Navigating the Career Choice Maze

• What Will the Folks Say?

By Karen Bankston

Kit Keller never envisioned for herself a traditional law career. Even in law school, "I never saw myself as a trial lawyer or, for that matter, in private practice." Still, she did not foresee the many turns her career would take, and continues to take. That's what brought her in July to the seminar "What Do You Want to Do Next with Your Law Degree?"

The Madison workshop, cosponsored by State Bar of Wisconsin CLE Seminars and the State Bar Young Lawyers Division, featured speaker attorney Deborah Arron, author of What Can You Do with a Law Degree? and Running from the Law. Keller, who graduated from law school in 1982, worked for five years with the Indiana Public Defender Council, doing research, writing, and consulting for criminal defense attorneys representing indigent clients. Then she moved to Washington, D.C., to write with the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA) on the Criminal Defense Manual, Civil Trial Manual, and the Criminal Law Reporter.

A circuitous route

Like many attorneys who change course, Keller traveled a circuitous route to where she is today. Keller left the BNA in 1989, intending to focus full time on renovating an old house she and her architect husband had purchased. "I casually mentioned this career change in our Christmas letter," she recalls. "Within the month, without further marketing, I began receiving calls to do consulting work and/or writing on public policy issues."

Keller moved to Wisconsin in 1993 after her husband accepted a job in Cedarburg. She continued to work with her national clients until she "decided to explore what citizen participation was all about." That led to a campaign for a seat on the Cedarburg Common Council, which she held for two years.

Most recently, she worked for two years with the Ozaukee County Transportation Management Association, a public-private partnership to introduce public transit service between Milwaukee and Ozaukee County. Now that the project has been transferred to county management, Keller finds herself fixing up yet another old house and pondering her next career move.

More attitude than action

Success in changing careers "has a lot more to do with attitude than with action," Arron told the 300 participants in the "What Do You Want to Do Next With Your Law Degree?" workshop. Arron's book, What Can You Do with a Law Degree?, suggests self-exploration, research, and marketing techniques to track down the right career path for you - inside or outside of the law.

Arron shares memories of her own career change from a Seattle law practice to writing her first book, Running from the Law. She recalls weekends "when I woke up on Saturday and thought, 'Oh, no, I have to go back to work Monday morning.'"

Arron's dream back then was that someone would offer her a high-paying dream job where she would continue to practice law without ever having to worry about billing, collections, research, or writing briefs, all the things she disliked most about her current work.

Her advice to fellow lawyers: "Look for a career that feeds you well in all the ways you want to be fed." Arron's suggestions are designed not just for lawyers who are ready to leave their current practice, but for anyone who is "conscious of a future when what you're doing will not be as satisfying and fulfilling as it is now."

According to Arron, three steps are required for a successful transition:

1) Self-assessment, which encompasses identifying the qualities you look for in a good place to work and articulating what type of work you want and don't want in terms of values and interests;

2) Research into the duties, requirements, and needs of employers in the new field you're considering and how you fit with those requirements; and

3) Implementation - the proactive search for your next job.

Being action-oriented people, most lawyers tend to want to jump over the first two steps right to implementation, Arron notes. Some attorneys may be so desperately unhappy in their current position that they may feel they don't have the luxury to explore their options.

In addition, Arron maintains, law school training discourages self-assessment by instilling respect for past decisions and legal analysis unclouded by feelings, thus limiting one's ability to consider options without boundaries.

Taking the time for a thorough self-assessment has a built-in reward, she contends. Knowing what you want to do and what you can contribute builds a sense of can-do enthusiasm. That energy and enthusiasm creates the mutual excitement with prospective employers that will get you the job you want.

Self-assessment narrows the scope of your search and keeps it moving in the right direction, Arron adds. Consider the roots of your dissatisfaction and what type of job might suit you better.

For example, Keller knows from past experience that she's in her element when she's working to "help other people succeed in a project that's important to them." She knows she enjoys sifting through policy issues and helping to develop a larger perspective.

Keller also knows she prefers short-term assignments rather than long-term career moves. When the task at hand is finite, "then it's like an adventure," she says.

Jane Pribeck left her job with a law firm last year to take time for "a lot of soul searching." She felt pigeon-holed in the practice of family law; except for writing briefs and letters to opposing counsel, "I didn't like what I was doing."

"I miss the feeling that you get when things work out well for a client, and that's about it," says Pribeck, who landed her "dream job" as editor-in-chief of Wisconsin Opinions about a year ago.

"I felt bad about billing clients for trivial things, and that's no way to advance your career," she adds with a laugh.

Look inward

Arron boils the self-assessment process down to three central questions:

• Who am I?
• What do I want?
• What am I willing to give up to get what I want?

Powerful forces can be at work in that final question. Participants in the July workshop quickly listed a variety of factors that might keep people in a job they detest: salary, health insurance and retirement benefits, vacation time, independence, power, prestige, security, location, flexibility.

"You're always going to give up something," Arron warns. "You have to find something that's so appealing it'll keep you moving forward."

"I am not a believer that you can have it all at the same time," she adds. "I don't think, for instance, that you can be the best lawyer and the best parent at the same time. You have to be clear about what you want first."

The comfort of a regular paycheck and job security can be hard to leave behind, agrees Margaret Watt McKenna, a Milwaukee attorney who opened a solo practice last year. Before she made the move, McKenna admits, she thought about going solo as "jumping for a rope you don't know is going to be there."

