Lawyer needing career advice

[Gizsuat2]

Hi everyone,

Looking for some advice.  I've practiced for 10+ years, briefly in civil practice then for the government (I'll leave that intentionally vague).  Early in my career, I found MMM, and I am forever and profoundly grateful.  My husband and I adjusted accordingly, and we are well on our way to financial independence.

Here's my current situation: I work 50%, and with little kids it's been an awesome schedule.  I get paid very well for what I do, work in a beautiful building with some awesome people, and am allowed a lot of vacation.  My boss is understanding and my job has decent flexibility.  My commute isn't bad, and overall it's an amazing gig.

The problem: I feel so over being a lawyer.  I feel like every bit of conflict management has been depleted out of me.  Sometimes I interact with outrageously hostile lawyers, who I then have to deal with in front of unsuspecting juries.  These interactions never used to bother me much, but now I dwell on these interactions for days after.  Mercifully I work with some great opposing counsel 85% of the time, but the 15% are having an outsized impact on my view of the job.  Add that my job is mind numbingly boring; I've tried many things to add interest to my job (as have my colleagues, who have the same challenges), but I feel confident that I've reached the end of those already limited options.

I've spent a lot of time networking with other attorneys, learning about other areas of the law, and I'm also confident that the only other area of law that might be of interest would be immigration work.  I haven't pursued this because of our impending post-FIRE plans.

My husband and I are a few years away from FIRE, and when that time comes we have a plan to grow his existing, profitable business together.  He is supportive of the idea of me quitting to begin working on that now, and I'm excited about my future role, but as a risk-averse lawyer I feel guilty and concerned about leaving such an amazing gift of a job setup that is unlikely to appear again.  I keep thinking that if I could just find a new mindset to handle the parts of my job I don't like, then sticking it out until FIRE would be the best option for us.  Currently we are able to funnel my entire salary to savings, along with a good chunk of my husband's salary.

Feeling pretty grateful but down about all of this.  I know this is a smart group and I'd love to hear any words of wisdom anyone might be able to pass on.  Thanks in advance.

[Sibley]

How much do you bring in?
How much does your husband bring in?
Annual expenses now?
Annual expenses if you quit your job?
What's your stash?
What's your FIRE goal?

How much longer until you hit FIRE goal?
How much longer until you hit FIRE goal if you quit your job now?

Do the math. Because if you're talking about a difference of 6 months or something, then I think you're good to quit anytime. Or in 6 months.

[Gizsuat2]

Thanks Magnum Stache.

If I stay working, we are at FIRE in 3-5 years.  If I quit working, it's hard to say b/c:
(1) we don't yet know how quickly and much our business profit will increase by me quitting and working on it full-time now
(2) the "end number" is squishy around here because we both intend to work full-time on our business at the point of FIRE.  We know, based on past experience, that the business will AT LEAST pay for our monthly living expenses.  What's unknown is how far the profit sky reaches if we're both working on it full-time. 

[plog]

I counted numerous factual statements listing the pros and cons of your current role.  While the pros outnumbered the cons, it seemed the cons outweighed the pros. You also used 4 "I feel" sentences: 3 in support of leaving your current role, 1 against.   

You want to leave.  You fear regretting leaving.  You really fear not pulling your weight financially in your relationship.

My advice--speak to your husband more and have him talk you into quitting.  If my 2nd paragraph is accurate, tell him all those things and have him tell you each will be fine. 

Go be happy.

[Gizsuat2]

Wow plog.  Are you this insightful in everything you do?  Thanks for the thoughts!

[ToTheMoon]

It sounds to me like the right time to make a move.  Your kids will not be young forever, so if this change will allow you more time with them, that is great.  You are confident that this new business will cover your monthly expenses, with growth very likely.  You have already done the hard work of amassing a significant nest egg. Your husband supports you in this.  Go, and do not look back!

[WalkaboutStache]

Would it be possible to take an extended leave and try out the business thing?  If you leave and the business starts growing more or less as you expected, you may have your answer.  You said that the business would at least cover your expenses, so why is that not good enough for the next year or two?  That would give you time to put your situation into a different perspective.

For context, I am a lawyer in the same situation (bored, cushy job), except that I have the option to take extended leaves here and there.

