Beginning Anew

by Shinyung Oh

It's not every day that one is hurtled off a moving train. But it happened to me at the end of April 2008. I had been an associate at a national law firm until two partners walked into my office and told me I no longer was?just six days after I had a miscarriage.

I had always prided myself on landing on my feet. Not this time. This time I landed on my rump, with nothing to soften the blow?my pride bruised and my sense of judgment and faith in others shaken. In the following days I found myself wandering around the streets of San Francisco, feeling sorry for myself. When I met friends for lunch, I noticed the discrepancy between their business-casual attire and my outfit of a T-shirt and jeans, unadorned by a firm-issued BlackBerry.

Because the parting email I sent firmwide to my colleagues generated tons of publicity, I received many offers of help. Both friends and strangers who worked in-house or elsewhere offered to introduce me to their contacts or set up interviews for me. As grateful as I was, I was hesitant to jump into searching for a full-time job. My husband, Jeff, and I were still trying to start a family, and I was reluctant to take on a new job, only to disappear on an extended maternity leave shortly after starting. Also, I wasn't sure where to go next. Even though I had always been ambivalent about my career choice, I had already spent a decade of my life working at big law firms. The latest episode had ended so badly, I knew?more clearly than ever?that I didn't want to turn into one of those partners who had sat on the other side of my desk last year.

During those initial months, I took whatever contract work people sent my way. I accepted every invitation to meet friends for lunch. I spent afternoons in cafes, just to be somewhere. I didn't know how else to pass the time. I was alone, without a structured work schedule and my to-do lists.

I felt like a slacker because I wasn't bringing in my big law-firm salary, even though we had enough savings to last us a while, and Jeff still had his well-paid management position. As I struggled Jeff encouraged me, again and again, to use the time to try whatever I wanted and find a meaningful direction for myself. But it took me a while to hear him.

Then in January I finally realized that I had spent the past eight months flailing. I was nowhere closer to figuring out my new direction. I remembered those busy days at work, when I would have done anything to have an afternoon off, to have time for a decent workout at the gym, or a chance to sleep in.

And suddenly, those past eight months seemed painfully precious. I realized I had to make a change. Mentally, I understood that I needed to move on from my big-firm career?not only because it had left me, but because I had never fully embraced it in the first place. But now I had to accept it emotionally as well, which might mean leaving behind my ability to earn a high income and afford the way of life I had known for the past ten years. I had to allow myself the time and the space to explore, to turn this circumstance into an opportunity.

But I wasn't sure where to start. The easiest path?and the most familiar?seemed to be through education. So I signed up for classes, mostly in writing?something I had dreamed of doing after college but had lacked the means or the guts to try. About a month after that, a friend referred a couple of cases for me to handle. The opportunity seemed too good to pass up, so I took on the new clients, charging significantly less for my hours than the firm had, but still more than enough to pay for my classes and other expenses.

So now I split my time between working as a sole practitioner and dabbling in all the other things I enjoy?such as writing, or taking a sewing class, or preparing for our baby, who is due this month. During this whole process, I've been surprised to find how much I actually enjoy practicing law outside the constraints of big-law billing requirements and firm politics.

It's a new beginning for me?and for my growing family. It is better than I ever could have imagined. It only took losing my job to lead me here.

Shinyung Oh is a commercial litigator and a writer living in San Francisco. She blogs about her life at shinyungoh.blogspot.com.

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