Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Legal Learning Podcast. I’m your host Jolene. And with the Legal Learning Center, I help prospective law students save $300,000 on law school. Legal Learning Center members will be invited to a live webinar offering strategies that could save you tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars on law school. Visit legallearningcenter.com to join the wait list today. I wanted to introduce you to Megan Smiley, who said something on her own podcast, but I wanted to share with you that concept was that we don’t have to know what we want to do with our lives. We don’t have to choose an it. And when we choose an it, our current it doesn’t have to be it. We can always have another it. And when we move on to that second it we’re not stuck. We don’t have to stay there either. There can always be another it. So with that thought, let’s talk to Megan.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
So I’m Megan Smiley. I am a recovering lawyer. I say I practiced corporate transactional law for about four years and then transitioned into law school administration. I was the director of international programs at a law school for nine years. In that time I started a podcast called The Lawyer’s Escape Pod, where I interview lawyers who have transitioned out of practice into other careers. And now I’ve moved into coaching people looking to make that transition as well.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Okay. All right. We are going to get into all of that, but today I want to start at the beginning. So when did you first decide you might want to be a lawyer?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Well, I think I have a story that’s similar to others, which is, you know, I come from a family of lawyers, so it felt like it was just an option. It was always kind of in my head. My dad’s a lawyer, two of his three sisters are lawyers, both of his parents. And my grandmother was like the only woman in her law school class. So it’s like deeply in my history. But even with that, I didn’t immediately think I’m definitely going to law school. I wasn’t sort of in college on the fast track. I majored in French and international studies and I came out of college and I did a lot of things. I, I moved to California and worked in a, sort of a legal job. Then I moved back to the East coast and I was a middle school math teacher.
Speaker 2 (02:42):
And, you know, I worked for an investment company. I did all sorts of random things. I took three years off. It was very clear to me that teaching was not my goal. I’m certainly not middle school math. And so I of just got to 3 years out of college with no clear answer about what else I wanted to do. And so I thought, well, law school, it’s there. It seems like an option. It’s, you know, my background was like, you know, international studies and French it’s like, what are you going to do? I guess I’ll go to law school. So I, you know, it wasn’t, it wasn’t like the most massively well thought out life plan.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
Okay. So now did you have a certain area of law you thought you might practice?
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Yeah, I think vaguely, I would have told you, I wanted to do quote unquote international law, but I would not have known what that was.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
That was one of my areas too. What did that mean?
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Yes, exactly. So, yeah, I think I had that in mind. But again, I hadn’t really done my research on what I meant by that.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So, okay. So you graduated, you started practicing now, what type of law did you start practicing?
Speaker 2 (04:08):
So I kind of just, so when I was in law school, I dunno took normal classes. I guess I probably leaned towards litigation because that’s what law school leans towards. I actually did study abroad in law school which I guess was my like, attempt to do something international.
Speaker 1:
Was that for a whole year?
Speaker2:
I did a semester in London, which was amazing. And I, you know, flash forward to working in law school. That’s what I helped students in law school study abroad. So loved that, but it didn’t really tie to my immediate job. I kind of got swept up in the OCI that everybody gets swept up in and I didn’t have a clear other path. And so when I was offered a decent amount of money coming out of law school for this job, I thought, you know, all right, I guess I’ll go do that. And at my firm you were able to, the first year was sort of a rotation basis. So you took projects from all of the departments which I really valued because I think I would’ve said I wanted to go into litigation and then it became very clear to me in the actual practice that I was much better suited to a corporate practice.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
How nice. I don’t think it’s super common.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, yeah. It was. Yeah. I think it, I think it helped people land at least give them the best chance possible to land somewhere they were going to enjoy.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Oh my gosh. Okay. So you did corporate law for, you said four years?
Speaker 2:
Four years. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
And so was there a point whether it was in law school or while you were practicing when you first noticed things don’t feel great?
