially merging to the 2 professions. Smartest move I ever made. I found architecture a bit on the boring side, and find litigation very dynamic. Find what moves you and do it. The hardest thing to do is cut the strings to the safety net, but once you do, the release and sense of freedom is gratifying. You can always go back.
Keep us lawyer hacks informed on what you end up doing, and good luck.
Robert
for entertainment, ask this to http://anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com
there is nothing better than being a lawyer. if you have doubts, maybe you should go flip some burgers for a living. if you disagree with me, you are wrong.
seriously - i’ve faced a similar decision more than once and have taken the risky road both times. it’s paid off wildly both times. if you’re bright enough to succeed in a large firm, you’re bright enough to land on your feet.
but you have to jump first.
A
jeff try reading this:
Jeff,
I wish you well on your search. I have practiced law for 20+ years, in-house the entire time, now at a semiconductor company. It has been brutal for the industry and we have had lay-off after lay-off. It affects me, I’m the attorney in charge of employment law and benefits. I was on the slow track for a lot of reasons, but my last child is graduating high school in May, will be off to college and now I’m wondering if it isn’t time to either rev up the career I have or find a new one.
I don’t think personality wise I’m really suited for the law, the adversarialness of it all wears on me. But it has provided me with a good living, particularly when I was a single parent and didn’t get any child support or help from the ex.
I sympathize, for I too am on such a quest.
Albert Einstein once said : As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.
This has nothing to with your question, but you did also ask for “Other words of wisdom?” - so I gave you some, albeit irelevant. Just like a good lawyer I suppose.
file not found. Check the link.
is it this: ON BEING A HAPPY, HEALTHY, AND ETHICAL MEMBER OF AN UNHAPPY, UNHEALTHY, and unethical profession, 52 Vand. L. Rev. 871
I was 32 and hated it. The stress to income ratio was way out of whack. I could not have imagined doing that for another 25 - 30 years. My biggest problem was not being able to avoid internalizing my clients’ problems. Life is tough enough without taking on the stress of dozens of other people.
I went into computer programming, make more than I did as a lawyer, have very low stress, I can actually take my vacations, in fact I am sitting in Florida training for the week right now. I have not regretted it for even a moment. As soon as I made the decision I felt a weight lift off of me. But that is me YMMV.
“Find what moves you and do it.” - I’d say that pretty much sums it up! (or - “find out who you are and be it”.) Nothing wrong though with periods of vague unease & uncertainty, or even frustration and despair… pretty natural and healthy in fact I’d say for a reflective soul.
It never hurts to solicit advice - I did the same thing before I left my job back in october - but i found that if you ask enough people you will find answers across the whole spectrum from “stay where you are you’d be crazy to leave” to “get the hell out while you still can.” So in the end it always comes down to you and your beliefs and intuitions and dreams and wherewithall (and I guess those of your spouse and family, if applicable).
I prefer to look at big “life-changing” decisions in a positive light, though. Forward-looking fear of regret and backward-looking regret itself seems kind of misguided to me. Of course we learn from the past and plan for the future but we live in and are responsible for the now. So instead of asking myself fearfully: man am I going to regret this a year or 5 from now? I ask instead: “does what I am now about to do “feel right” to me?” and “do I believe that the course of action I am now about to choose the best for me and for who/what I want to be?” If, after weighing the available evidence and surveying the available options, I can honestly answer those 2 questions in the affirmative, I act and have no regrets, even if events turn out differently than I had expected (as they always do, to some extent). FWIW.
John - Excellent advice. These kinds of decicions are a bit more complex with a spouse and baby on the way, but I think your advice is dead-on. Good luck at IMNZ…if I had only quit this racket to train full time when I could 