Looking for a Happier Legal Career, or Something Different

• Jurisdiction: California,United States
• Citation: Vol. 01 No. 2010 Pg. 01
• Date: 01 January 2010
• Publication year: 2010
• Pages: 01
• Year: 2010
• topic: Business of Law,Employment Law

California Bar Journal 2010.

CBJ - January 2010 #01. Looking for a happier legal career, or something different

The California Lawyer
March 2010

Looking for a happier legal career, or something different

By Diane Curtis
Staff Writer

Some just want a change from the kind of law they're practicing. Others want a completely new profession that has nothing to do with the law. Some have lost their jobs or have seen their practices diminish to almost nothing or can't find that first job and just need an entree. And still others found time away from the law only made them more eager to get back to it.

For many reasons, lawyers attend legal career consultant Hindi Greenberg's seminars, and such was the case when the State Bar's Lawyer Assistance Program (LAP) hosted Greenberg's recent workshop in San Francisco.

* George Main wanted to network and learn about legal opportunities in the midst of a tumbling economy that hurt his immigration practice.

* Karren Moore-Jordan wanted to get out of probate law and shift to something that frees her from court-imposed schedules and pay.

* Birgitte Gilliland wanted to test her desire to return to law after being a stay-at-home mom despite assertions by family and friends that she was crazy to want to go back.

* And Peter Shelton wanted to know what he needed to do to get back to his "passion" after taking time out to manage a family real estate business.

"From conversations I've had with literally thousands and thousands of lawyers over the past 23 years," says Greenberg, 64, "I can break them into roughly two groups - those who think their practice of law should be abandoned, the sooner the better, and those who feel that using their legal skills is desirable but wish they could lessen aspects of the practice that they dislike, or find new meaning, or...