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yeah. I mean, I think in law school, I always felt a little bit left of center. Like everyone was like so intense and like, you know, in it to win it. And my, my whole attitude was just a little more like, I mean, I did fine and I got a job and everything, but I just, I just didn’t feel as motivated by sort of the, you know, the climbing of the legal ladder as the people around me. And so when I got to the firm and you have to give your whole life, it feels like to, you know, with corporate work, it’s kind of feast or famine and, you know, it was really busy. You would have, you know, sort of sprints of working all night and working all weekend and you don’t know when those things are going to come up and it’s just, you have no control over your life.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
And so I didn’t like the lifestyle aspect of it, but truthfully, I just also realized I didn’t enjoy practicing. Like the actual doing of the law was, it was fine. I was good at it. I just didn’t enjoy doing it. And so I was looking around and seeing people who seemed really engaged and I worked with this partner who was awesome. He was really nice and really took me under his wing. And he was just one of these guys that loves it. Right. Like he just loved going to work and he could like juggle all the balls and not be unhappy doing it. But I was just like, I just don’t see myself ever be being that, this is just not, this is just not for me. And so I think that was, it was pretty soon into practicing, I would say within the first year that I started to think this is not a long-term gig for me.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Did you even look at other firms or options within the legal industry?
Speaker 2 (07:40):
I did. And I think that was sort of one of the gifts of being where I was, was that I actually really enjoyed my firm for the most part. And I was working with good people. And I, you know, I looked at the, you know, one of my friends at the firm were doing, and I was like, I feel like I’m in the right department. I just, you know, I was able to kind of see that I’m not sure this is a practice area problem, but I thought about, Oh, maybe it would be going in-house I thought about going in-house especially, you know, it’s sort of an obvious next step from practice. But there was just something in my gut that said, that’s not a big enough leap.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, it’s a nice little security blanket when you’re not happy to just maybe check it out, but it’s true. And the people I’ve talked to and just feelings I’ve had before you kind of know. Yeah. Maybe I could try something like that, but I don’t think that’s really going to go anywhere.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
And you know, each person’s journey is what it is. Like, you know, it doesn’t, it’s not a mistake. I don’t think it would have been a mistake to do that. It just sort of, I think I would have gotten there and been like, yep, confirmed. This is also not me.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
Okay. So you left after four years and you said you did what again?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
So, you know, I had, when I was thinking, I was like, okay, I don’t want to practice law, but what else am I going to do? So I attempted to conduct a little bit of like research on my options. And one of the things I had a friend who had left practice to go back and get a master’s in higher education administration. And he had gone on to work in career services at a law school. And I didn’t want to do career services, but because of my experience with studying abroad and my interest in international things, I thought, well, what if I worked at a law school in sort of this international programs space? And I talked to one person who confirmed to me that there were jobs. It wasn’t, I wasn’t entirely making up this industry. Although again, and this maybe becomes a theme is I didn’t do like a ton, a ton of research on it.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
And I was getting to that point at the job where I was just like, I need out. And so I ended up going that route and going back to get a master’s in higher education administration with a very specific idea of what I wanted to do. Which I think helped because I tailored my education around that. And I networked from that perspective when I was in school. And so when I graduated a director of international programs job popped up at, at Fordham and I was like, that’s the job for me.
