I hate articles that are just a list of tips. They’re often lazy and frequently idiotic, so when I decided to write an article with advice for how to switch careers from law to a business role in the tech sector, I wanted to write something comprehensive with a clear thesis.
I’ve failed, and I spent almost a year at it.
Despite having switched careers myself, I don’t actually know how, or if, you should do it. My thoughts about my own journey change so often that I’m not sure if I’ll ever hold a coherent set of opinions long enough to craft something with a clear thesis, refine it till I like it, and publish it.
But I do have a list of tips! I’ve also recently read a few articles with this structure that have been thoughtful and useful. These persuaded me that a list of tips is better than nothing at all.
So here we go!
1. You Probably Shouldn’t Switch
What?
Yes, odds are you should find an acceptable legal job rather than switching careers.
Say you’re a smart lawyer at a big law firm. You’re not satisfied and you’re considering a major change, like coming to the tech sector. These feelings are common, but few actually take the plunge.
Maybe some of that is a lack of courage, but I think most people find that a major change isn’t necessary and isn’t worth the stretch. Finding a role where they’re content becomes good enough.
Getting to that point is a process: Most smart lawyers grew up being told how talented they are and felt they were destined to do something amazing. After a few years at a firm, many moderate their expectations and start to shift their focus to other parts of their life.
There’s probably a reasonable legal job out there for you that uses the skills you’ve developed and treats you fairly well. It may take effort to find, but it will take a hell of a lot less effort than switching careers. Some people even find legal jobs that that excite them.
Switching to a business role in the tech sector is hard. And it’s hard for much longer than I’d have ever guessed; maybe it’s hard forever.
Here’s one example: I’m more than four years in to my career change, and almost every piece of advice I’m going to give you is one that I’m still working on myself. The exception is #2, which I failed at.
Plan on spending three to five years establishing a new professional identity and perhaps ten getting to the role that you dream about. Expect that you’ll frequently feel lost and that you may have several major reverses (read “fail and get fired”) along the way.
How does switching careers sound now?
For a few people (including me), it’s worth it. It’s the best thing I’ve done.
It makes sense if you feel a burning need to accomplish something you’re proud of and you don’t see a way to do that in law.
Restless ambition may not be a healthy trait, but if you’ve got it you’ve got to make the best of it. And switching careers can help make it happen.
2. Switch Early In Your Legal Career
Make the switch as soon as you can swing it financially, even if you feel underprepared.
There’s not much to gain by sticking around in law. Most of your skills aren’t going to transfer.
Take writing, for example. Good writing is composed of two things: Wisdom regarding the thing you’re writing about and the skill of writing.
You won’t be writing about the law again, so you can disregard the first.
And the second turns out to be surprisingly context specific. Legal writing is different; it’s longer, more rigorous, and more formal than other kinds of writing. When you get into business, you may find yourself trying to lose some of the writing habits you learned as a lawyer and revert back to the fundamental skills you learned in college.
This blog is one of the tools I’ve used to try to unlawyer my writing and it’s taking a while! This article is a great example: I wasn’t willing to write a list of tips about switching careers because that wasn’t rigorous. That blocked me from writing anything for a year.
Who cares about being rigorous? A list can be useful and entertaining, so good enough.
Switching also gets harder over time.
Being a beginner means paying your dues. If you’ve just spent five years paying your dues in law, it’s that much harder to go straight into spending a few more years paying your dues in tech. Humans are fragile creatures; save your strength for paying the dues that get you where you want to go.
It also means starting over at the bottom of the totem pole. Everyone thinks they can deal with a loss of status until they lose their status. If you’re a restlessly ambitious person of the sort that should be changing careers, this may be very hard for you. It’s easier to get over losing your status as a lawyer if you didn’t spend that much time getting used to it in the first place.
It also helps to make the change when you fewer obligations. You could completely fail. You’ll likely have periods of failure, especially in the beginning. It’s easier to fail when nobody is counting on you.
