The Former Lawyer Podcast

Being laid off from a legal job can create a lot of anxiety, financial and otherwise. If you’ve been laid off, you’re worried that a layoff might be coming, or you’ve been through one in the past, there are very real practical concerns that come with losing your job. We all have bills, we all need to be responsible adults, and sometimes getting another job practicing law is the choice that makes sense.
The question is whether you actually want another legal job or whether you’re looking for one because that feels like what you’re supposed to do next. If you felt an immense amount of relief when you were laid off, that feeling is information. You may not have realized how much pressure and stress your job was creating until suddenly that weight was lifted.
In this episode of The Former Lawyer Podcast, Sarah Cottrell talks about why being laid off can be a helpful catalyst for thinking about what you actually want to do next. She shares what she has seen with clients who didn’t recognize how unhappy they were until they were laid off, why another legal job can make sense as a bridge job, and why it’s worth listening if your reaction to losing your job was, “Thank goodness.”
2:09 - Clients who didn’t realize how unhappy they were until they were laid off
2:53 - Asking yourself whether you actually want another legal job
3:18 - The practical reasons you might choose another job practicing law
4:04 - Feeling relief after a layoff is information
5:17 - Using another legal job as a bridge job instead of trying to prove something
7:09 - Listening to what your reaction to being laid off is telling you

Mentioned In Do You Actually Want Another Legal Job After a Layoff?
First Steps to Leaving the Law
1:1 Coaching with Sarah Cottrell

Staying in a toxic law firm because you want to help change it can feel like a good reason to stay. You want to get to a position where you have more influence and can use that influence to make the environment better. The question is what staying long enough to get there is costing you along the way.
The harder part is that toxic environments can change your sense of what is normal or acceptable. You can start out very clear about what feels wrong and, over time, become more comfortable with things you previously would not have accepted. If the goal is to eventually use your influence to create change, you also have to be realistic about the difference between playing the game to get there and becoming part of the machine.
In this episode of The Former Lawyer Podcast, Sarah Cottrell talks about the cost of staying in a toxic law firm because you want to change it from the inside. She explains why toxic environments can change your sense of what is and is not okay, why gaining influence can make it harder to use that influence the way you originally intended, and why it is important to keep reassessing what staying is doing to you.
0:30 - Staying in a toxic law firm because you want to change it
1:45 - Lawyers think about the cost of leaving, not the cost of staying
2:15 - Staying to fix the environment can change you
3:08 - Playing the game to make change versus becoming part of the machine
4:21 - What happens when you finally have the influence you were waiting for
5:23 - Your conscience can be formed by your environment
6:18 - Being clear about who you are and what you are willing to do
7:50 - When the effect staying is having on you is a reason to reassess

Mentioned In The Cost of Staying in a Toxic Law Firm
First Steps to Leaving the Law
1:1 Coaching with Sarah Cottrell

When leaving law feels like letting other people down, it can become much harder to take your own unhappiness seriously. For lawyers who are women, first-gen, people of color, or part of another historically underrepresented group, there can be a very real sense that being in these spaces is not just about them. Their achievement can start to feel tied to representing other people well and showing what is possible.
The difficult part is that this sense of responsibility can mean having to get to a very bad place before being willing to prioritize yourself. Sarah sees lawyers whose experience at a law firm has been extremely detrimental to their mental, physical, emotional, and relational health, who still discount all of that and focus on the reasons they feel like they should stay. For people who are highly responsible, it can be very hard to value their own pain and suffering when they also feel responsible for what their leaving might mean for other people.
In this episode of The Former Lawyer Podcast, Sarah Cottrell talks about her own experience of feeling like leaving her law firm meant letting other women down and why she sees versions of that same dynamic with her clients. She talks about the sense that your existence and achievement in these spaces are not just about you, how that can keep people going even when the experience is doing real harm, and why your own well-being deserves to matter too.
0:29 - The pressure to stay when leaving feels like letting other people down
1:05 - Feeling responsible to advance for other women in Biglaw
3:00 - When your existence in the space feels like it’s not just about you
4:11 - Having to get to a very bad place before prioritizing yourself
5:17 - Highly responsible lawyers struggling to value their own pain and suffering
6:05 - You matter, your well-being matters, and you’re not letting people down
7:25 - Being unselfish to the point of doing harm to yourself to help others
8:16 - The permission slip to take care of yourself

Mentioned In When Leaving Law Feels Like Letting Other People Down
First Steps to Leaving the Law
1:1 Coaching with Sarah Cottrell

Your law job may feel more unsustainable than it used to, even if you were managing it fairly well before. Maybe you already knew the environment was not great, or that the work itself was never especially sustainable, but you were making it work. Now, all of a sudden, it feels completely impossible and you are wondering what changed.
For a lot of lawyers, the instinct is to turn that question inward. Is it because you are weak? Is it because you cannot hack it anymore? Sarah talks about why being impacted by what is happening around you does not mean there is something wrong with you. If your nervous system is constantly being primed for threats and hypervigilance has become the baseline, it makes sense that you do not have the same capacity you had before.
In this episode of The Former Lawyer Podcast, Sarah Cottrell talks about why your law job may feel more unsustainable than it used to and what may actually be behind that shift. She explains how the broader environment can affect your nervous system, why lawyers in particular may be feeling that impact, and why listening to what your body and your nervous system are telling you can help you figure out what the best next step is for you career-wise.
0:53 - When a law job that felt manageable starts to feel unsustainable
1:44 - Why lawyers may be especially affected by what is happening around them
2:29 - Feeling like you can’t keep doing this doesn’t mean you’re weak
4:12 - What your nervous system may be recognizing about your work environment
6:00 - Hypervigilance as a baseline and how it affects your capacity
7:10 - What to do when your work suddenly feels unsustainable
8:31 - Listening to your body and nervous system as you consider what comes next

Mentioned In Why Your Law Job Feels More Unsustainable Than It Used To
First Steps to Leaving the Law

“There’s a reason they call it a job.” “If it was fun, everyone would do it.” “The grass isn’t always greener.” Lawyers who hate their jobs hear some version of this all the time from people outside of the legal profession, usually when they are trying to explain just how miserable their work has become.
There is a kernel of truth in the idea that every job involves some amount of work, frustration, and things you would rather not do. The problem is that every job does not suck in the way that being a lawyer can suck. For lawyers who have tied suffering to working hard or doing a good job, that distinction can be especially hard to see.
In this episode of The Former Lawyer Podcast, Sarah Cottrell talks about why “every job sucks” is bad advice for lawyers who hate their jobs, what can make legal work uniquely unpleasant, and why believing that suffering is simply part of having a job can make it harder to imagine something better.
0:30 - Hearing “there’s a reason they call it a job” from people outside the law
2:01 - The kinds of misery that can make legal work uniquely unpleasant
3:02 - Why every job does not suck in the way being a lawyer can
4:42 - When lawyers start believing work is supposed to involve suffering
5:49 - Questioning whether worthwhile work can exist without mental and emotional suffering
6:25 - Using therapy to unpack the belief that suffering is part of working hard
7:46 - You do not have to suffer in your job
8:23 - Exploring what might be a better fit despite what other people say

Mentioned In Why “Every Job Sucks” Is Bad Advice for Lawyers Who Hate Their Jobs
First Steps to Leaving the Law