In-House
Not technically leaving law, but the first move many lawyers make. Same skills; one client; no more billables. The trade is autonomy for stability, lifestyle, and sustainability.
Translate my resume for this role →Translations
A field guide for translating your legal experience into a nonlegal role.
A reference for thinking about the work you already do as the work someone else is hiring for.
Compliance
You already know the rules, the regulators, and what auditors look for. Similar transition as going to an in-house legal team.
Translate my resume for this role →Policy
Reading a statute → drafting one. Briefing a court → briefing a member. The move to policy is about reorienting from "what does the law require" to "what should the law require."
Translate my resume for this role →Investing
M&A diligence → investment diligence. Reading a credit agreement → reading a term sheet. Even if you aren't already doing pseudo-investment research in a PE/VC practice, you have the research, analysis, and diligence skills to do so as an investor.
Translate my resume for this role →Finance
Mostly about moving from "advisor to the deal" to "principal in the deal." You already understand underwriting and cap tables. If you don't, you can learn the basics with a little research on YouTube and ChatGPT.
Translate my resume for this role →Operations
Running a case or deal is operations: scope, staffing, deadlines, delegation, controlling costs, reporting, managing vendors and contractors, achieving objectives. The resume almost rewrites itself for operations.
Translate my resume for this role →Management
Running a deal team or major e-discovery project is people management with worse tools. Translate "managing associate" to "team lead" or "director" and the rest is reframing the same skills around P&L instead of billables.
Translate my resume for this role →Product
Scoping discovery → writing a product spec. Managing a litigation team across workstreams → managing a sprint. Translating a client problem into a legal theory → translating a user problem into a feature.
Translate my resume for this role →Consulting
Lawyers already sell judgment by the hour. Consulting is a similar trade. The expertise transfers, and you get away from some of the adversarialism.
Translate my resume for this role →Sales & Business Development
Closing clients, persuading judges and mediators, recruiting summers, it's all sales. You're already good at persuasion and reading people. Sales puts those skills to use beyond the zero-sum world.
Translate my resume for this role →Real Estate
Real estate is an industry where legal training is a real edge. Navigating acquisitions, leases, property laws, financing, and various corporate structures, all while managing risk. As a principal, the returns can be much better for similar work.
Translate my resume for this role →Education
Lawyers who teach CLEs, volunteer with students, or mentor juniors are already educators. Informing a judge or mediator is just a high stakes version of teaching.
Translate my resume for this role →Marketing & PR
Framing a case or an argument is marketing. Advocating for your client in a deal is marketing. Managing an arbitrater's impression of your client is marketing. The "audience" justs get bigger and less captive.
Translate my resume for this role →The weekly issue, free, every Friday