The passage of time is a strange thing; the days are long but the years are short, as they say! Since I’ve been back in private practice for almost 5 years to the day, I thought I would share something that I’ve learned from each year in my journey as a (mostly) sole practitioner.
Year 1: Don’t Overthink Things
I know this sounds odd because as lawyers, we’re literally paid to overthink things for our clients. However, when it comes to your own career, overthinking probably isn’t the right move because most of us will just talk ourselves into maintaining the status quo. When it came to abandoning corporate life, I had to force myself to stop thinking about it in order to actually do it. In that first year I learned that jumping and landing on your feet gets you off the treadmill of self-doubt.
Year 2: Don’t be Afraid to Ride the Highs
In the 2nd year of my second go at private practice, I felt like Hermione from Harry Potter, somehow able to everything simultaneously. My practice stayed in full swing throughout my whole pregnancy with Jason, I delivered on a Friday morning and I was back answering emails on Monday. I nursed, worked, and slept on repeat without missing any deadlines and somewhere in there we took multiple family trips, threw Lily a first holy communion party and I went to the IAPP Global Summit with my baby and mom in tow for support. Exercising gratitude in the moment is not one of my strong points but I do remember feeling truly grateful for it all that year.
Year 3: Know when to Call Uncle
But like everything in life, I couldn’t ride that high forever. As I was rounding out the 2nd half of year 2, I felt a tightening in my chest. I was working like a dog again because I felt I couldn’t say no to anything that came my way. I wanted to spend more time with Jason while he was young but honestly almost never got to parent during the week, especially after I stopped nursing. I felt a crushing self-imposed pressure to not let my partner down or fail to carry my own weight. As we reached the summer of 2017, we made the decision to dissolve our partnership and start separate solo practices. We both felt it was the right move (and it has been), but it was still hard. Then, as I entered 2018, I learned I was pregnant with Rosie which reinforced the need to slow down a bit.
Year 4: It’s OK to Take the Monkey Bars
Sheryl Sandberg’s bit about careers being jungle gyms and not ladders may have been trite for some but for me, it was revelatory. It gave me permission to stop striving for the next thing and to be OK with treading water for a little while. I spent that 4th year taking things as they came but not actively soliciting for new work or making business-related goals. I prioritized the kids and Matt and I think it was the right thing for us and ultimately my career because it’s helped to avert a burnout that would have otherwise happened.
Year 5: Small Changes Can be Enough
I will admit it, the last year of my practice has been weird. I’ve been simultaneously extremely busy with work and bored by it. I guess being a lawyer is just kind of dull sometimes – especially when you work from home. I knew something was off when I found myself more invested in my friends’ theoretical business ideas than my own actual profitable business that pays my mortgage and puts food on my table. I was more enthusiastic about being an affiliate for Matt’s startup than being a lawyer. I even went to a Marie Kondo consultant seminar to explore a complete career change (sadly it turns out that convincing people to throw their stuff away does not pay nearly as much as the practice of law… go figure).
By the beginning of 2020, I was pretty itchy for a big change again. I started to explore going back in-house or even back to biglaw. Even though the prospect of building something big was alluring, I could feel in the pit of my stomach that it probably wasn’t the right move.
And then coronavirus happened. Almost immediately law firms put a freeze on all new hires and many even did layoffs or salary reductions for partners. Suddenly, the status quo became a gift instead of a curse, and almost 5 months in, I actually feel like I’m better equipped to weather this storm as a sole practitioner. New teaching opportunities and some new fun clients have also given me just enough change to make me feel excited about my practice again as I go into my 6th year on my own.
As I approach my 15th year of practice, I’ve realized that the key to me being reasonably happy as a lawyer is to keep making small changes so I feel like I’m evolving and growing, even though Zimmer Legal is still just yours truly.