Hi there and welcome! 

My goal for this website is to help other professionals remain in their chosen profession longer and to help them find joy in their careers and in their lives.

I am a female lawyer who has been practicing in Canada for about 6 years at a private mid-sized law firm.  I am also now debt free after paying off $98,500 in 3.5 years.  My debt included student loans and a car loan on a luxury vehicle (that I have since sold). We are now a 1 car family – it’s working pretty well.

I started this site because many female lawyers, including ones I went to school with, leave the law, particularly private practice, to pursue government or non-law jobs very early in their careers.  Even more concerning, is the statistic that  almost half of lawyers leave the profession after 5 years. 

I understand that private practice is not for every lawyer, but the statistic is that women have left the profession of law at double the rate of men and, in my experience, many women leave private practice and law completely because of the lifestyle that private practice breeds.

Mental health issues have also recently affected me personally. In the last year, I have had 2 panic attacks (which when they happened, I had no idea what they were) and have had blood work done and an ECG as a result.  Tears started uncontrollably streaming down my face at the ECG appointment because I sat there wondering how I could stay in a career that was causing me so much stress. Through this site, I am hoping to find and share ways to manage the stress.

Although my experience and opinions that I share only come from me being a lawyer, I hope to share my journey and tips I’ve learned along the way to help professionals in a variety of professions. However, let me be clear, I won’t pretend to know how it is in any other profession because I hate it when people do that to me.

The frustrating thing is that when I was just starting out in law and everything was new, I spoke with lawyers who had been at the bar for 5+ years, and they all said that once you reach 5 years at the bar it gets “easier”.  That’s not entirely true. The practice of law just doesn’t get magically easier one day.

You have to work really hard to figure out: your strengths; what you like to do and don’t like to do (both professionally and personally); what your weaknesses are and if there are ways to strengthen your weaknesses; and what is important to you in your life because you can’t do it all. You also have to learn how you can make time for the people and the things that are near and dear to you.  This is the journey that I am on and want to explore with you and am determined to come up with ways to take control, and remain in control, of the profession and our lives.

Finally, I am super Type-A, so you don’t have to do everything I suggest or recommend – obviously – but instead I encourage you to take my ideas and make them work for you and in your life.  I should also note here that I am not one of those naturally smart people. I am someone who has to work really hard to get what I want; things don’t come easily to me.