[seattlecyclone]

Being 3-5 years out from FIRE, it's likely that your stash is big enough that market performance right now is a bigger determinant of when you hit your "number" than how much you continue to save. You have a business that you have no intention of quitting anytime soon, and that will pay your bills pretty reliably. I'd say you should give yourself permission to leave the job you don't love, move forward with your plans, and focus on living your life. The stash will grow on its own in time.

[Linea_Norway]

If you want to start working in an uncertain position, then it is safest to do so while you still work parttime in your current job. Could you reduce your current job to 2 days a week and start working 2-3 days a week in your husbands company? This way you still have a certain income and you can find out if the new work works.

On for the alternative, switching to immigrant law might also be an option, depending on how much you need to invest in re-education. If this is something that you find interesting, you final years would become more bearable and you might continue doing some of this in the future on small scale, or by giving advice on a voluntary basis to immigrants.

[Fuzz]

I get it. I am a lawyer and spent part of a beautiful weekend dwelling on opposing counsel and his wildly inappropriate personal attacks. I'm sorry. It sucks. It's hard for my spouse to relate to how draining the conflict is.

Is there a role for you at your job where you can do management and cut out opposing counsel?

A 50% schedule with a nice income and benefits is great. But if that's not what you're put on this earth to do, then go after what you want to do with a club. Good luck!

[Gizsuat2]

Thanks for all the replies thus far.

Unfortunately, my job duties can't be changed (unless I quit!) or re-routed, and a sabbatical or leave of absence isn't an option.  All good thoughts though.

Your thoughtful answers have helped me to at least narrow down the real question for me: Are there any mindset shifts that I can make in order to make this job palatable for a few more years?  If yes, then I hope I find them.  If no, then I think that's my answer.

[iluvzbeach]

I counted numerous factual statements listing the pros and cons of your current role.  While the pros outnumbered the cons, it seemed the cons outweighed the pros. You also used 4 "I feel" sentences: 3 in support of leaving your current role, 1 against.   

You want to leave.  You fear regretting leaving.  You really fear not pulling your weight financially in your relationship.

My advice--speak to your husband more and have him talk you into quitting.  If my 2nd paragraph is accurate, tell him all those things and have him tell you each will be fine. 

Go be happy.

@plog What an amazing response. I love how you broke this down in such a simple way.

[chasesfish]

Google up Coast FI...a more recent term in the Financial Independence space.

If you're already past the point of Coast FI or retirement inevitability (where you'll be a multimillionaire at traditional retirement age if you never contribute another dollar), then why not quit?  I answered a similar question in this case study. 

I read your list, one thought is every job has what I used to call "turd sandwiches".   As I got more and more money, my tolerance for digesting turd sandwiches reduced.  I worked too long and into the point of burnout.  Now that I'm free of my job, I realize how easy it is to make a little money that would have bridged the gap.

Make sure you have a good base, then do what makes you happy.

[Gizsuat2]

Coast FI ... that's really interesting.  You've definitely given me something to ponder there!

[legalstache]

I'd start planning your exit. You're clearly over your job and have already explored ways to try to improve it, without success. If your family can cover living expenses with the new business, you're pretty much good to go, as chasesfish pointed out.

I'd think about the timing of your exit and anything you want to do before then (e.g., max out 401k, hsa, build up EF). Knowing that the end is in sight might make the last stretch at your current job more tolerable, too. 

[thesis]

Golden handcuffs. You have a rare deal, indeed, but that's not necessarily a good thing.

My previous company had a VERY generous 401k match, and the work was stupid easy. But I still made the switch to a new job because it's giving me skills that actually have a future, which will allow me to make way more than that generous match (heck, I think I'm making more right now).

You're smart to realize the situation you are in, but, to invoke some logic from the EarlyRetirementExtreme book, you appear to have two goals: Financial Independence and enjoying your job. But your current setup only moves toward the FI. Ideally, your actions would move you toward both goals (or technically, multiple goals), so accepting another job path that pays less but balances your goal to do enjoyable work sounds like a good thing. Robust life choices accomplish multiple goals at the same time. It's rarely a success/fail scenario, more a matter of degree. But still, you are burning a lot of energy for one goal.

