Careers. Much Ado About Nothing?
| Author | John Roemer |
| Pages | 15-16 |
CAREERS
Much Ado
About
Nothing?
When it comes to lawyers, is the
‘Great Resignation’ really just the
‘Great Reshuffle’?
BY JOHN ROEMER
Heather Meeker sipped on
a glass of Champagne as
she deleted all her rm’s
required apps from her
electronic devices.
After 25 years as a mergers and ac-
quisitions lawyer at a series of BigLaw
rms in Silicon Valley, including the last
seven-plus as a partner at O’Melveny &
Myers, Meeker says she was jolted out
of her rut by the pandemic. She’s now
joined the “Great Resignation,” leaving
O’Melveny for a fresh job at a virtual
four-lawyer shop while pursuing new
horizons by co-founding an early-stage
venture capital fund. She cites the new-
found pleasures of working from home,
an impatience with BigLaw bureaucracy
and a pandemic-inspired desire to test
her entrepreneurial talents.
“I’m not just leaving BigLaw, I’m re-
arranging the mix,” Meeker says. “The
cataclysm of COVID focuses you on
what’s important in life. At a big rm,
it’s easy to just keep your head down
and work. Many lawyers are making
changes now, leaving large organiza-
tions to work for themselves. What
most want is more exibility. Big rms
are very traditional. They nd it hard to
make changes.”
It appears that Meeker’s daily duties
and physical workspace have not
altered much. “I’m sitting at the same
desk in my home ofce and doing the
same technonerd things,” she says of
wielding her expertise to advise clients
on software copyright and patent issues,
open source licensing strategies and in-
tellectual property’s role in investments.
The friendly parting she arranged with
O’Melveny now has her referring busi-
ness to her former colleagues. “But I’m
doing it without the big rm annoy-
ances of endless Zoom meetings and all
that cumbersome proprietary software.”
But her quality of life has improved.
As she recounted in a January 2022
column titled “How I Joined the Great
Resignation” for the Daily Journal, she
did not miss the commute, the unnec-
essary business trips and all that ofce
face time. Then she listed the pluses
that remote work enabled: “I nally
got enough sleep. ... I ate dinner every
day with my husband. I took walks
during the day.”
BigLaw partners and associates
joining the Great Resignation are not so
much rejecting the legal industry as they
are embracing new possibilities and
bidding for greener pastures. Maybe
the term should instead be referred to
as the “Great Reshufing,” as lawyers
are voting with their feet against job
discontent and optimistically seeking
new paths.
Those interviewed for this story say
that despite the increased job-switch-
ing, most lawyers remain within the
profession.
In 2018, 5,095 partners and coun-
sel at the Top 200 U.S. rms exited; in
2021, that group’s departures numbered
5,959—an increase of 17%, accord-
ing to data from Leopard Solutions, a
Business of Law | CAREERS
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ABA JOURNAL | APRIL–MAY 2022
15
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