What If Law Is Not for You?
Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in a four-part series of columns by career coach and consultant Michael Melcher. Send questions or suggestions for future articles by clicking here and putting “Careers Inbox” in the subject line. Or simply discuss the topic in the comments below.
Lifelong career monogamy is not for everyone. It takes time and effort to switch careers, maybe more than you think. But it is possible. Here are some pointers.
Accept that not having a clear future vision is normal.
Some people know exactly what their dream is. Many don’t, especially people who pursued three years of higher education largely to keep their options open. Don’t worry about not knowing what you want to do. When clients tell me they have no idea what they want to do, I unusually find that they actually have four, five or six potential visions. It’s just that each vision has only a maximum 15 or 20 percent likelihood of being the thing. The next step is to define and explore these, and see what they lead to.
Create alternate hypotheses of your future.
You figure out what you really want to do through experimentation, not analysis. So you need ideas to experiment on, and specific talking points to share with people who can help you.
Instead of saying you’re interested in “something in nonprofit,” push yourself to dig down. Nonprofit could mean a development role in a school-reform organization or an operational role in an international development agency. Instead of “something entrepreneurial,” get more specific. Maybe it’s joining an early-stage tech start-up in an in-house legal/business development role. Or starting a solo practice. Or opening a coffee bar. Give yourself something to test.
As you home in on strong interests, consider ways that you can gain expertise in those areas even as you continue working as a lawyer—what I call in my book “parallel growth.”
Define and communicate your competencies.
If you are seeking to leave the law, the first sentence out of your mouth should probably not include the word, “lawyer.”
Ask yourself, “if I had to hire someone to be me, all day long, what skills, knowledge and traits would I need to see?”
Examples of competencies might include legal analysis, writing and editing, client management, small business management, leading teams, staying calm in crises, willingness to work long hours, sense of humor, emotional intelligence, mentoring and coaching, etc. Knowing what your competencies are will help you identify places where you might use them. Speaking to your competencies in interviews and networking meetings will give others a sense of the value you bring, rather than leaving it up to them to deduce.
Relax your time frame.
After spending four years working for a large law firm and paying down a large chunk of his student loans, one of my friends quit his job to pursue his dream of being a playwright and television writer. He signed up with a lawyer temp agency, working 9 to 5, and wrote every night. He did this for one year, then a second year. He had nibbles but no bites. He felt majorly bummed out.
“Well, how long have you spent doing this?” I asked. Around two years, at that point.
“And how long did you spend as a lawyer?” Four and a half years.
“What about law school?” Three years.
“So,” I said, “you’ve spent seven and a half years investing in something you didn’t like, and around two years trying to do what you love. Do you think this is a fair comparison?” He took the point.
A year later, he had his big break. Every major agent in LA wanted to represent him. Ironically, his breakthrough occurred on the basis of writing he had done more than a year before.
You can change your career. It takes time and effort. There is a lot of ambiguity in the process.
Be willing to work as hard for things that might fulfill you as you have for things that don’t.
Previous Columns in the Series:
“Why Thinking Like a Lawyer Is Bad for Your Career”
“5 Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Career Coach”
“5 Tips to Planning Your Career to Beat the Recession”
Michael Melcher, a New York-based career coach, is the author of The Creative Lawyer: A Practical Guide to Authentic Professional Satisfaction (ABA, 2007). He has a JD/MBA from Stanford and is currently a partner at Next Step Partners, a leadership development and executive coaching firm with offices in New York and San Francisco. He writes the blog The Creative Lawyer.
