The Former Lawyer Podcast
Episodes
356 episodes
The Misery of Ambiguity and Forced Pretense in Law Firms
This episode is part 2 of the series where Sarah is chatting with Annie Little about the book Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber. If you missed the first episode in this s...
Is Being A Lawyer A Bullshit Job?
Sarah revisits the Bullshit Job series on today's podcast with Annie Little, another lawyer career coach. Annie has been on the podcast a few times in the past, like the episode on...
How Lawyers Can Rethink Their Skills for Business with Alex Su
In legal practice, it is easy to start measuring yourself by whether you can cover every detail, do everything perfectly, and keep grinding through whatever is in front of you. If that is not the way you are wired, it can feel like there is som...
How to Take A Mental Health Leave of Absence From Your Law Firm with Megan Nogasky
Listen, it's the summer of 2026. Everything is a dumpster fire, and there are a lot of people who have been struggling a lot with their mental health, especially in the last two years. Sarah's seen a lot of clients take mental health leave or a...
Leaving the Law When You’re Already Burned Out
Leaving the law when you’re already burned out can feel impossible, because the job you need energy to escape is the same job draining all of your energy. You may understand that you need to figure out what comes next, but when you are scraping...
Making a Career Change When You're Afraid of Getting It Wrong with Kelcey Baker
Going to law school felt like the right call. For some lawyers it felt like the obvious call, backed up by experience, by personality, by everything they knew about themselves at the time. So when practicing law turns out to be a bad fit, the h...
The Shame Lawyers Feel About Wanting to Leave Law
Somewhere along the way, most lawyers picked up the idea that once you commit to something, you follow through. No exceptions. So when the thought of leaving starts to surface, it doesn't feel like a career question. It feels like there's somet...
From Commercial Litigator to Personal Trainer and Business Owner with Zach Reisch
Lawyers who know they want to leave often get stuck in the same place. Not because they don't want to move, but because they're waiting to feel certain about what comes next. Sarah Cottrell sees lawyers who won't make a move until they have a n...
Translating Legal Skills for a Non-Legal Job Doesn't Start With Your Resume
When lawyers start thinking about doing something else, the first thing they reach for is almost always the resume. It feels like real progress. It produces something tangible. And for lawyers who are used to having clear work product, that mat...
Leaving Biglaw to Become a Sex and Relationship Coach with Amy Terwilleger
On paper, Amy Terwilleger’s life as a lawyer looked great. Partner at a regional firm in Florida. Deputy general counsel. Thirteen years of business litigation. Married with two kids. And the whole time, a constant restless feeling she could no...
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Trying to Justify Leaving Law Is What’s Keeping You There
If you're thinking about leaving the law, there's a good chance you've asked yourself some version of this question. Am I justified in doing this? You already know the environment isn't good for you. You already know something needs to change. ...
Tolerating Your Lawyer Job While You're Preparing to Leave
There are two very different situations a lawyer can be in when they start thinking about leaving. One is a job that is actively damaging their mental, physical, and emotional health. The other is a job that is just not the long-term answer. Wh...
How to Break Into Legal Tech and AI as a Lawyer with Ben Chiriboga
Legal tech comes up constantly when lawyers are thinking about leaving practice. It's legal adjacent, the field is growing, and there seem to be a lot of jobs. But when lawyers actually try to make a move, they usually don't know where to start...
How an Overdeveloped Sense of Responsibility Keeps Lawyers Stuck
Responsibility is one of the things that makes lawyers good at their jobs. It also shows up, over and over, as one of the things that makes it hardest for them to leave. Not because they don't want to go, but because leaving means someone else ...
What Doing Your Best Is Costing You as a Lawyer
For a lot of lawyers, hearing "just do your best" as a kid didn't feel reassuring. It felt like a requirement to give every ounce of everything they had until there was literally nothing left.That's not incidental. The kind of person who...
You Don't Have to Quit Your Job to Start Leaving Law
Lawyers thinking about leaving often get stuck on a question that feels practical but actually keeps them waiting longer than they need to. Do I need to quit my job before I start figuring out what I want to do instead? It sounds responsible, b...
Why Lawyers Think Feelings Are Optional and What It Costs Them
Lawyers who are unhappy at work often tell themselves they'll feel things later. When they retire, maybe. The sense is that feeling the full weight of what's happening would make it impossible to keep functioning, so the feelings get pushed dow...
Why High-Achieving Lawyers Stay in Jobs That Are Hurting Them
Being good at your job and being in the right job are not the same thing. For lawyers who are high achievers, that distinction can be almost impossible to see when every external signal, strong reviews, steady advancement, a reputation for gett...
The Perfectionist Trap That Makes It Hard to Leave Law
Lawyers are, as a group, highly responsible, hard on themselves, and convinced they should be able to handle more than anyone else around them. That combination does not just make for a stressful career. It makes it genuinely difficult to ackno...
Why Unhappy Lawyers Should Pick Up a Hobby Before They're Ready to Leave
For lawyers who know they are unhappy but are not ready to make any real moves yet, the waiting period can feel like dead time. There are things you can be doing right now, though, that will set you up for success when you are ready to go throu...
What Lawyers Wish They'd Asked Before Going to Law School
A lot of people end up going to law school without ever really asking themselves whether it's what they want to do.The questions in this episode are the real questions you should be asking yourself if you're considering law school. And i...
Hard Things Feel Hard Because They Are Hard
2026 is kicking a lot of people's asses, including Sarah's. She gets into what the last few weeks have actually looked like, and shares the reminder she keeps coming back to. Hard things feel hard because they are hard. Not because you're doing...
Escaping the Legal Grind to Build a Balanced Life with Dan Branagan
When lawyers look back at why they entered the profession, they often find the answer is less about a lifelong passion and more about a lack of other plans. Dan Branagan, a former bankruptcy associate turned data analyst, describes his journey ...
How to Explore Your Career Options After Law with Patience and a Plan
When Sarah looks back at her time in practice, she can see a pattern that shows up for almost every lawyer who thinks about leaving the law. She would have a kernel of interest in a career path outside of the law, but her brain would immediatel...
From Law School to Literary Agent with Lilly Ghahremani
Maybe you've thought about it. You love books, you love reading, and somewhere in the back of your mind, you've wondered if there's a way to turn that passion into a career that uses your legal skills without actually practicing law.Lill...
