On April 4, 2022, I watched Coach K coach the final college basketball game of his career, an NCAA tournament Final Four loss to archrival University of North Carolina. I saw him stand and walk over to shake the hands of the opposing coaches and players. My eyes filled with tears as he shouldered his way off the court in what must have been his most heartbreaking walk in the past 47 years.
I am not a fan of Duke basketball, and I am not easily stirred by March Madness. But for once, my heart was aligned with the passion of a college basketball coach, guiding his team through a final contest. You see, I knew something during that game that none of my clients was aware of: I was retiring from the practice of law at the end of the year.
I made my decision in December 2020, knowing that it would take two years to transition to non-lawyer life. For people in other careers and professions, that might seem too long. It would not take years for me to notify clients, close files, and shift cases to other attorneys. It would not take twenty-four months to train a new managing partner, and the sustainability of my 12-attorney firm was not an issue. It was my emotional journey that needed that much time.
Forty years ago, I began preparing for the Law School Admission Test, followed quickly by my law school application. Law school absorbed me for the next three years. I passed the Washington State Bar Exam after graduation, and I began a thirty-six-year career working as an attorney in private practice.
Twenty years ago, I embraced the thrill and the terror of giving up stable and secure employment, including a partnership at a major Seattle law firm, to start my own fledgling firm. I stumbled my way into sole practitionership as clumsily as I pushed a shopping cart filled with file folders, index cards, yellow pads, pens, and reams of paper through Office Depot. I was convinced that I was destined to practice law by myself forever, but the evolution of my firm proved otherwise. Its growth would have astonished me – if I had had the time to ponder it.
Being a lawyer has been fundamental to my identity, my friendships, my financial footing, and the structure of my daily life. It has been a beautiful – and sometimes - excruciating career. I cannot envision a job more absorbing, more challenging, or more gratifying than the one I have had. And choosing who you work with, what the workplace culture will be like, and what clients and cases you will accept is a privilege that I have never taken for granted. I am leaving a partnership with lawyers I love and trust, whose intellect and ethics are incomparable. It is unfathomable that I will no longer linger in the halls with co-workers, celebrating, contemplating, and occasionally commiserating legal case outcomes and triumphs. Giving that up seems unbearable sometimes.
But I know something about myself and about life: working full-time leaves no time to discover what comes next. Friends and co-workers tout the benefits of working part-time in an Of Counsel position to soften the jolt into retirement. But for me, that path is not the best one. Pulling off the band-aid quickly and leaping into the unfamiliar land of unemployment alarms me but it also exhilarates me.
It is a luxury to have months to process such a major life change. I have spent the duration reading about retirement, ruminating about it, discussing it with others, and journaling about the emotional ups and downs. The change is so profound that there are moments when I wish it would happen tomorrow and occasions when I long for time to slow down to align with my almost imperceptibly deepening breaths. The mysterious beauty of the unknown is an irresistible lure.
But until my last day of work on November 17th, I need to stay away from social media. Posts of police officers’ closing radio signoffs, pilots’ last announcements, and tennis players’ final waves to the crowd turn me into a blubbering fool. The tough and determined litigator in me will not stand for it.
Well, at least until I walk away from my office one last time, with traces of farewell wishes and hugs lingering like a comforting embrace.