surprise! it’s finally here
🎶 Link Click OP - Dive Back In Time (Lofi Remix)
I'm gonna be honest with y'all--I procrastinated on launching this newsletter because I had no clue where to start. I'm prone to "productive procrastination," i.e., I delay doing the things that actually need to get done by instead doing things that kinda-sorta-ish need to get done. This week, I cleaned out the cabinets under my kitchen sink. I almost started setting up my skincare fridge* (yes, I was ~influenced~) instead of writing this, but I decided to stop acting from fear and just do it.
Anyway. Welcome to the first edition of my first newsletter! Y'all are the real OGs, and I appreciate each and every single one of you 💖
* This is an affiliate link, which means I earn a small commission if you click through and make a purchase.
no one is ever set for life.
With college and grad school deposits submitted and graduation season upon us, it's high time we talked about the concept of being "set for life." When I found out that my college application was accepted by Yale, I thought I was set for life. I then received the worst grades that I had ever received in my academic career thus far, and I was rejected from the majority of consulting summer internships to which I applied. I ended up hating consulting anyway and, feeling lost senior year, studied for the LSAT because I at least loved my law & technology classes and Legally Blonde.
When I received my biglaw summer associate offer and subsequent return offer, I thought I was set for life. A $180,000 salary was more money than I had ever seen before. Fast forward eight years, and... well, you probably know how this story goes. I'm now self-employed (or unemployed, depending on whom you ask), mostly living off of my savings, and hoping with all my heart that my life looks very different in one year's time. I am, in all ways, not set for life.
Given how many times being set for life is followed by a complete 180, why are we, as a society, so obsessed with this concept of being "set for life?" Our brains evolved to be uncertainty-averse. As a result, we have to lie to our brains to assuage their evolution. If I just get into X college, everything will be okay. If I just get this summer internship, everything will be okay. I just make partner, everything will be okay. Except there is no guarantee in life that everything will be okay.
Our parents certainly don't help, either, but it's not their fault--their brains want to believe that once their beloved children achieve XYZ, their children will be set for life, too. Isn't that a nice sentiment? Raising children and seeing them go out into the world may be one of the most uncertainty-inducing activities possible, and I can't fault them for wanting to believe that certain life events (their children graduating from college, marrying, having their own children, etc.) indicates that everything will be okay.
This isn't to be depressing. Maybe you're never set for life, but on the flip side, you're never ruined for life, either. That C won't ruin your entire future career(s); getting fired doesn't mean you'll never be hired again; and not having a ton of close friendships in the past isn't an indicator of the friendships that you will have in the future. Our certainty-craving brains might like to believe that past performance is indicative of future results, but if the Securities and Exchange Commission won't even let investment firms say that to potential investors, should we be telling ourselves that?
Balancing optimism with realism is challenging. HBR summarized it as:
Believe you will get there, and acknowledge to yourself and everyone else that uncertainty involves having to experiment to get things right. It means not everything works right away. It means that if we hang in there, eventually it can be better than it is now.
Because that's what really matters--recognizing that "set for life" isn't an adjective, but rather a verb.
✍️ ask cece
how do i know that law school and a legal career is right for me?
Q: During my first few years of undergrad, I was absolutely certain that I wanted to go to law school and become a lawyer. But by the time my senior year rolled around, I was less sure. The more stories I read about the lack of work-life balance in the legal field, the less certain I became that I was ready to commit so much of my life to work. However, law is still deeply fascinating to me and I really enjoy reading and writing.
My question is: How do you know if law school and a career in law is right for you before you get there? What advice do you have to make sure you make the right decision and don’t end up majorly regretting it?
- Anonymous
A: I always say that the best way to learn more about career paths is to talk to the people who currently work in the industry. Reach out to alums of your college (your school's Career Services should maintain a list and where they went after college, at the very least) who are lawyers in different practice areas (e.g., immigration, criminal, corporate, tech, privacy) and employed by different kinds of entities (e.g., biglaw, midsize and small firms, solo, government, in-house, NGOs). There are so many different ways to practice law or work in law-related fields. I think the horror stories often stem from not finding the right combination of practice area/employer entity, rather than law as a whole. There are many legal paths that offer reasonable work-life balance; you just might not make the millions glamorized on TV. (Check out Do I need to know what practice area I want to go into before law school? How do I learn about practice areas? in my FAQs for resources to learn more about legal practice areas.)
When you talk to these lawyers, ask them what their days or weeks look like in terms of what they read and what written deliverables they produce. Ask them what they like the most about their particular practice and what they like the least. As you listen to them, ask yourself whether their responses resonate with you. Often, I will listen to someone explain to me why they like a particular practice area and think to myself, There is no way I would like something because of that reason. And that's perfectly okay! In fact, focusing on your internal response to their responses will give you a lot of information about which parts of their practice you would like to have in your own (or not).
More generally, try to break down why you were 100% on law school and becoming a lawyer initially. There are likely elements in your earlier idea of lawyering that you would want in any job that you have--lots of reading and writing? Thinking about rules and structures? If you can extract those elements out, you can explore jobs (whether within law or outside of law) with those elements. If you like lots of reading and writing, corporate law will likely not be your jam and maybe you would like being an editor; if you like thinking about rules, maybe compliance fields in law would interest you and public policy or government jobs might also be good fits. The more you can separate out what you want in life from the predefined paths offered to you in college, the more you'll be able to customize your own life path in a way that hits a lot of what you want while minimizing what you don't want.