Technically, I learned that nugget of latin from the The Matrix first, but it makes for a less vapid lesson to ignore that fact. In any event, I meant to post this early last month in honor of exactly 3 years since I left law for cheese. This was originally an article I wrote in 2011 for my law school alma mater's student-run digital newspaper, and their published version can be found here. My frustration with BigLaw has tempered incrementally over time. There's still no way in hell that the professional legal world is for me, but my feelings for the firm have softened even in the 2 years since I wrote this. I admire the fortitude of wonderful people who have made BigLaw their lives and who, more importantly, don't suck -- and can bring a little bit of not-sucking into the law firm environment -- fighting the establishment norm from within, if you will. And I genuinely appreciate the firm for making me a stronger person and a person better able to seek what I need in a vocation. Knowing that both what we do and how we do it must fit with who we are as individuals is a lesson that rings as true as ever. Oh, and I appreciate that it led me to lifelong friends and the "generous boyfriend" mentioned below who is now bound to me for eternity...
At Happy Hour on September 15, 2008 , I joined Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in pouring out a little liquor on the ground for our fallen selves — figuratively, of course. That morning I had begun my first day at work in Washington , D.C.
I didn't know what a Lehman Brothers collapse meant as I walked to work that first day, nor did I care. I could only focus on the sinking feeling I had in my stomach that I was entering a world in which I didn't belong.
On paper, my resume signaled the makings of a good lawyer. But that morning, when I passed construction workers jack hammering away at the street, I pictured the scene at the end of Office Space and wondered if I would prefer their job to the 11th floor office I would soon be filling. Was this career the right choice for my passions, desires, and personality?
Almost two years later, I knew the answer to that question was a resounding “Helllll naw.” In the summer of 2010, I ditched the financial safety of a legal career for what sounded like a joke. I swapped the smell of a fetid office that reeked of desperation and rage with that of sweet rural Connecticut air perfumed with cow manure, so that I could become: a Cheese Apprentice.
I always knew cheese was my first love. When I was five years old, I would take my mother’s short naps as an opportunity to fix myself cheddar and ice cream sandwiches — two slices of cheddar and two spoonfuls of slightly warmed vanilla ice cream spread on toast. Everything was a vehicle for cheese. There was no shame as to how much or how often cheese came into play. Sometimes, even now, when I want a quick salty snack, I will stand over the sink and shove a fistful of shredded Parmesan into my mouth. Still no shame.
In college, the idea of running my own cheese shop sounded glorious. At the time, it also seemed like a pipe dream that would accompany “movie star” and “professional break dancer” on the embarrassing list titled “JOBS” that I kept on wrinkled notebook paper as a child. At the firm, I had time to reflect on the path I had chosen and “cheese shop owner” seemed less like a career born of naive hope. It became a reasonable alternative that would, at the very least, salve the wounds of complete demoralization left by the law.
So, I set-out to learn as much as possible about artisanal cheese from farm to table. I worked with two cheesemakers on opposite coasts making cheese, aging cheese, packaging cheese, selling cheese, and eating cheese for as long as my savings account and boyfriend’s generosity could bear. If I wanted to give my dream a chance, I needed to do it right. That meant learning as much as I could about the industry and the craft in order to find the right place for myself within it.
The argument that everyone who fails at surviving BigLaw does so because they don’t like working long hours, paying their dues, and humbling themselves to the experience is absurd. I started working long, grueling, physical hours making cheese, just to gain experience from the bottom up. I obviously wasn't doing it for the pay or some quarter-life crisis joyride. I would leave cheesemaking work soaked in sweat, aching in parts of my body I didn't know contained muscles, and happy for the minimum wage.
I like to move around, talk to people, work with my hands, create. I also like a little joy in the workplace. Law just wasn't meeting those needs. As a cheese intern, I was nurturing a hand-made product I loved while working for someone who appreciated my efforts. I value the people I befriend on any journey, but cheese people are some of the warmest people I've ever met.
Never once did I consider myself a legal burnout. It takes many more years in practice and a lot more office-place torture than what I received to truly burn out. In fact, looking around BigLaw that first god-awful year of the recession, I realized, comparatively, I was treated fairly well. Yet, regardless of the firm, the blame fell on the shoulders of those with the least distance to fall. It was the associates’ fault for not having the killer instinct to grovel for work that just didn't exist. Even the nicer firms were treating associates like the grunts we were. To say I was “lucky” in my job is like saying one STD is better than the other.
