JD Bliss (JDB): What was your motivation for entering the law?
Schneider: I had the idea of becoming a lawyer at an early age, especially because I’ve always been interested in politics. After I got my undergraduate degree in political science at the University of Michigan I went to work for a national women’s political organization in Washington, DC, where it seemed like everyone was a lawyer. I also was a Coro Fellow in the Coro Fellows Program in Public Affairs, a NATIONAL leadership training program that further interested me in the law and politics. While I attended Washington University School of Law in St. Louis I worked for public interest organizations like the Brennan Center for Justice in New York City. I also did a stint as a Capitol Hill intern, where my first day was the first day of President Clinton’s impeachment trial.
JDB: Why did you go in a different direction after law school?
Schneider: Well, when I graduated it was the height of the dot.com boom. I had a number of different job opportunities with government agencies and policy organizations, but the job that really intrigued me, and virtually fell into my lap, was with several 20-something lawyers who were interesting and creative and entrepreneurial, and who didn’t want to practice law. Instead they started a company that’s still in business, VarsityBooks.com, an online seller of textbooks. I worked for them in DC, and created a marketing program focused on graduate students.
JDB: Did you find the entrepreneurial world to your liking?
Schneider: I really enjoyed the challenge of creating something completely from scratch and being involved in new ventures. So much so, in fact, that when VarsityBooks went into the inevitable shakeout I decided to move across the country to San Francisco, where I quickly found another high tech job. This was with a company in the legal technology space, and once again, the company was founded by lawyers who left legal practice. I still enjoyed the entrepreneurial environment, but I concluded that the private sector was not personally fulfilling. I wanted to be part of a mission-driven organization, like I experienced in the public sector, but I wanted that mission to involve directly helping people.
JDB: Once you decided that was your interest, what did you do to pursue it?
Schneider: I went to a career counselor to figure out my next steps, and she helped me discover that I had a real interest in career development work. I looked at my own career and saw I hadn’t really wanted to be a lawyer – looking back, on my third day of law school I was already thinking, “What have I gotten myself into?” I had met so many lawyers who were dissatisfied with their profession, including many of my entrepreneurial partners, and I felt the mission of helping lawyers, law students and prospective law students with their own careers would be fulfilling.
JDB: How did you turn that realization into a definite career path?
Schneider: I took career development courses in the Bay Area, and I was fortunate to complete an intensive career development training course offered by Richard Bolles, who wrote the best-selling job-search book What Color Is Your Parachute? One of his biggest pieces of advice was that you shouldn’t counsel others until you thoroughly assess your own career motivations. Working with him confirmed that I wanted to focus on giving lawyers and aspiring lawyers the career resources I would have benefited from. I used my training to get a temporary career counseling position at the University of San Francisco School of Law, then I moved to a permanent position as Associate Director of Career Development at the University of California Hastings College of the Law.
JDB: You recently published a career guidance book - “Should You Really Be a Lawyer?" How did your new career as an author come into being, and who is your audience?
Schneider: I had been interested in writing this book for years, given my own experience, my conversations with other law students and “recovering lawyers,” and my career counseling work. I teamed up with my friend Gary Belsky as a collaborator because he is one of the country’s leading lay-experts in decision-making psychology and also happens to be a law school dropout. Our book (as well as our website) is designed to help potential and actual law school students, and practicing lawyers. Our goal with students is to help them evaluate their reasons for pursuing a law degree, carefully research law school and the legal profession, and gain clarity about whether the law, or some other field, is most likely to excite them. For lawyers who are wondering if they’re on the right track, the book helps them assess the reasons for their dissatisfaction and decide whether a legal, law-related or non-legal career will be the best fit.
JDB: What common elements have you found that create satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a career in the law?
Schneider: It comes down to fundamentals. Lawyers who enjoy what they do find their work to be supportive of their interests, values and talents. Unhappy lawyers typically dislike the work environment, their co-workers, their lack of work/life balance, the work itself, or all of the above. However, dissatisfied lawyers are often reluctant to make a change because they feel they’ve invested too much time and money in their legal careers to leave practice, or because they fear losing their professional identity if they change course. Often this resistance simply involves a lack of information on available alternatives, so some lawyers stay stuck because they don’t know what else they would enjoy or how to figure it out. Our book aims to help these lawyers look at their own career decision-making process, get beyond those mental traps that typically trigger career confusion in lawyers, and choose jobs they’ll enjoy.
JDB: What steps should a dissatisfied lawyer take to look at themselves and their options more realistically?
Schneider: Changing jobs or careers generally comes down to four basic steps, and it’s often helpful to work with a career counselor on some or all of them:
- Start by evaluating what you like and dislike about your current job. This will help you see what, if anything, you’ll want to have in your next job and what you’ll want to avoid.
- Do a thorough self-assessment of your preferred skills, interests, ideal work environment and career priorities.
- Gather information on available jobs and careers that match your interests: take classes, go to conferences, network with other professionals, do volunteer work, anything that will give you a clear picture of what other jobs entail.
- Make honest choices about what appeals to you instead of worrying about others’ perceptions.
We have numerous examples of how lawyers have used this process to find greater career satisfaction, inside and outside of the law. One woman had been a litigator for five years and disliked every minute of it. She used career counseling and self-assessment to explore her interests in alternative careers ranging from the wine industry to fashion, all while she continued to practice law. But the turning point was when she met with a legal headhunter about potential legal jobs, and realized during their conversation that she might make a good legal recruiter. That’s the path she ultimately took, and she has thoroughly enjoyed it – in part because of the process she went through to get there. Exploring your interest in one field may lead you to others that you never considered.
JDB: You’ve certainly followed just as diverse a path. How would you define what you’ve learned about your own career satisfaction?
Schneider: The most important thing I’ve learned is to pursue what I enjoy. It all comes down to answering the question, “I wish I could get paid to....” Before I got involved in career development work, I once said to a friend, “I wish I could get paid for talking to people about their careers,” because I did it so often and enjoyed it so much. Yet it took time and guidance for me to realize that was a career path I could pursue. I’ve truly enjoyed writing and promoting the book, too, and the success that we’ve had may lead me toward new writing projects. But the key is to actively seek work you’ll enjoy doing every day.