3. Be A Doer, Not (Just) A Thinker
You were good at school, so you may have the feeling that quiet, sustained thinking is what makes you different and interesting.
Flush that feeling for a while. Tech companies are places where people make software and sell software. Most of the actual work is getting properly organized, getting stuff done, and solving problems.
As the saying goes, great ideas are everywhere, what separates successes from failure is execution. (To be clear, I haven’t any great ideas, but I hear they’re all over the place.)
I will say that it’s often clear what result you need to accomplish. Getting there is a lot of experimenting and making things work rather than reconceptualizing the nature of existence or inventing a new multivariate business model.
There are a few pure thought roles on strategy teams, but those normally go to ex-consultants and strategy teams are usually small. If you want to be a leader, at some point you have to roll up your sleeves and do something.
What is “doing something?” Here’s an example: In my first sales job, I made cold calls from my cell phone next to a ping pong table. That was hard. And there were times I felt like I should be “coming up with our strategy” instead of banging out calls.
But because I did it, I created sales opportunities and got my start in my new career.
4. Be As Patient As You Can Manage
When people tell me to be patient, I often get angry instead. I can understand if you feel the same way.
After all, I just told you that you should only change careers if you’re restlessly ambitious. How can you be restlessly ambitious and be patient? What sort of idiot would make such a silly argument? (Luckily for me, you probably don’t know where I am. By the time you track me down, you will probably have calmed down. If you’re still angry when you find me, be aware, I run fast and I fight dirty.)
Why try to be patient? Two reasons.
The first is that it takes a long time to become good at something important. My first VP told me that it could take five hundred serious sales conversations before I’d even really be part of the profession.
That may have been an understatement. Most of what we do is instinct and it takes a long time to retrain your instincts. Every time my role has evolved, I’ve been surprised at the number of new skills I’ve needed to learn and how rich (read: “how long it takes to learn”) each is.
The second is that getting to what you really want takes luck. Even after you are good, you have to have the right opportunity to generate results; even after you have generated results, the role you want next has to open at the right time. You can make some of your own luck by being entrepreneurial, but a lot of it has to come to you. Be ready to bide your time.
The path I know best is linear. Choose a specialty, become good, generate results, rise up.
You’d start at a small startup of maybe ten or twenty people. They’re the companies that will hire you. They usually can’t afford people who have talent and experience, so they’re willing to accept talent.
Always be grateful to the people that helped you get your start, but don’t be too sentimental. You got hired when you had little to offer, so your compensation will be modest and you’ll get only a symbolic amount of equity. If the company starts to grow, it will probably bring in outside managers above you. Growing companies can get get both talent and experience.
So use it as a stepping stone: an opportunity to discover what you like and start building a track record. When you aren’t getting what you want and are able to make a switch, move to a better company and a better role.
It could take three to five years to discover your role and become good at it. It could take ten to reach the job of your dreams. But when you get there, you’ll have a foundation for success and to fall back on if you crash out of your first management job (it happens…).
There are non-linear paths. These involve skipping steps, such as when someone founds a company, has an exit, and then becomes a venture capitalist. More modestly, sometimes people reach leadership roles without spending a lot of time in the trenches.
I don’t have a formula for non-linear paths. Whenever I’ve tried to skip steps, it hasn’t worked out. But I know that it’s possible because I know people who have done it. A lot comes down to being talented, taking risks, and getting lucky. If you figure it out, let me know.
I don’t think that non-linear paths are a general solution to the problem of patience. Lots of founders spend years on their companies without really getting anywhere. Most people who get lucky spent a lot of time not getting lucky before that.
So do your best to be patient, or at least to calm down before you find me!
Conclusion
Brian Dennehy once said that the only reason to be an actor is that you can’t be anything else. I wouldn’t go that far about switching to the tech sector, but I’d ask yourself if you can find a way to be happy in law before you decide to switch.
If you need more, if you need a sense of adventure and you’re filled with the drive to create something great, then welcome and good luck!