Speaker 1 (10:37):
Wow. Wouldn’t that be amazing if we did that before we even started law school, you know? Did that networking so that we take the right classes, not just what we think we should be taking and all that.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
Right. It was such a good lesson in when you have an idea of something that actually interests you and you go out and put yourself, you know, in the space where people who do that, you know, I had gone to a conference that year. I was in school. I had just heard about it from someone I knew. And I went, and it was a small conference, maybe like 25 people. And one of the people there was the assistant Dean of international programs at Fordham. So when that job came up, I was able to say, hey, we, we met loosely at this conference. And that shot me to the head of the line for that, for that job.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Wow. Amazing. Yeah. So the reason I asked you on here was because of something you actually said in one of your episodes on your podcast, which I love, and I’m going to loosely paraphrase because I definitely don’t have it memorized, but it was something along the lines of, you were saying that when you left law and you went into this new job, you were like, this is it. You know, you, you go to law school thinking, this is it. This is what I’m gonna do with the rest of my life. And then when that doesn’t quite work out, you think that you have to find that next, perfect job, this something that’s going to last you, the rest of your life, your next 30, 40, whatever it is, years, this is it. And then you found that that also was not it. And in fact there was no real it, it’s just the next it. I love that. It’s I think we just get really hung up on this. I must know what I want to do with my life. I must do it now. I can’t explore or experiment. I have to get on a path and if I’m not on a direct path, I’m like a loser or something, you know?
Speaker 2 (12:32):
Right, right. And you get really stuck. Like, you know, people often ask like, was it hard to leave practice? And I mean, yes, it was, there were some of the elements that I know a lot of people face when they leave practice. But somehow that was like, I had more clarity around that, but I, when I thought I’ve made this big jump, like I’ve already done that. And it was better. It was a better match for me. And I did really like it for a period of time. So just imagine my like shock and confusion when, you know, five years in, I’m looking around thinking what this, isn’t it forever now, what do I do? Oh my gosh. You know? And it’s although I will say I tie this to something I would recommend to people is I think that as lawyers we’re, you know, we’re like academics.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
We’ve, you’ve gone through law school. You’re good at school. So I think when we start to, to ask what we want to do, a lot of us, myself included revert to, okay, what other schooling can I get? And I did this. It was by no means necessary for me to get that degree, to get that job. And I would just caution people about over committing to degrees, because then you feel even more committed. Like, it feels like you have made more of a commitment to something you’re trying out versus just allowing yourself to say, I’m trying this out.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
It’s very hard. It’s even within the legal space, not all positions require an LLM, but some you can benefit from it. You can get higher pay or whatever into a bigger firm, not this mom and pop firms or whatever. And, but then do you want to pay an extra 30, 50, whatever grand for that extra year of education? And some people, again, we just get so suckered into it and I almost got suckered into it and you know, who knows, maybe it would have been a good thing, but I just really couldn’t face that extra amount, you know?
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yeah. And it’s not, again, like everyone has their path, but I would definitely caution people against solving this confusion problem with another degree.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Yeah. There’s a lot of jobs you can get for free out there. You don’t have to pay for all of them.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
And being a lawyer really prepares you well for a lot of things. I always use the example that my brother’s in business, he went to business school and he was working at a startup and I was talking to him in my kind of second career change conversations. And he’s like I said, well, you know, I don’t want to be a lawyer for a startup. I don’t want to practice, so what job there would I even be qualified for? And he’s like, you have to understand that you just bring a certain gravitas and set of skills. And particularly in startups, nobody knows what they’re doing. And if you can just like pitch in to help kind of get, you know, not practice law, but bring that perspective. It’s super valuable. So just to remember that, it’s not that you’ve like, you know, if you decide you don’t want to formally practice it doesn’t mean you can’t do anything, but formally practice. You’re bringing all of that with you. And it is valuable to people.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
It is so true, you know, how to analyze everything, whether it’s a technical document. And again, doesn’t have to be legally analyze, but just analyze, or even just with, when you’re dealing with a client and what they’re saying, you can kind of read between those lines and you can better understand what they’re actually saying sometimes because of the training we’ve had. So it does help.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
So, okay. So you stayed with the law school for nine years.
