"You're throwing your career away."

Just over four years ago, I left the world of BIG LAW to start my own practice. When I made the decision to leave my old firm, I gave my boss notice. I told him I was leaving to strike out on my own. He told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was throwing my career away. It was basically like this: 

In spite of the warnings about my impending career doom, I left the firm. I did not make that decision lightly. I grew up working class in rural Pennsylvania. Money was always an issue. Throughout my late teens and 20s, I was always pretty much broke. Do you know what it's like to go grocery shopping and keep a running total in your head on how much everything costs that's in your shopping cart? Then you get to the checkout and realize that you thought you had $50 worth of groceries but you actually have $65 and you have to put stuff back because you can't afford it? That was me pretty much every time I went grocery shopping until I was about 28 years old, when I got out of law school and began working for my old firm. Working as a lawyer at a prominent firm was the first time in my life when I wasn't broke. It represented a type of stability and security that I had never had before. 

But in spite of that, I knew myself. I knew that I would not be happy staying in BIG LAW. I knew that I wanted to start my own shop and hopefully, eventually, build my own law firm. So I left and went out on my own. 

It was not easy. In fact, the first year and a half were brutal. When you're not even three years out of law school and you start your own practice, it's pretty ugly out there. You might be smart and hard-working, but nobody really takes you seriously. Law is largely an old man's world. And I was 31. 

After that first year and a half, I was very close to calling it in. I had applied for jobs with a couple law firms in DC. I put my truck up for sale online. My plan was pretty simple: I'd sell my truck, which was a damn nice truck, and get maybe $20,000 for it. That would give me enough money to wind down my practice, move up to DC, rent an apartment, find a job and start getting a paycheck again. I hated this plan. I hated giving up. I hated the idea of going back to work for another law firm when I really wanted a firm of my own. But that was the reality. I had nothing to fall back on. My family never had any money.

Among the many things my mom instilled in me was this strong sense that it is what it is; that you just have to wake up each day and do whatever needs done in order to make it. I am so grateful for that. Because even when I was on the brink of shutting down my (nascent) law venture, I knew that I would be ok. No matter how gut-wrenching it would be for me to shut it down, go back to BIGLAW and back to working 70 hours a week for someone else, I knew that I was tough enough to do it, to take the loss and just keep on going. 

Somebody offered me $17,500 for my truck. I got them up to $18,500. They were going to come pick it up within 48 hours. I had an offer from a firm in DC. I could start in a week. 

But the next day, I settled one of the only plaintiff-side cases I had. It paid out just enough money for me to keep going. I took my truck down from sale. And a few weeks later, some clients retained me to defend a trade secret case out in the Middle District of Florida (which we won). From there, things went up for a while. Then up and down. Then sideways. Then back up. 

I hired one associate. Then another. And somewhere between 3 and 1/2 and 4 years out, things really started rolling. I started getting calls on new non-compete and trade secret cases nearly every week. I started getting calls from reporters for local Florida newspapers. Then I started getting calls from reporters for Inc. Magazine, Bloomberg, FundFire. 

On July 1, just over four years after I started my own practice, I was quoted in the Wall Street Journal on broker non-compete agreements. That's not a fluke. That's a product of four years spent fighting and grinding. Two weeks ago, we won an important decision in a non-compete case in the Southern District of Florida. In his order, the judge cited an appellate decision in a case that we won as controlling authority. That's not luck. It's the three D's: Dedication, determination and discipline. 

Not bad for a guy who threw his career away four years ago. And I'm just getting started. 

                              - JP