The recession brought out abundant free time and the worst qualities in people, allowing me to learn what I genuinely wanted and needed quickly. In fact, the national impact of that day in mid-September 2008 was immediate. As soon as we completed associate orientation, we received our first assignment. The next day, nothing. We pestered partners for assignments. We groveled. We took on pro bono and would later be delicately chastised for taking on too much pro bono, leaving little room on our dockets for real billable hours. What billable hours? In my first full month, I billed as much as I should have billed in two days, and not for a lack of pestering and begging.
The realities of the cheesy life also carry moments of sheer panic. I worry about student loans, paychecks that barely cover expenses, when I can take my belongings out of storage, and what the end-game will look like. As I write this, life and my cheese dream have temporarily led me to a desolate town on the Texas-Mexico border making homemade mozzarella and commuting 11 hours each week to a part-time cheesemaking job in Waco . The entire transition continues to be a nomadic one with plenty of challenging variables. Yet, I’m much happier now than I was before.
A feeble anonymous jab I received on my associate review, which I kept, always reminds me that I made the right choice in leaving BigLaw for a better fit. (Constructive criticism does not exist in BigLaw. Don’t expect that people who wear suits are grown-ups.) It didn't take much to deduce the identity of the reviewer and realize that his passive aggressiveness was regarding a case in which I had no interest for a group of lawyers who quite literally made my skin crawl.
“Samia often gives off the air that she’d rather be somewhere else.”
Yes! In fact, I would! I would prefer not to be around tools like you and douchebaggery like this, making a deeper butt groove in my horribly uncomfortable desk chair. That was the first time I agreed with that associate.
The bottom line remains that I just was not built for professional office-work. When I scoured online job banks for legal careers, my eye always wandered to more physical vocations and crafts with concrete aims. Museum curator at the Smithsonian. Federal Air Marshal. Construction. Cleaning crew?—Cleaning turds off the toilets would simply be the literal version of the intellectual exercise I was already performing anyway. I wasn't asking for anything glamorous or lucrative. I just wanted to feel less like a belligerent waste of space and more like I was physically able to bring some tangible joy or value to someone, anyone. Be it judged a success or failure, whatever it is I actually end up doing at the end of this whole adventure, discovering the job qualities that I value most is the gift I never have to return.
Believe it or not, you couldn't contain my joy when I originally got the offer to become a media law associate. As a former journalism major and First Amendment fiend, media law was exactly the field I wanted to practice. I did everything I could during recruitment period to find the right career fit for me and naively thought I had succeeded.
There are issues in the legal field that still interest me. I enjoyed trying to help the pro bono clients I had the chance to work with. First Amendment cases always catch my eye. Now that I’m working with cheese, I've taken a shine to food safety, USDA, and FDA issues, and won't foreclose some involvement in that legal frontier. I applaud any intelligent lawyer or law professor I meet. Some of my best friends, including my boyfriend, are fantastic lawyers. I want people to be good lawyers. Worthwhile causes in this world need those of you who have the aptitude, skills, and fortitude to practice law. Simply put, I did not.
The unlikely lesson of this story is that I never once regretted going to law school. I enjoyed learning the law and I made lifelong friends through our shared experience. Plus, law school led me to this path I love, even if I have no idea where it will spit me out.
If you often wonder whether law school was the right decision, I can’t say anything to answer that quandary. I’m a cheesemaker paying off enormous student loans spent on a legal career that never was; my platitudes would get you nowhere. Truthfully, I believe being able to “think like a lawyer” is a virtue about as impressive as saying you can count like a banker. Still, I do believe some elusive quality about law school gave me the ability to better assess how an impractical possibility can become a reality. That, my friends, is invaluable. So too are the friendships and bonds you create from a few extra years of dabbling in the university of what-am-I-going-to-do-with-my-life. I wouldn't be where I am today without the support of friends, many of whom I met in law school and at the law firm. So, while you are a poorer person for it, you’re at least a smarter person for it, and hopefully richer in the relationships you've made.
Just don’t be an idiot when it’s all over. It may take you time to find the right opportunity, but don’t throw decades of life away on a job that doesn't fit you. Partners I respected and admired at the firm often wondered why they spent so long doing what they did. Your livelihood and vocation is not something you have the luxury of forcing yourself into for status like a pair of skinny jeans you bought for a Vampire Weekend show. If you find yourself in your BigLaw or even LittleLaw office with a nagging suspicion that you should have tried something different, get out quickly and regret nothing. For almost two years, my framed diplomas sat on my office floor. Colleagues thought I was making some veiled critique about my legal education. In reality, like me, the diplomas didn't belong as a fixture in that office. But I was always proud I had them.
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