It's one thing to stick out one more year and milk that sweet money, but that will be one year of your life gone for good, wasted in the trenches of your law work.

[Malum Prohibitum]

I get it. I am a lawyer and spent part of a beautiful weekend dwelling on opposing counsel and his wildly inappropriate personal attacks.

You might look into whether your state had ethics rules addressing this sort of behavior.  Many states are adopting civility codes for attorneys.

[ReadySetMillionaire]

Regarding your experience as a lawyer, I get it as well.  Some attorneys want to fight over everything and will file motions until their hands fall off.  It's so frustrating. I have two recommendations:

1. Just stop taking it personally. Seriously, these lawyers are trying to get under your skin. Don't let them. I got the most ridiculous brief in opposition to my MSJ the other day, and I just audibly laughed.  I'll file my reply this Friday. Years ago my reply would have been ten pages of politely calling them stupid. Now I'm just going to call them stupid in two pages.

2. Have fun. I'm not sure what your environment is, but seriously, have fun. One lawyer quoted Shakespeare as an attempt to insult me once, and at the oral hearing, I brought a Shakespeare bobblehead. Another lawyer just filed a motion to compel discovery *after* expressly giving me until the end of this month to provide responses. I filed a two-sentence reply with the email attached. Another lawyer made a ridiculous argument in his brief, so I wrote something along the lines of, "If words could roll their eyes, the letters would fall off this page."

Practice can be fun if you don't take it personally and you make it a point to have some laughs. Importantly, I've noticed very quickly that once opposing counsel realizes you are competent but don't give a shit about his or her bullshit, they stop fucking with you.

[Gizsuat2]

Ready Set Millionaire - Thanks for the commiseration.  Most of the time, the antics don't bother me.  But I practice in front of juries, and there's something about the blatant rule-breaking and misleading of juries, in the face of judges who won't take action (for a variety of reasons, many of them I understand and sympathize with), that gets under my skin like nothing else.  I do appreciate the spirit of what you're saying though and will think about if there's any better way to apply it to that specific issue.

Malum Prohibitum - I previously practiced in a state with some of the strictest civility laws in the nation.  I happened to practice in a pretty friendly bar situation, but even at that ... jerk lawyers will be jerk lawyers.

thesis - You got that right about the golden handcuffs!

This board seriously has some of the best people on the Internet.  I've really appreciated all of the thoughts.

[Nederstash]

I'll preface this with two notes: 1. You've already gotten some excellent replies, so I feel free to kinda spitball my thoughts at you. 2. I'm currently 4 months sick at home with a massive burn out so... I'm not exactly unbiased.
 
I'm a lawyer (and now manage a legal team, which is a whole different story which also factored into burn out). I completely understand your point about hostile opposing counsel. I got some nasty assholes.. especially since I'm in a field where my opposing counsel is always hired by one of two government ministries. They hire the real nasty guys because unfavorable rulings from court can have some pretty far reaching consequences. I've seen so many dirty tricks, documents withheld, witnesses terrified into silence, I've been shouted at (yes, by opposing counsel...), clients manipulated behind my back. On top of that, I had to manage a team (which you can NOT do at the same time... not that my manager believed that! Anyway, that's a different can of worms). And yes, I've dismantled most of the bombs thrown my way, I've handled each situation. But Jesus H Christ on a bicycle, it takes the life out of you. By the time my work day ended, I had nothing left to give. In the supermarket, I would just look helplessly at the shelves because I couldn't decide anymore. The thought of cooking was too much, so I ate like crap. I saw my friends less and less, because I was just too tired. Dating? No way, ain't nobody got time for that! Well I finally broke and now I'm digging myself out of the hole called burn out.
 
I'm not saying you're on that path. I just mean to say: it's not fucking worth it. It's just a job. When you're gone, your place will be filled by someone else and within a month or 2, everyone's moved on. No one stays with 1 employer for their entire lives - not since the last millennium anyway.
 
For crying out loud, if money is the only reason to stay: leave. If that place was the only place to give money in exchange for services, there'd by a much bigger line out the door. You need more than money, you need time, joy, health, you name it.
 
You are in an intensely enviable position: you can afford to take some time to decide what truly makes you happy. Talk to your husband, I'm fairly certain he'll prefer your mental and physical health over a specific FIRE date.

