The Great Change: Turning Cathy into a Lawyer

Gosh, maybe I should leave my job more often... Friday my boss took us out for a three hour lunch-followed-by-a-beer to celebrate, well, perhaps not my departure, per se, but my year-long tenure that preceded it.

It was a good job. I think I was doing the things I was supposed to be doing at this stage of my career, supporting a small litigation firm: trial support, document review, producing and propounding discovery, writing and editing briefs, etc. For my last hurrah I did a whole motion for summary adjudication, complete with memo of points and authorities and the necessary supporting documents.

It had taken me a while to get my sea legs, because I'd never actually worked in a law firm before. Well, two of my internships were technically at firms, but they were non-profits whose environments are different than those of a commercial practice. I'm profoundly grateful that I got to work there anyway, even though there had been some significant fumbling around early on as I was figuring out how everything worked. Given that it was a small environment, I think the learning curve was particularly steep. On the upside, however, if I so decided, I actually could go hang out my own shingle now and have some idea how to do it. Law school doesn't really teach you anything about how to be a solo practitioner, and nor does big firm life. I'm definitely at an advantage in this regard then for having worked there.

So what had started out as a temporary port in the storm actually turned out to be a great year-long experience. But it was inherently only temporary, and now it's on to do something else. The timing of my departure ended up a bit inopportune because it is highly unlikely I'll even be able to find another contract of any sort before the holidays, but I'm actually thrilled by this turn of events: I get a month off.

All I remember for the last five or six years or so is the sensation of running. Running around trying to support myself during the recession, to visiting and applying to law schools, to simultaneously being involved with two major volunteer endeavors I was committed to up to the gills, to needing to move across the country, to needing to start law school, to law school itself and all its coursework, papers, notes, and other extracurricular commitments, to needing to move around some more, to needing to be looking for new jobs almost constantly, to needing to take bar exam after bar exam, to needing to do all sorts of CLEs, to finishing up this trial... My future for so long has been hostage to my present, but now that present is all past. I've reached the goal I've been working towards, and now I get to set forth for new ones.

Starting with December. It's fantastic. I can't do much else with this month anyway, but for the first time in eons so little is actually required of me. No tests, no deadlines, no obligations. I'll start spreading my resume so I can try to get something together as soon as possible in January, but otherwise this month is mine to catch up on everything that has been neglected year after year and start building towards what I want next.

I'll probably take a few days to get organized and come up with a plan of attack. Today is Big Game day anyway, and then Tuesday is swearing-in day. But I'm so looking forward to working on those other projects I've got going and seeing what I can make of them now that I finally have the time.