CAREER MAKE-OVER : Weighing the Alternatives After an Adjournment in Law
Flashback to the 1980s. Irene Stewart, a Petco Animal Supplies Co. manager, is watching “L.A. Law” on television. She hears Jimmy Smits’ character say that he makes $80,000 a year championing justice.
Suddenly, Stewart is, er, smitten.
“I knew what I wanted to do,” Stewart said a decade later. “Or so I thought.”
Law seemed the perfect nexus for her skills, interests and dreams. And it looked exciting--on screen, that is.
Stewart quit her Petco job, attended USC Law Center and, after graduating, clerked with a district court judge. In 1992 she landed a position with the high-profile law firm O’Melveny & Myers.
Being a civil litigation associate at first proved rewarding. Stewart participated in headline-grabbing cases, including the Exxon Valdez trial. She worked with other bright and dedicated achievers. She even earned more than $100,000 a year.
But O’Melveny’s intense pace--sometimes 100 hours a week at the office--began to drain her. And the brass ring of a partnership seemed out of reach.
After five years, Stewart left O’Melveny to try her luck at a mid-sized firm. She took a 30% cut in pay, hoping her caseload there would be less of a grind. But it wasn’t. Stewart began to weary of lawyering--its extremely long hours, contentious nature and endless paperwork. Maybe law wasn’t the right career for her, she thought.
But what was? In April 1998, Stewart resigned to live off her savings and contemplate the next chapter of her life.
“I’ve learned that money means much less than enjoying what you do,” she noted in a letter to The Times. “I just need help figuring out what it is that I enjoy doing.”
Stewart, 40, isn’t alone in desiring advice for the law-lorn. Increasing numbers of attorneys are running from the law, according to Deborah Arron, author of “What You Can Do With a Law Degree.”
Some are joining the high-tech revolution. Others are working as film and television moguls. More than a few are finding work as journalists, authors and even screenwriters. And the remaining renegades have simply traded their briefs for a place in the business world.
Why the exodus from law? Richard Spitz, managing director of executive search firm Korn/Ferry International’s Los Angeles office, cites a caseload of reasons: greater pressure for billable hours, declining partnership opportunities and increasingly demanding clients.
Stewart consulted with Toronto-based career counselor Barbara Moses for help in finding a new vocation. She told Moses that she had three requirements for a new career: good pay (“at least $50,000”), a solid pension plan and a stimulating work environment.
Before Moses would discuss Stewart’s future, she wanted to learn more about Stewart’s past. What did Stewart do before becoming a lawyer? Moses was intrigued by her response. Over the last 25 years, Stewart says, she labored at a colorful potpourri of jobs--flight dispatcher, horse trainer, soup seller, pet products manager and lingerie saleswoman, among others.
“She’s a generalist,” Moses said. “Everything is interesting to her. But generalists’ greatest strength is also their greatest weakness. They get immobilized because nothing particularly jumps out at them.”
After further discussion with Stewart, Moses came up with suggestions that may lead Stewart to a fulfilling long-term vocation.
Step 1. Itemize your likes and dislikes. Moses sought more detailed revelations from Stewart. “What specifically did you like most about your past jobs? And what did you dislike most?”
Stewart rattled off answers easily. She appreciated autonomy, intellectual stimulation, helping people and working outdoors. She disliked close supervision; “repetitive, boring work”; and “being in an unstimulating environment where there’s infighting and gossip.”
“Most people get into trouble because they feel they should be loving their job 100% of the time,” Moses warned. “You’re not going to find one piece of work that meets all of your desires. Assess your skills, your likes and dislikes and decide what you absolutely have to have and what you can live without.”
Step 2. Don’t stray too far from your primary skill. Moses and Stewart free-associated about possible new careers. Stewart mentioned that she’d recently considered public speaking, horticulture and owning a small business.
Did Stewart truly want to divorce herself from law? Moses asked. Stewart’s skills might be sought after in fields such as arbitration, legal recruitment, legal publishing and legal aid. But Stewart was adamant. She handed down a final verdict: She didn’t “want anything to do with law.” This concerned Moses.
“The farther away she goes from the law, the stronger the pitch she’ll need to make to an employer, and the bigger the financial drop she’ll have to take,” Moses said.
Step 3. Be realistic about a new career’s prospects. Many people have “dream aspirations,” Moses noted. But unless they have substantial income from a secondary source, they can’t pursue these fantasy careers full-time.
It would take several years for Stewart to study horticulture and generate a livable wage in that competitive field, Moses pointed out.
“It’s one thing to start all over at 27, another to do it at 40, when you know you have to be financially responsible for yourself,” she said.
