Giving Partnership the Middle Finger

It's good to be back with another update: tomorrow will be my last day as a partner at my firm. I'm leaving it so that I can do... well... I'd rather do anything else. Being a partner and, in fact, being on the traditional track to whatever success is supposed to be is a sure-fire way to surrender yourself to the machine. No more.

I have learned a lot while being at my firm. I have learned, for instance, how people should not be managed, how partners should not be spun to by other partners, and how money should not be spent.

I've learned that you'll never please 100% of the people 100% of the time. I've learned that many law partners are absolutely shitty business partners with no sense of what it takes to be successful or what is required to move collectively in a positive direction.

I've learned that many leaders of average or below-average organizations haven't the ability or the intellectual wherewithal to listen.

I have also learned a great deal about myself, who I aspire to be, and what I want my one life on this planet to look like. For a long time, I've said, "If I die while at my firm, they better not put 'She was a hard worker' on my gravestone. I will come back and vomit pea soup all over everyone in attendance if that happens." I want to be more than a hard worker. I have much more than that to offer.

It took the world of my career nearly crumbling in all directions to finally realize, "Hmmm. Maybe I should get out of this rat race." So, I did what nobody thought I would have the gumption to do: I tendered my resignation on July 18th with a final day of August 31st, providing a 45-day resignation period as required of all of our partners.

I decided that my hard work should not go into an abyss that would heavily fund some of the least competent and most self-absorbed people I've ever met. I am going to be working for myself and for my clients.

Being on the career track that I was on led me to an emptiness that I cannot adequately describe. I could not see outside of my circumstance. Constantly haunted by the cloud of student loans, I believed that there was no way out. The "smartest" thing I could do was to stick it out until everything was paid off; then I could leave. Then I could have freedom.

Well, screw that.

We are not guaranteed anything in this life. Even as I type this, I am not guaranteed that I will reach the next word or that I will live to press the "publish" button.

When things finally got to a point where I wasn't getting paid (due to a variety of issues), I realized that Jim Carrey--in one of the greatest speeches of all time--was right. "You can fail at what you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love."

Although I have grown to detest what my role at the firm has become, I genuinely love the employees. The staff and the associate attorneys have my heart.

There are a few partners whom I've grown close to as well, but, sadly, their voices are drowned out by the more powerful, obtuse voices.

But it is my love for the employees that is leading me to go into my passion: helping people to shatter the narrative... whatever that narrative might be that is holding them back. For me, the narrative started when I was in law school, which was that being a successful attorney required being in the top 10%, being on law review, being on the moot court board, and landing a federal clerkship after law school. This narrative is complete bullshit. I made partner at my firm faster than anyone in its 75-year history, and I didn't do any of the things that the Career Services office at my law school said that I'd have to do in order to succeed.

The narrative continued into my career. We are told that success means being on a partner track and then making partner, regardless of what that journey does to the rest of our lives. We are told that this is success and that this should be enough to fulfill us. We have arrived.  We are told that these are the accolades that matter. This is what we should strive for.

This, too, is bullshit.

So, I've gone into forbearance (not default) on my student loans, and that's just going to have to be ok. I cannot go back to doing what I was doing. I cannot work for a firm. I cannot go in-house. Working for the machine literally makes me want to die. I cannot do it anymore. I would rather drive for Lyft or go back to waiting tables than work in a firm again.

When did I know that enough was enough? I asked myself, "If I had a crystal ball that accurately predicted beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything in the firm would be ok and that, over the next three years, I would make $1 million, would it be worth it to stay?" I answered myself in the negative. So, it was time to go.

This is not to say that working in a firm is valueless. It has its merit. After all, at a firm, you are paid to be trained. So, go and get trained, but do so at a firm where the words "work-life balance" are not treated as though a pervert just flashed your grandmother.

At a toast that was given in my honor at a recent going-away party, a highly influential partner in the firm raised a glass and praised me for never having uttered the words "work-life balance." I was horrified. While understanding that this was meant to be a compliment, the look on the young associates' faces was awful. Should they be ashamed for wanting balance between work and life? No! To this, I say, "Do not be like me! Demand balance, and don't wait until you've reached the point where you don't care whether you live or die. Save yourself!"

It felt good to break a bunch of barriers. It was extremely difficult to succeed in the face of the BS law school narrative of success. And now, once again, I will succeed in the face of the BS legal career narrative of success.

I am hanging my own shingle, having absorbed all of the lessons that I've learned while at my firm. When I expand to hire employees, I will insist rather than fear that they have work-life balance.