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Vol. 72, No. 6, June 1999 |
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Career Satisfaction: Assessing the
Options
 For those looking to combine their
legal background with a different quality of life, the part-time
and contract practice of law have become hot topics both for
individual lawyers and for law firms. With the downsizing of
some firms and influx of work in others, there is a growing demand
for both contract lawyers, who work on a temporary, hourly basis,
and part-time lawyers, who work as permanent employees on a reduced
work schedule. Many lawyers exploring the possibility of working
reduced schedules desire to continue to use their legal skills,
but in a less intensive, all-consuming style. (See the April
1999 Wisconsin Lawyer for an in-depth article on contract
lawyering.)
Lawyers also are exploring alternative work arrangements such
as telecommuting - where the lawyer works with a phone and
computer from home or another location, hooked up to the law
office by modem and fax, and job sharing - where two lawyers
each work a reduced schedule, either sharing cases or maintaining
their own caseload, and share office space and support staff.
In the latter work arrangement, the two attorneys often prorate
benefits so that the firm is only paying benefits - health
insurance, vacation, and sick leave - as if for one full-time
lawyer.
Slowly, firms are revamping their attitudes and policies about
less than full-time lawyers. No longer are these lawyers thought
to be less worthy. In fact a good part-time or contract lawyer
often is envied for her ability to organize and handle complicated
legal matters in a shorter time frame, thereby creating the benefit
of financial economy for the firm as well as more free time for
the lawyer. Contract lawyers often market themselves to a potential
hiring firm on their ability to pick up a file, review only the
important information, handle the matter efficiently, and produce
a finished product for the firm, all without the need to pay
for anything except the time the contract lawyer spent on the
specified project.
Many lawyers who contact me do not simply want to reduce their
work hours; they want to change their work focus and stop practicing
law entirely. If these former practitioners enjoy working with
lawyers, they can explore the growing industries that serve law
firms or produce products for use by lawyers, or even set up
their own businesses providing consultations to other lawyers
in areas of self-developed expertise. Businesses that provide
services and products to lawyers are expanding rapidly -
computer consulting, legal product development and design, law
book sales, practice management, office design, and legal software
development, to name just a few. Look at the display ads in various
legal publications to get an idea about the varied businesses
that cater to law firms, many of which hire former lawyers to
serve those firms.
In my experience, most lawyers who initially express a desire
to leave the practice of law remain in law or a law-related field.
I am not aware of any documented study on where lawyers go who
change jobs or careers, but the responses from my clients indicate
that less than 20 percent divorce themselves completely from
law. Even those who do totally leave the law continue to draw
on the skills they developed in law practice, because those skills
are broad-based and valuable for life and work.
No matter what your career path, you may be surprised how
beneficial your former legal training has been in the development
of useful, transferable skills that are much in demand in the
workplace. Legal education and work provide excellent training
in analytical thinking, communication, writing, and persuasiveness
- skills that can be used in many endeavors.
The former lawyer who now has a job as publications director
at the performing arts theater parlayed her legal training and
practice abilities in writing, editing, interviewing, organizing
information, researching, and giving attention to detail into
a half-time job as a publications consultant with the theater
group. She eventually moved into a full-time position as the
publications director, with responsibilities for reading upcoming
plays, writing about them for the program books, interviewing
the actors and directors, and attending the plays.
Another lawyer used the persuasion, organizational, and communication
skills she developed in law practice to move into the fundraising
arena with a law school alumni office, a medical center, and
a nonprofit organization as its public relations and development
director, and then became a consultant on fundraising and grant
writing.
The skills developed as a trial lawyer can be parlayed into
related fields. Litigators, tired of the confrontation and posturing
necessary when advocating on a client's behalf, are investigating
mediation or the developing field of ombudsman as alternatives
to the traditional advocacy practice. As mediators, former advocates
may continue to engage in client contact, counseling, and analytical
thinking, but are freed from the pressure to prevail.
Moving even further from traditional legal training, but using
the same client contact and counseling skills, an increasing
number of lawyers have decided to return to school to train to
become psychologists or therapists.
