When you get fired, you’ve been pushed away. The circle has been broken and then closed again with you outside. You’re only a spectator where you used to play a significant role.

Worse, you’ve become a sort of ghost. Whether you stay on for a period of time or leave immediately, you begin to frighten the living. Every time they look at you, talk to you, write you a letter of reference, they know they are dealing with the walking dead and they can’t help but worry if maybe they are next on the list. You make them uncomfortable, because now there are things you can’t discuss. The circle is closed tight against you and any move to break it will certainly bring unpleasant consequences. Make sure you read your separation agreement closely.
 
I think a lot of unemployed lawyers understand what I’m saying. When you get fired, whatever the reason given, the hatchet-man (or woman) is telling you that “we don’t want you here, you are not one of us”. No amount of severance pay, outplacement service, or assurance that you will “have a brilliant career—somewhere else” can hide the underlying message for very long.

Then there’s Thanksgiving. For the Unemployed Lawyer, it conjures up hopes and visions of a happy, peaceful gathering of family and friends who are truly glad to see one another, for at least this one day out of the year. Of course, there will be mountains of food and eating will be fun, but most important is the feeling of inclusion in an unbroken circle. I could eat a baloney sandwich if I knew that I was still part of something and that somebody out there still actually wanted me. Thanksgiving Day serves that up to me on an extremely large platter.

Thanksgiving Day is a blessing to all unemployed lawyers for this and many other reasons. First, on other days our unemployed-ness stands out, to ourselves and others, like a sore thumb. We are not doing the things that employed lawyers do, in the places that they do them. We are at home, in pajamas, sending out resumes, making networking phone calls, and keeping spreadsheets of all the rejections we’ve received already (that’s a topic for a future day). If we’re not in pajamas, we’re dressed in our very best, trembling with anxiety, on our way to an interview that might, just might, lead to becoming, once again, an employed lawyer. What we’re not doing is gliding self-assuredly through some hallowed halls, dressed in our anonymous Brooks Brothers, Banana Republic and Ann Taylor biz-casual wardrobes, going to and from meetings, going to and from lunch dates, going to and from case rooms, going to and from each others’ offices to bitch about how much we hate our jobs. We know we’re not and everybody else knows it, too.

But on Thanksgiving, everybody, except those employed lawyers caught preparing to plead for a TRO tomorrow morning, looks the same and does the same thing. Pajamas and the Macy’s parade. Football and whatever you please. Dinner and, depending on family tradition, whatever you please or whatever Mom or Grandmother pleases! We all even eat more or less the same thing. On Thanksgiving, we are all the same. I, for one, give thanks.

Since we’ve started giving Thanksgiving thanks and we’re now on a roll, I think we should also look beyond the sorrows of being unemployed lawyers, and look instead at the open doors that stand before us. Perhaps law firm practice was just a bridge that will lead us to a better place, a place we really want to be. I ask each of you if you really had what you wanted at your firm or if you were truly happy. I hope you understand that they are two very different questions.

Maybe on Thanksgiving you can let yourself be happy about losing your law job, because you now have the chance to do what you’ve always wanted to do. You can teach, become an anthropologist, run a museum, get your band back together and give it one more try, take to the stage, write for a magazine or newspaper, write your novel, for heaven’s sake!, become a golf pro, become a tennis pro, become a social worker, open your own business selling products and/or services, or open your own law firm (The Unemployed Lawyer will be addressing this in detail soon). You can be thankful for this brief period in your life that allows you to decide whether you will stay or go. If you decide to pursue your heart and go, then go with the Unemployed Lawyer’s blessings and enthusiasm. One day we may meet down that new and different pathway.

If you decide to stay in law, you can choose to leave Big Law and do non-profit or educational work. You can work at a mid-sized or even small firm, and maybe have a hand in shaping that firm’s future. Or, you can choose to stay the course until you land another job in Big Law. The Unemployed Lawyer will try to help you achieve any of these goals. Give thanks that these possibilities remain open to you, however difficult the path may be. Give thanks for those who will help you.

The Unemployed Lawyer gives thanks for this website. I woke up one morning, determined to build this site and hoping it would help everybody else going through the same extremely painful experiences I have gone through. I also determined to make it easier to find a way out—hence the all the links and other resources I hope to provide.  I will tell you that making this site makes me very happy and I’ll be even happier when the first person tells me that it helped him/her to get a job.
 
For today, give yourself a break. Think about whatever you’ve got that’s good. Close your mind completely to all the bad stuff. For today, let yourself be happy and give thanks. I know that I’m going to do it.

Happy Thanksgiving!