It has come to my attention based on the questions people have asked me in person, in comments here, and on my facebook profile, that I may have failed to clearly communicate that I am not going back to the law, and why.

The short answer is the law is not for me. The long answer is, well, a bit longer.

It makes some people feel better when I note the following, and so for your sake I note it here. When I say that I am not going back to the law it is perhaps more accurate to say that I view the law as a carer that I will always have to fall back on.

However, if and when I go back to the law it will be because I have failed in my attempts to be successful in my other endeavors. I have yet to fail at anything I have put my all into in this life, and I do not plan to fail now.

Eight years ago I had my BA in Literature (Creative Writing) from UC Santa Cruz and I had plans to go on to get my MFA in creative writing. My eventual dream was to be a professor of Literature and Creative Writing at a university.

My uncle the lawyer seized what he saw as a window of opportunity. Before I applied to graduate schools he took me aside and gave me his sales pitch on why I should go to law school and get my JD instead. His main selling point was that a JD would open up more opportunities than an MFA, and that if I truly wanted to be a professor I would be of more value to a school with my JD than with my MFA. The secondary selling points were that a career in the law offers job security and a great salary.

I bought in. I really did enter law school believing there would be a world of possibilities open to me because of it, believing that is was one path to becoming a professor, and believing that I would not become a practicing lawyer.

However, by the time you have been through four years of law school you don't believe you've got any choice other than to take the bar exam. And once you've passed the bar, you don't believe you're qualified to do anything other than practice law, nor do you see any other way of beginning to pay off the enormous student loan debt you've incurred.

And so I came to find myself practicing law.


There were times I thought I loved what I did and times I balled my eyes out on the floor of my office. I had it easier than most attorneys, to say the least.

About three or four months ago, however, the way I truly felt about my career began to surface. I thought I was depressed. I've suffered periods of depression before, and so I started seeing my therapist again. As we discussed what I was feeling and experiencing, it turned out that I wasn't depressed. I was just unsure of my career choice. And as we more deeply explored my feelings I came to be strongly aware that I was unhappy practicing law. My lack of fulfillment in my career was casting a dark cloud on my whole life. I was starting to question my relationships with my boyfriend, my friends, my family. I was not happy, and it was showing in every aspect of my life.

So that's it. Long story short, my career in the law was not making me happy. I had sold out my dreams long ago for beliefs that turned out to be untrue. When I realized the law was not what I had bought into AND that it was making me miserable, it seemed very apparent to me that I had only one choice. I had to leave the law and pursue a career that was going to be fulfilling and that I would be happy to spend my life doing.

There is a book my former boss gave me called "The Creative Lawyer." It is a workbook for developing a fulfilling career in the law. One of the questions it asks is: If you came into a large sum of money tomorrow and didn't have to work, would you continue in your law practice? My answer, written about two years ago, was an unequivocal no.

And so I have decided to pursue my dreams. I am going back to school for my MFA and then likely my PhD. I am going to write, and I am going to be a professor of Literature and Creative Writing at a university, like I always wanted.

When I was working with my therapist to find out what I do want to do, since we knew what I did not want to do, I was unsure at first. It had been so long since I was on the path of following my dreams and they seemed so far away. When I was exploring the possibility of going back to school and working toward becoming a professor, I asked myself one question: If I came into a large sum of money tomorrow and didn't have to work, would I still want to be a professor? My answer was an unequivocal yes. And that is how I know that I have made the right choice.