Tired of litigation. Tired of billing. Hate it now, actually. In-house opportunities are flooded with applicants. Feeling stuck and demoralized. Just needed to vent to fellow lawyers.

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Hi, I am hopeful this post is helpful. I’m an ex litigator of over 10 years. About 7 years ago, I was contemplating career choices. I’m currently the Director of Pricing and Legal Project Management for an Amlaw 50 firm. It’s a career I really enjoy as it combines substantive legal knowledge along with financial modeling.

These are becoming very common careers for folks that are burned out attorneys. Your options are not longer limited to law firm; in-house; or government. There are lots of open roles in business services on the law firm side (pricing, legal project management, innovation, knowledge management and/or practice management) on the law firm side. On the client side, similar roles are generally called legal operations.

JDs are highly valued in these roles, and typically come with a premium over published salaries. I hope the group finds this useful as you consider career pathways.

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Solidarity. And I wish you lots of luck.

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Thanks!!

It's normal,you are paying the price for following the herd(making lots of money) and not following your passion
So now since you started experiencing symptoms of burnt out focus on what you like to do and follow that little by little until it will become something that you like to do and won't feel like work at all

1.Take action towards that goal which means: small steps

2.Be consistent:Do this everyday,once you realize that your passion takes 60% of your time than make a move for your passion to be your full time work

3.Venting is ok and needed but try to stay away from negative emotions and always think positive,focus on solutions to your emotions not problems created by choices you have made.When times like this come say to yourself : " I am who I am and that's enough"

4.Our brain is not designed to solve the world's problems or even our friends problems - restructure your monthly expenses that you wouldn't have to work as hard and set a goal for yourself to do this type of work part time

5.Never ever forget you are just a number for the company you work for,they will replace you once they use you,once they notice your mental health is not there and you make mistakes,they will present you with a notice but then don't blame them,don't even blame yourself take this as an opportunity to start something of your own

You're welcome
I hope this helped

Good luck 🍀

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Feeling the same way!! Other attorneys I've spoken to recently have encouraged me to pivot. On average, people pivot 5 times in their careers. Maybe one step you could take is finding someone whose job you'd really enjoy and asking them to chat about their experience. Best of luck!!

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In house roles aren’t what they are cracked up to be. Executives hire you because you have expertise but many aren’t as competent as they should be and may grow to resent your competence, even though you exhibit humility and respect. There is also a lot of “personality management” involved in in-house roles at start ups and smaller companies… less legal work and more hand-holding and being expected to rubber stamp as “legal” activities and plans that are highly risky and/or half-baked. You may want to consider whether you’d make a good therapist/politician as opposed to an attorney before taking one of these often extremely political roles.

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