Well, I don’t think I could have ever predicted the wild ending to 2019. Leaving my old office and starting my own firm was the furthest thing from my mind in January of 2019. But here we are. Welcome 2020!

It’s crazy how fast time flies. I’ve been a practicing attorney for all of the last
decade. Crazy. I still consider myself a young attorney. All of those years were with one firm. When I graduated from law school and passed the bar exam in 2008, the country was in the midst of a horrible recession. College grads couldn’t get jobs, so they continued to do the only thing they knew how to do: go to school. Law schools were graduating record numbers of students at the same time large firms were laying off lawyers across the country. It was a hard time to enter the field.

I was an independent contractor that first year. I made $20,000 which didn’t even cover my student loans. Many of my friends were still without jobs. Some abandoned the legal profession all together. Taking a job in another field would have been very tempting if the opportunity were there. That said, I was single, I shared an apartment, and I was used to being poor. I literally had nothing to lose. Betting on myself to do better was easy because I wasn’t really risking anything.

2019 was different. I have a family. I have a home and mortgage. I worked most of a decade to become a partner in my own firm. Betting on myself now means putting everything I’ve worked for on the line. On the other hand, believing in myself despite the risk is what got me to where I am in the first place. It’s easy to get complacent and just accept where you’re at because it’s safe. Comfortable. I frequently counsel clients that bad things happen to everyone. We all face adversity. But sometimes, adversity forces us to leave our comfort zones and make the changes we should have already made.

No one has ever won a race by waiting for the finish line to come to them. Dreams don’t come true. They’re planned true. They’re risked true. They’re worked true. Then they’re made true. Happy New Year! See you next decade.

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