Speaker 2 (16:19):
Yeah. Which nine years seems like such a long time.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Oh my gosh. It does. It is a long time. And so, yeah. And then, so how did you make a transition out of there?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
This one I had to really like dig deep on because I was also, you know, I was getting older and thinking, you know, okay now, like how do I approach this in, you know, going into being 40 versus going into being 30. And so I really decided to go back to the drawing board and I started by like meditating and journaling and it, was certainly not the fast track to figuring things out, but I realized there was something that I realized that I couldn’t just solve this problem by Googling around for new jobs was that I had to actually reflect and go inside to kind of analyze what my, why is this? Why have these things not suited me? And what might suit me better if I also allow myself permission to think more broadly. So I started doing all of the things like anything that even remotely interested me.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
I tried, so I love to travel. So I took a photography class and sort of, so I could do more of the travel photography and I started a travel blog. And then I started my podcast. I took a voiceover class. I took an InDesign graphic design class. I was just throwing spaghetti at the wall a little bit to see what resonated, even if I wasn’t sure what job it was going to be. And the podcast really took hold for me. It was something that was easy and that I enjoyed. And I also took an interior design course and that I loved. And so that was kind of percolating in the back meantime, I had my full-time job, right. And I’m just allowing myself the space and flexibility to play with ideas. I also took the strengths finder test, which I found very helpful.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
I think there are a lot of these kinds of personality assessments that might be enlightening to people. What that told me was that my strengths don’t lie and execution sort of like dotting all your I’s and crossing all your T’s. I can do it, but it’s draining to me. The stuff that I enjoy is communication. Thinking about the future. So it was, it was just an interesting lens to see what my strengths were. And then as I was, you know, experimenting with all these things, seeing where those strengths overlapped with these different things. And I did actually start doing interior design on the side. But I was realizing it’s a little too nitty it’s a little too much of that execution.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
Yeah. I was gonna say that’s yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
But ultimately it’s why I’ve leaned into my podcast, into coaching because it lights me up and I have fun doing it, and it feels really easy and natural for me. And it plays into all of those, those strengths. So that’s kind of, it was multiple years evolution on getting there. Which I think, you know, sometimes you need.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah, absolutely. I think first of all, some of us drive ourselves into the ground, so we end up leaving frantically without an escape plan. And so it’s good that you took that time and really it was four or five years of just overlap basically.
It’s great. Cause you explored so much, which I think a lot of us, again, we’re onto the next thing and again, singular thing. And so we just focus, we hyper-focus, and we don’t actually look around and explore and yeah, there’s a common thing out there. They talk about like going back to your five or 10 year old self and you know, really thinking about what you like to play and do as a child and yeah. And, and exploring that. And I like the strength test too. I’m going to have to link that one for everybody. It’s we can do our personality test. There’s a lot of tests out there and I know in high school they had these ones where it was like, yeah, kind of like a strength test, but I’m sure very minimalist. You know what they tell you. Okay. You like to write, so you should like go to law school or whatever. But it doesn’t go really.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
And you know, the thing I also talk about a lot is thinking about your strengths versus skills. So you’re a lawyer and you develop these skills of reading contract or drafting, you know, an argument or whatever. But your strengths are the things that are, you know, communication skills or your ability to influence people there they’re sort of broader and more, a different angle. So I think a lot of people, when they think about what else they could do post law, they start from this limited category of what are the skills that I have here and where do those skills take me? Whereas if they took a step back and looked more broadly at really what their strengths are, those can be applied in a lot of different arenas.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
That makes a lot of sense. I think a lot of people are missing that piece and that’s why I ended up in the next wrong profession.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
And it’s like, that’s the biggest fear that people have is that they’re gonna make a wrong move and then they do, and then they feel dejected by it.
