How I Escaped Feeling Like A Fraud As An Attorney

I started keeping a journal ever since the big earthquake hit San Francisco in 1989. Watching the fires in the City on television, my grandmother said, You should write this stuff down. So I started writing stuff down. I’ve kept a journal ever since.

And especially throughout law school.

As a 2L struggling in CrimPro class, I wrote in my journal that “my confidence was running on fumes”. I understood Due Process in theory, but the rest of the class was really difficult for me: The Exclusionary Rule, the exceptions to it, Herrera, Miranda.

I was lost.

I felt like a fraud.

My confidence was running on fumes.

But I took comfort in the fact that while I wasn’t excelling at law school, people told me that being a lawyer was much different. That law school really didn’t teach you real life practices, and once I became a working lawyer, I’d find my groove.

That made me feel better. I was resting my future on that.

But when I became a lawyer, now doing in-house software licensing, this lack of confidence didn’t subside. It actually became more severe, as I was now being paid to do a job at which I didn’t feel wholly proficient.

I always felt I missed something important in my agreement review. I felt I was too much of a nice guy in negotiations. I felt I wasn’t up to date on the most recent legal trends.

It wasn’t until I transitioned to an alternative, “non-law” job that I was able to align my skills with roles that called for them, and I began to shine.

I never fully aligned with the study or practice of the law. While I have lamented the time I felt I “wasted” in law school, I do now celebrate my courage to re-create myself as something better. It’s not fun consistently feeling like a fraud.

Casey Berman (University of California, Hastings College of the Law ’99), is the founder of Leave Law Behind, a career coaching program that helps unhappy attorneys leave their legal practice for their dream, “alternative” career. Casey focused primarily on software licensing for five years before leaving the law behind in 2004. Since then, his career has helped him develop a wide range of skills, as Management Consultant, VP Operations, Chief Communications Officer and Investment Banker. He just wrote a free ebook “Your Path Out: The 5 Challenges to Leaving Law Behind That Can Keep You Trapped and Miserable” that you can download now at Leave Law Behind.

 

How I Escaped Feeling Like A Fraud As An Attorney curated from Above the Law