[Gizsuat2]

Nederstash - Brutal.  Sending you good vibes.

Of note, I thought I had dodged the lawyer burn out bullet early in my career.  I got a job fresh out of law school that (1) I was terrible at and (2) had terrible people.  In response, I started having coffee with other lawyers just to ask what they did and did not like about their jobs.  I was shocked to find that maybe 90% of those lawyers told me WITHIN THE FIRST 10M of the conversation that they hated being a lawyer!  I made the switch to my current area and loved it for a long time ... but you're so right, at a certain point the beatings just get you down, don't they?

For a long time I thought I was the lawyer that was the rare success story in terms of job satisfaction.  Now I'm curious ... who are the happy lawyers out there?

[ReadySetMillionaire]

Nederstash - Brutal.  Sending you good vibes.

Of note, I thought I had dodged the lawyer burn out bullet early in my career.  I got a job fresh out of law school that (1) I was terrible at and (2) had terrible people.  In response, I started having coffee with other lawyers just to ask what they did and did not like about their jobs.  I was shocked to find that maybe 90% of those lawyers told me WITHIN THE FIRST 10M of the conversation that they hated being a lawyer!  I made the switch to my current area and loved it for a long time ... but you're so right, at a certain point the beatings just get you down, don't they?

For a long time I thought I was the lawyer that was the rare success story in terms of job satisfaction.  Now I'm curious ... who are the happy lawyers out there?

I'm a solo and absolutely love, love, love my job 95% of the time. I make my own schedule, decline cases I don't want to handle, fire clients that piss me off, have complete autonomy over everything I do, etc. I could make anywhere from $50,000 to $200,000 next year, depending how hard I want to work.

Tomorrow nothing is on the schedule, so I'm going golfing at 8:00, meeting another lawyer for lunch, and then reading transcripts in the afternoon. Yes, some days are brutal (I had a 70 hour week a couple weeks ago), but no job is completely perfect, and billing that at $200/hour makes it worth it.

I also think being a lawyer, and just a lawyer, full time is boring. I love coming in and updating my mileage log, updating Quickbooks, going to get office supplies, updating my website, etc. Put most broadly, I like running a business because it's a nice break from practicing every working hour.

The only con, I think, is that you can still get a feeling that you're playing whack-a-mole. Kill one project and another pops up. But when you're a solo, that generally means more money, so it's easier to swallow.

***

Going back to your comment about trial practice, I get what you're saying. I'm guessing you're in some sort of government position if you're trying that many cases. And yes, I know what you mean -- other lawyers are brutal with the rules regarding opening, closing, attempting to introduce things into evidence that absolutely will not get in, prejudicial remarks to the jury, bullshit cross, etc. And then, on appeal, the appellate court ties itself into a pretzel trying to find any way not to reverse the decision.

I have only been part of three jury trials, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but what's worked for me is to (1) file an absolute shitload of motions in limine/motions to suppress, (2) call other lawyers that have tried cases against your opposing counsel, and (3) make the judge aware of possible shenanigans at your pre-trial. And when those shenanigans occur, be absolutely indignant about it at trial. Request a sidebar right then and there. The jury will know who's in the right.

You may also want to look into your state's rule regarding judicial notice. One of the better tips I got a long time ago was that judicial notice (Federal Rule of Evidence 201). You can file motions for the court to take judicial notice of certain facts. Almost like a summary judgment. I used this is a non-compete case to have the trial court take notice that my client's non-compete was valid, the court granted that motion a week before trial (i.e., completely removing defense's argument that it was invalid), and we settled that case days later.

Just a thought.

[legalstache]

You may also want to look into your state's rule regarding judicial notice. One of the better tips I got a long time ago was that judicial notice (Federal Rule of Evidence 201). You can file motions for the court to take judicial notice of certain facts. Almost like a summary judgment. I used this is a non-compete case to have the trial court take notice that my client's non-compete was valid, the court granted that motion a week before trial (i.e., completely removing defense's argument that it was invalid), and we settled that case days later.

Wait really? I didn't think judicial notice could be used this way. I thought judicial notice was used to get the court to take notice of a fact like "Germany is in Europe" or something that could be easily confirmed by checking a reputable source, not the validity of a contract.