New York Lawyer
June 25, 2002

Q:
I'm really discouraged about making a successful career change.

When I was thinking about going to law school, a lot of people said, "it will never hurt you." As I explore non-lawyer careers, it does seem to be hurting me.

All these motivational books say that you can be whatever you dream of being, but the real world keeps saying that after you've practiced law for awhile (6 years in my case) it's just about impossible to re-invent yourself.

I need a job, and I need a life, and I'm afraid I'm going to be stuck forever where I am. What's the real truth?

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A:
The real truth is that there is no real truth. There are merely trends, generalizations, operative myths, and self-fulfilling prophecies. There are lucky people, unlucky people, people with focus and ambition, and people who rely on other people to define, motivate or rescue them.

Still, some bits of conventional wisdom seem to be true enough often enough to serve as operative principles:

In terms of shifting career identities, a law degree can "hurt you," inasmuch as it suggests to the world that after having chosen to be a specialist [rather than a generalist], you've now decided you made a mistake. Leaving a specialty raises questions about your judgment, motivation and focus that you have to address powerfully and succinctly to potential employers in new arenas. Lawyers generally are given credit for being analytical, articulate and persuasive, but so are a lot of other people with good liberal arts educations. Non-legal employers often say they "don't know what to do with ex-lawyers." You have to explain it to them.

Career shifts almost always take longer than simple job changes, because you are transiting from being a "known commodity" to being an unproven product. This fuzzy "product foucs" makes the job market uncomfortable. You have the burden of defining the features and benefits of the "new product;" others won't and shouldn't be asked to do it for you.

Most successful career shifts are made as a sequenced, cumulative process encompassing a series of incremental steps, rather than a single, instantaneous paradigm shift. Accordingly, they require a lot of planning, a lot of patience and a ton of determination. Even then, they sometimes don't come off as planned, particularly if some unforeseen and uncontrollable force -- like 9/11 or a recession -- intervenes to make the marketplace more conservative.

This planning can create a classic bind: you are supposed to know and be able to articulate what you want to do with your career. But unless God has touched with a "calling," how are you supposed to know what you're best suited to do -- or what jobs are "out there?" Therefore, for even the most focused career planners, the actual implementation of a "career plan" is likely to involve a certain amount of revision of priorities along the way. A rigid plan may suggest a rigid person.

On the other hand, if you bounce around wildly kissing a bunch of frogs in the hope that one will turn into a prince, the job market is likely to view you as unstable, unfocused or even downright incompetent. The point: your plan can change, but at any given point you should be able to articulate a plan, a direction and an awareness of where you've already been.

A fascinating career case study is a remarkable woman named Carolyn Hansen. She always knew she was interested in international law and business, so her first several, increasingly-responsible in-house legal positions focused on credential-building: she was an international operations attorney for Johnson Was for 5 years and then a senior counsel for the international pharmaceutical division of Schering-Plough for another 7 years.

During this entire time she was planning to move to Taiwan to study Chinese and focus her practice on entrepreneurial international business development. She says a force majeure could have changed that plan, but this remained her firm baseline intent. In 1988, she made the move: resigned from her third position -- heading the law department for the $1 billion international division of Ralston Purina -- and took the leap to China.

It was very hard swimming. For several years she studied Chinese for 5-7 hours a day and worked to develop contacts in Taipei and with potential trade partners back in the US. She declined opportunities for partnership with several major international law firms in order to preserve her autonomy.

As her practice developed, she realized that "I'm really good at starting organizations," and also that there were strong personal values that sought expression in not-for-profit activities geared toward cultural preservation and sustainable world development. While maintaining her identity as a lawyer skilled in international law and business development, she founded the Taiwan Business Council for Sustainable Development and served as founder and chair of Earthplace-Taiwan, which served as the local agent for the Worldwatch Institute.

She developed a reputation for not-for-profit development that paralleled her legal identity. Carolyn also became an active and avid practictioner of meditation, and pursued intensive study into meditation, Buddhism and the spiritual dimensions of her life -- which came to occupy a pivotal position in her personal identity. In 1999 she returned to the US, serving initially as Fundraiser and Program Planner for the Dharma Drum Retreat Center in the Hudson Valley. In this capacity she coordinated the Center's participation in the UN Millenium Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders. Sound like a business lawyer?

So just what is Carolyn today? A lawyer? Well, she practices some law. A not-for-profit development expert? Well, she does a good bit of consulting in that area. A mediator? She's certified to do that, too. She is an advisor for the Renaissance Lawyer Society, which coordinates movements for transformation of the legal profession into a more humanistic calling.

At this point in her career, after three major transformations, Carolyn is hard to pigeonhole. She must define herself in terms of what she does, more than what she is. Who are her clients? People who have met her and seen her in action. At each stage of her career, there was a plan that defined a direction, but not a destination. She has gone with the flow, but not passively; a lot of paddling has gone on.

Is her example a model for everyone? Certainly not. But her career serves as hard evidence that whatever happens must be possible. She subscribed to what might be called "the resume theory of life," which says that it may not be possible to control the future, but everyone should be able to defend their career, their life and their choices in hindsight.

By the way, Carolyn is pretty content these days. And she's still in motion, still driving toward new challenges, activities and experiences. She knows she will never "get there." So for Carolyn, the journey is everything.

Sincerely,
Douglas B. Richardson
President, The Richardson Group