Leaving the law: how to start the next chapter

I recently had an opportunity to offer some suggestions to a lawyer who’s ready to leave the practice but uncertain where to start in creating the next chapter of her career.  Since that’s hardly an unusual state of affairs, I thought I’d post my comments here in hopes of helping others in a similar position.

Deciding whether to leave the law and what to do next requires examination of a wide variety of questions.  Some of the questions that I offer clients who are considering leaving practice include the following:

*  What do you want to bring from your legal career into your next career?  Do you want to be in a law-related field that will make specific use of your legal training, or do you want to explore something ocmpletely new?

*  What do you enjoy?  Writing, making presentations, working solo, working with a team, leading, managing, directing, etc.?

*  What are you passionate about?  Would you like to bring that passion into your work?  Another way of asking this is, for the sake of what are you working?

*  What do you want your days to look like?  Is work/life balance a significant consideration for you?  Imagine your ideal work situation and describe what it looks like — and really, you don’t have to know what the work itself would be to do this.  For instance, would you work in an office or from home?  Would you have an assistant?  Would your days be full of meetings?  Would you travel for business?  Would you spend time creating?  Would you spend time performing analyses or developing strategies?

* What has caused you to decide to leave practice?  (There’s often lots of information there, and some of the clients I’ve worked with have discovered that they don’t actually want to leave practice, they just want to change their practice so it fits them better.)

There are so many questions that merit exploration, and these are just a few starters.

I’d also suggest talking with others who’ve left practice and exploring books about career changes for lawyers, such as: The Lawyer’s Career Change Handbook (Hindi Greenberg), What Can You Do With a Law Degree?: A Lawyers’ Guide to Career Alternatives Inside, Outside & Around the Law (Deborah Arron);  Alternative Careers for Lawyers (Hillary Mantis); and Beyond the Big Firm: Profiles of Lawyers Who Want Something More (Alan B. Morrison and Diane T. Chin).  (Sorry, no links this morning, but you can find all of these on Amazon.)

You might also consider whether coaching could be beneficial.  Coaching is a useful way to discover what will work best for you given your skills and talents, your desires, and your needs.  A coaching relationship also creates a safe space to explore next steps with someone who “gets it” and, perhaps unlike family/colleagues/friends has nothing at risk based on your decisions.