"Some people can't fathom leaving behind the certainty of a salary and the career development and professional growth you expect from your law firm," she notes.

McKenna's then-fiancé, now-husband, had practical concerns about her decision to strike out on her own. He questioned the financial implications of leaving the law firm. McKenna's response? "I just kept saying, 'Be calm. This will work out.'"

About the economics of career moves, Arron maintains that almost no field pays less than starting out in law. Conversely, there's almost nowhere you can transfer - outside the law or sometimes even to another practice area within the law - and earn the same amount of money as your current position.

"Prepare yourself financially and don't let money be an object," Arron advises. Her theory of a "financial comfort zone" holds that most people return to a salary level with which they are satisfied within two years after making a job change.

In addition, Arron adds, if you've done your homework in terms of self-assessment and research you should be able to justify a higher salary to prospective employers by specifying how you can deliver what they need.

Self-assessment combines emotional considerations and steely-eyed analysis. Its foremost goal is to discover what you bring to the table - what you've got that's valuable to potential employers or clients, Arron says.

Seek a balance

Self-assessment must move beyond job skills and workplace factors to encompass other important components of your life. Arron suggests that feeling successful amounts to achieving a balance in four areas: work, relationships, leisure, and challenge.

Sometimes, taking on a new challenge outside of work can help alleviate job dissatisfaction. Arron cites the example of an attorney who first took up flying lessons and later became involved in his children's soccer league. Those outside interests allowed him to put the components of his life in perspective and cope more comfortably with the less satisfying aspects of his work.

For people seeking more creative challenges in their lives, one solution might be to keep those day jobs and find something that piques the creative spirit outside of work, such as joining a local theater group or taking a painting class.

On the other hand, Arron notes, "there's intellectual challenge in everything we do. If what you do is stimulating, you're in the right field. Most successful people in our society probably love what they're doing."

If your life is out of balance, consider whether the focus on one component to the neglect of others is of your own doing and how long you're willing to continue on that path. For example, Arron says, an attorney might decide to put in long hours for a couple years to earn money toward the children's college fund. For most people, living a life out of balance cannot continue indefinitely.

"Doing too much of anything brings on dissatisfaction," she warns.

Dig for answers

Research entails finding "where you can do what you've decided you're meant to do," Arron explains. Attorneys seeking alternative careers have more options than ever before, and more employers are willing to consider candidates with a law degree for nonlegal positions. Indeed, the section on job options for lawyers and law school graduates in What Can You Do With a Law Degree?, now in its third edition, has grown significantly over the years.

In general, career development today is much less linear than it was 20 years ago. Industries change constantly, and people have more options in choosing their career path and direction. The American economy changed relatively slowly from an agrarian to an industrial base, Arron notes, but its more recent evolution to an information base was much swifter and has changed the face of job hunting. Today, more transportable skills are requisite, as is the ability to articulate your skills and how they can be useful in a new situation.

Arron's book lists potential positions in a variety of fields, from entertainment to health care to entrepreneurial ventures, along with a list of resources for finding more about what those jobs entail. In addition, she notes, the public library remains a valuable source of information about potential new employers, and the Internet has opened a wealth of data about different fields and companies.

With that type of information in hand, networking with employees of a specific company can yield valuable details about it.

Take the plunge

The implementation stage, which consists of tracking down your next job, must be much more interactive than sending out resumes with a cover letter, Arron insists. To get the job you really want, you need to:

• focus on the employers' needs;
• concentrate on active, personal contacts; and
• be persistent in following up with a flexible plan.

That means not waiting for a description of your perfect job to show up in the want ads. Many professionals get the jobs they want by showing their employers what they can do for them. Arron notes that half of all managerial/technical positions are created for the people who fill them.

One way to create your dream job is to approach a potential employer as a contractor, offering to perform the work you want to do on a trial basis. Working as a contract lawyer is an increasingly common way of making the transition to a new career.

Expect to be confronted with stereotypes about lawyers, Arron cautions. Many potential employers may object to hiring you on the basis that, as an attorney, you must be high-priced, confrontational, not a team player, or a "loser lawyer" because you're leaving a traditional law practice.

Foreseeing those objections can allow you to deal with them in realistic terms by preparing responses about how your law background will make you a valuable member of the team and why you're looking for a new career.

Being a lawyer is not always an advantage when you're looking for a career outside the law, Keller agrees. She remembers meeting a constituent in her door-to-door campaign for Cedarburg Common Council who told her bluntly, "I don't trust lawyers. Tell me why I should trust you."

Partly to sidestep that distrust and the assumption that lawyers are arrogant and partly because she dislikes labels, Keller prefers not to introduce herself as a lawyer. "I do say that I have training in the law, when it's important to do so."

But Keller has found many benefits of her law education in her diverse career pursuits. At the foundation of law is a versatile primer in how people interact, how they get into problems, and how to help them out of those problems, she says.

As she installs insulation and drywall in her 1873 farmhouse and ponders her next career move, Keller says she is intrigued by the possibility of getting involved in conflict resolution and mediation.

"Every new experience gives you the chance to plumb the depths of your desires, your strengths, and weaknesses," Keller adds. "Sometimes, I enjoy casting my fate to the winds. And worrying certainly doesn't seem to solve problems any faster."

Wisconsin Lawyer