9 Reflections on post-law life - part 1
One year ago today,* I stowed my court robes and rollie-bag in a far closet and closed the door. OK, truth is I wasn’t really that kind of lawyer any more so what I actually did was check the ‘not practising’ box on the law society portal and turn in my office elevator pass. I’ve had a year to think about the 17 year experience of lawyering and what it’s like to move on to something else in (late) middle-age. Here are some reflections.
1. Law is not the only way to be reborn
One of the not-entirely-endearing features of lawyers is their penchant for referring to their number of years of practice, as in “I’m a 16 year call.” This always bugged me. It seemed like everything that happens to a person who happens, at the time, to be a non-lawyer doesn’t really count as living, that being called to the bar is a rebirth of sorts.
I’ve discovered this year that you can have more than one set of callings and rebirths. I wasn’t called from the bar in late 2022, but I was called away to do something else. And I couldn’t be happier with the decision.
2. I’m no longer the youngest
As a gen-xer, I’ve had a lifetime of being the youngest.
First at home, where I came fifteen years after my eldest sibling and eight years after the one closest in age to me. With older parents who were at the stage of going out when I was a tween and the only one at home, I spent time in rooms with full-on adults, quietly reading a book in the corner, and later, engaging in my parents’ hobby that will get its own blog at some later date.
When I started work in the early 90s at 23, I jumped right into management surrounded by boomers in their late 30s and 40s. They were generous with their coaching, loving the mentorship role as much as I loved learning from them. Law school provided a brief moment of being among the oldest students; post-law, though, I was back to being the youngest partner at the firm.
But now - oh it’s different now. The pandemic prompted boomer retirements or shifts to consulting. There’s now a whole whack of millennials who are enjoying their moment. Twice this fall I was the oldest speaker on a panel. The first time, it was such a shock that I began my comments by addressing this unusual moment — “go grey power” played well to a crowd of boomer women!
3. Reinvention isn’t retirement
I can’t be the only one to have left law in late-middle-age and gone on to work elsewhere, but from the assumptions people have made, it sure feels like it! Many have assumed I’m still practising, just for another organization. It’s the source of great amusement to my colleague when I bristle at this. I’m not a lawyer, I respond, a little too defensively. Then there are the others who greet me inquiring how retirement is. I dunno. I haven’t retired and am not in a position financially or emotionally to retire. While I look forward to taking even less work on in the future - I am working two jobs now just slightly less than full-time - I am certainly not ready for retirement.
It’s not just me - I had occasion to discuss this response with Toronto’s long-time housing advocate, Cathy Crowe. She stopped nursing a year ago** and she’s also amazed at how people cannot envisage a situation where you were once this credentialed thing and now you’re not but you’re still working! For me, it’s a reflection back on point 1 above - it’s not just lawyers who see the achievement of the “call” as the beginning of the end, rather than just another step in a process of life-long learning. I hope successive generations will enjoy more freedom to change.
4. Freedom is not docketing
Even non-lawyers have heard of it, despite its complete absence from TV lawyering — docketing. Imagine living your life in six minute increments, moving from one clock to another as you shift through your file list, and hoping at the end of the day you’ve accounted for enough time to appease bosses, business partners, or others you’re accountable to. Docketing rewards those who work slowly or who overanalyze things and that’s not me. Nearly every day for 17 years, I felt I’d fallen short.
In my new job, while I am committed to providing a certain number of hours weekly, what a luxury it feels to be able to seamlessly move from one thought or task to another without noting it for the billing. I can stop work when the job is done, instead of experiencing the internal tension between “I’m wasting a client’s money” and “I need to prove I’m worth something at this firm.”
I admire firms with more innovative ways to bill, creating more certainty for clients and likely happier lawyers.
Stay tuned for next week’s entry for my other five reflections.
* From a year ago, here’s my love letter to Iler Campbell LLP, my old firm.
** Here’s Cathy Crowe’s account of why she stopped nursing.
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