Speaker 1 (22:20):
Yeah. And I think for a lot of, even on the pre-law level, again, like we are, we know we’re good at academics. We like going to school, whether it’s easy for us or even if it’s a hard work, but we like that kind of work. But we limit ourselves right there because life isn’t about school. School’s a very finite period of our lives. So we need to make sure that what’s on the other end, we also like. There’s not a lot of opportunity to explore that it’s only limited to maybe two or so internships in law school.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
And I think, you know, law school and the law profession are not in, there are sort of clear paths to walk down and it is of course tempting to always kind of, well, that path is there. And I know I can succeed at that path. It’s harder to take a different path. And so I think that to the extent people, even within like what classes they take at law school or what kinds of areas of law they consider practicing is to really give themselves permission to cast a broad net.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
Yeah. I think the schools actually create the fear, you know, that you must do these things in this way, in this order or you are going to fail. You’re not going to get a job. And even just as, and I know this sounds crazy but for those who want that law degree, and aren’t dedicated to being an attorney, maybe go to a non ABA approved law school and get those skills, take that tech law class that, you know, then go for that startup and take those skills that you learned that you didn’t pay so much.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Yeah. We have this at Fordham that we launched. I know other schools do as well as is a master of legal studies. It’s a one-year master’s program that would serve that same purpose. You know, I think people who want to go into maybe journalism or compliance or healthcare, you know, if you’re thinking about going to law school for non-practicing law, which I think maybe is less common than it used to be, but you know, there are other options out there.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah. I think people, they get so wrapped up in all the things they’re told they should do that they forget that they never even went to law school to be an attorney. You know, they just thought of it as a possible path. And so they spend too much, or they are, you know, trying to get on moot court and they’re trying to do law review when they really don’t care about those things. They really just always wanted to graduate and maybe pass the bar and see where that led.
Speaker 2 (25:05):
Right. And I think that’s interesting too. I’m sure you talk to students about this is how do you choose a school depending on what you’re trying to get out of it, because you know, what I see on the back end is so many people are trapped by their student loans and to really think about how that plays into what your goals are from the get go, so that you don’t kind of trap yourself with that.
Speaker 1 (25:30):
Absolutely. It is much harder to transition out of law or even within law, if you are drowning in debt, if you’ve got this huge bill to pay every month. So yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah. For sure.
Speaker 1 (25:45):
So Megan, I really appreciate you joining us today. Do you have any final thoughts or tips for pre-law students that you would just love for them to know?
Speaker 2 (25:56):
I would just say, you know, you said something just now, which I think is so important is to not get caught up in the shoulds. You know, there are a lot of people that, you know, will tell you, you should do this, you have to do that. This is sort of the path. And just be sure that you’re connecting with yourself when you’re making these decisions and to try and not get completely swept up in, in the wave of the law school admissions and, you know, law school, you know, coming out on the other end, the job search process just try and stay true to what you’re actually trying to get out of the experience. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
If they want to find you on social media, where can they find you?
Speaker 2 (26:39):
They can find me at Megansmileyesq on Instagram and the podcast is thelawyersescapepod.com and it’s available on sort of all podcast platforms. All right. We’ll link it up. Thanks again. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Before we get into my top takeaways a quick or from our sponsor, Juno, if you need to take out student loans, check in with Juno first, Juno, can often offer law students one to 2% lower interest rates on their student loans than the federal government and with no origination fees and oftentimes cash back as well. Visit advisor.legallearningcenter.com/Juno, for more information, my top takeaways from this chat with Megan. So as I said at the introduction, there doesn’t have to be one it, one career for the rest of your life. It’s okay to reinvent yourself over and over. But with respect to that, you don’t always need more education to shift your focus and you should explore yourself self evaluate, self reflect, maybe even take some personality or strength finder tests, number two, avoid the shoulds in life. So in law school, they tell you what you should do at every single step of the way.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
And in life. We often feel that way as well, avoid that as much as possible do what’s right for you. Number three, if you don’t really want to be an attorney, you just want that Juris Doctorate for the skills that it gives you or the prestige. You could always get a masters of law and that will get you where you want to go, most of the time. That’s it for this episode, all the tips links and so forth will be in the show notes. A full transcript will be available@legallearningcenter.com/thelawyersescapepod. I’m going to use her podcast for that one. And if you enjoyed this episode of you learned something today, please leave a review comment, subscribe that just makes the show more visible and can help those who may need it. Thank you.