Moses also cautioned Stewart against pursuing public speaking or starting up a business on a shoestring. High-fee public speaking tends to be the domain of “famous individuals who tend to be experts in a particular field,” Moses said. And because Stewart has had very little experience being self-employed or running a business, she shouldn’t leap hastily into this arena either.
“If you look at the most successful business owners, you see they’ve run their own businesses through most of their lives,” Moses said.
Step 4. Hitch your talents to a specialty. Stewart is intelligent, independent and in need of great mental stimulation. She’s also an organized thinker, a good researcher and a highly skilled writer. Moses told Stewart that she should consider two careers that would allow her to utilize all of these assets: directing an association or nonprofit organization and nonfiction writing.
“Lawyers generally make good transitions into executive directors,” Moses said. “They often are good at supervising, counseling and serving as client liaisons.”
Nels Olson, a managing director of Korn/Ferry International in Washington, D.C., who specializes in association placement, says he’s placed several attorneys with management experience in these positions. Salaries for executive directors can be high.
“Right now, I’m doing a search for a trade association where the salary is $1 million a year,” Olson said.
Even small associations pay livable wages, he added. Many offer salaries of about $50,000 a year. But if Stewart becomes serious about pursuing a career in association directorship, she may have to consider two things.
Since most associations are based in Washington, Chicago or New York, she may have to decide if she’s willing to relocate for the right job. And because she hasn’t worked for an association, she may have to settle for a lower-paying deputy director job before starting to earn bigger bucks.
If Stewart wants to head a nonprofit, she should rack up volunteer experience before sending out resumes, said Jane Phillips Donaldson of the Phillips, Oppenheim Group in New York, a nationwide search firm specializing in nonprofit placements.
She also should devote her time to issues about which she’s passionate, such as the arts or the environment, Donaldson added.
Contrary to popular mythology, most nonprofits aren’t poor-paying employers. “The traditional view of nonprofits is that you have to spend your Saturdays working at McDonald’s to make ends meet,” Donaldson said. “But it just isn’t true these days.”
Salaries for directorships at leading nonprofit organizations are comparable to lawyers’ salaries, she said. Top executives of medium-to-large-size nonprofit organizations can earn $130,000 or more.
Heads of similar size foundations can earn “anywhere from $150,000 to several hundred thousand,” Donaldson said. Smaller nonprofits frequently pay $90,000 to $125,000, although Donaldson says those based on the West Coast may pay less.
Step 5. Be willing to concede some financial aspirations--at first. Moses advised Stewart not to become obsessed about long-term income possibilities and pension plans when making the transfer into a new career.
“First prove yourself, develop new skills and enhance your reputation in the new field,” Moses said.
Nonfiction writing is a decidedly risky financial undertaking, Moses and Stewart agreed, but both women were excited about this option.
Stewart, who was a history major, loved the idea of penning historical biographies. She believed she would enjoy researching, learning, writing and teaching others about important figures of the past.
Agent Richard Curtis of Richard Curtis Associates Inc. in New York had some tips for Stewart if she wants to enter this highly competitive field. She should choose a “bankable” subject--a fascinating personality who either hasn’t yet been profiled or has been done poorly.
She’d do well to dig up “eyebrow-raising” new information about the person or shed deeper insight into his or her life, Curtis said.
Last, “she should be obsessed with a particular person in history, and the obsession should show in the [book] proposal,” Curtis said.
Once Stewart finishes researching her subject, she should send a compelling pitch letter to an agent, offering tantalizing details about the biography she hopes to write. If the agent likes what she’s written, he may ask to see her full book proposal and then may elect to represent her.
“Hot” biographies penned by first-time writers have sold for “anywhere from $1,000 to $500,000 or more,” Curtis added.
Step 6. Take action. Moses’ two career suggestions “made my eyes fly open,” Stewart said. “Particularly the writing--I haven’t had my writing complimented in 10 years.”
Stewart plans to start researching associations and nonprofits, contemplate potential biography subjects and buy a tome or two about writing book proposals.
But this time around, she won’t look to Jimmy Smits’ last television incarnation for inspiration. Being a New York City detective, a la “NYPD Blue,” isn’t on her career short list.
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Ready for a Change
* Name: Irene Stewart
* Former occupation: Attorney
* Desired occupation: Undecided
* Quote: “I’ve learned that money means much less than enjoying what you do. I just need help figuring out what it is I enjoy doing.”
* Counselor’s recommendations: Nonprofit directorship, nonfiction writing.
Meet the Coach:
Barbara Moses, PhD, is one of North America’s leading career counselors. She lectures frequently on career self-management and is the author of “Career Intelligence: The 12 New Rules for Work and Life Success (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1998). Her company, BBM Human Resource Consultants Inc., conducts career development and management seminars throughout the United States and Canada. Moses holds degrees in psychology from McGill University, the London School of Economics and the University of Toronto.
