Calculated risks and listening to your own judgement: part III

Betting on your self-worth

This is the final piece of my three-part series on calculated risks. Part I was about the search for durable skills. Part II was about the search for high-margin work. This is a story about betting on your self-worth.

Heading into my last semester of law school, I had met with about a hundred lawyers. Of all kinds - tax, real estate. I was searching for something the market needed that I was excited about. Early on, I identified patent law at that intersection. But because I had to leave the firm I was clerking at to pursue my district court externship, I was without a job.

I need a job

So it was coming down to the wire. In my last semester of law school, I met with about 100 lawyers. I was in a suit so often my classmates would joke about the novelty of seeing me in jeans.

After beating the street, I got an interview with a small plaintiff's patent firm. The founders had experience with plaintiff's patent litigation, but it was unclear if the skills I would acquire would be useful elsewhere. One of their former associates had gone on to an in-house role at a company I respected, so it seemed possible to have good options from there. But then I had another lead.

One of the last lawyers I met that semester was at a biglaw firm. I had been telling people in my network I was looking for a firm that had a high partner:associate ratio and was looking to balance it. Two separate people in my network had pointed me to that firm as meeting that criteria. My background in the sciences was a fit for the work (Hatch-Waxman litigation). I interviewed, and it seemed promising.

But bigger firms move slowly, so after interviewing I needed to wait. That work seemed like a stronger fit, more durable, and I'd get paid twice as much as the small plaintiff's patent firm.

The bird in the hand?

Meanwhile, I had an offer from the small plaintiff's patent firm. Should I just take the offer? It looked like most of my peers hadn't found work after law school. Was I being greedy? There's that saying about the bird in the hand. And some people in my family told me I was crazy to not accept this job in this market.

Ultimately, I decided it was important to test my limits. Counselors and professors told me I couldn't or shouldn't get into biglaw, so I was determined to make it. This wasn't an easy call - I was white-knuckling for a couple of weeks as I waited for the decision. Ultimately, the biglaw role came through. I made it.

Was it a smart decision? I think it was the right call. If I really was a good fit for the plaintiff's patent firm, they would have sweetened the offer or found a way to make it work. I had more leverage than it seemed at the time.

The legacy of these decisions

Looking back, I have a lot of pride in how I processed these decisions. Going back to read the emails breaking down my decision to mentors, friends, and family, I'm struck with the breadth of the network I sought out to run my decision by, and the clarity of the pros and cons as I headed into the decisions. I wouldn't change a thing, which surprises me.

So much about the practice of law, and biglaw in particular, is about conformity and following the path of least resistance. These exercises in judgement trained me to think independently and paved the path for my journey to launching and growing my legal recruiting agency. I couldn't have had the confidence to bet on myself or the skills of relationship-building without these experiences.

But you don't have to make high-stakes career decisions and be all-in to train your judgement. Posting a series on LinkedIn, interviewing a handful of peers for a limited podcast series, or organizing an event for a niche will all help you learn how to operate independently. If you have a project like this, I'd love to hear about it.