While large numbers of lawyers who actually switch careers
move into related fields such as politics, real estate, banking,
finance, or the communications fields, or become managers or
administrators in business, other former lawyers travel even
farther afield. Lawyers who no longer are practicing law range
from a humor consultant, to a retail storeowner turned real estate
developer, to a land use planner turned psychologist. There are
former lawyers who are art professors, journalists, humane society
presidents, career counselors, gardeners, chefs, screenwriters,
stock brokers, and literary agents. Many lawyers say that, although
they no longer practice law, their legal training was extremely
helpful to their transition and gives them credibility they wouldn't
otherwise have.
Lawyers contemplating change are in good company. Consider
the following one-time attorneys: Mahatma Ghandi (Inner Temple-London,
1891); Sir Thomas Moore (Lincoln's Inn-London, 1501); Peter
Tchaikovsky (School of Jurisprudence-St. Petersburg, 1859); Studs
Terkel (Univ. of Chicago, 1934); Fidel Castro (Univ. of Havana,
1950); Jules Verne (1848); and Howard Cosell (NYU, 1940).
Perhaps less well-known, but just as successful, are the two
lawyer-founders of the restaurant chain, California Pizza Kitchen;
the founders of the self-help legal book publisher, Nolo Press;
and Mortimer Zucherman, a real estate tycoon and the owner of
the magazine U.S. News & World Report.
Ensure an Effective Job or Career Change
To increase your chances of creating a more satisfying work
life, spend time identifying your preferred skills, values, and
interests. For most individuals, this requires time spent with
a good career counselor, or at the very least, time spent alone
in honest and in-depth self-assessment. With knowledge of the
skills and interests you possess and desire to use, and the values
that motivate you, you can more easily focus on those jobs or
fields that will permit the full use of your skills, integration
of values important to you, and satisfaction of your interests.
 Hindi
Greenberg was a business litigator
for 10 years before she founded Lawyers in Transition in San
Francisco in 1985. She speaks to and consults nationally with
individual lawyers, law firms, bar associations, and law schools
on career satisfaction and options. Her book, The Lawyer's
Career Change Handbook, was published recently by Avon Books. |
After self-assessment, the next step is researching the options
that arouse your interest, fit your self-assessment profile,
and encompass other mandatory criteria, such as location, status,
and salary. Be open to various options - they may be within,
related to, or outside of law. Jobs can be identified by reading
articles about people, talking to others and asking them what
they do for a living, and reading the employment want ads in
both legal and lay publications.
Once you identify several interesting options, you should
obtain information about your new industry or field via trade
associations and newsletters. Consult the Encyclopedia of Associations,
published by Gale Research Inc. and located at most public libraries,
for the names of relevant associations and their locations, focus,
and publications.
If you are still considering law options, bar associations
have sections in an assortment of practice areas and interests.
For example, the State Bar of Wisconsin has sections
on alternative dispute resolution,
public interest law, and tax,
among others. (For more information on sections, please see the
1999 Wisconsin Lawyer Directory.) Professional publications,
including those produced by bar association sections, provide
insights into new practice areas or new fields and also may have
job listings. Attending specialty association (for example, the
Lawyer-Pilot Association or the Computer Law Association) or
bar section meetings and conventions creates excellent opportunities
to meet people who work in one of your targeted fields and can
provide a reality check for you.
It is very important to pursue the contacts and information
gleaned at these meetings and from the publications. These contacts
are much more likely to result in concrete job leads and personalized
attention than would sending an unsolicited resume, especially
for a lawyer who is dramatically changing legal focus or careers.
Contrary to the fantasies of some lawyers who believe they have
already paid their dues and are now entitled to an expeditious
job or career change, a potential employer does not often come
knocking on one's door. The reality is that a job changer,
and especially a career changer, may have to start on a bottom
or low rung and work upwards while learning the new steps on
the ladder.
While there are many other methods for obtaining career information
and contacts, the above are good ways to get started. Job change,
and career change even more so, takes focus, energy, and time.
The choices are limited only by your preference, imagination,
and ambition.
Career reevaluation and change is distressful and discomforting,
and can cause great insecurity, but can have extremely positive
results. As a former lawyer-turned-nonprofit administrator emphatically
told a career counseling audience, "I have misgivings sometimes
when I look at my paycheck, but never when I look at my life."
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