I began law school passionate about a career representing abused children. After getting through what I had considered a pretty useless first year, I was excited to begin an internship at the Public Defender’s Office during my second year. Finally, I would take the first steps toward fulfilling my purpose for being in law school. One morning, I was in Juvenile Court, ready to observe the proceedings. One of the matters involved the abuse of a baby by his young father, who - in a fit of frustration and anger - had squeezed his child’s head so hard that he fractured his son’s skull. The mother of the child kicked the father out, and was allowed to retain physical custody of her child while the child’s father obtained counseling and followed a court reunification plan. I was sitting in the attorneys’ room, reviewing my notes, when I noticed some commotion near one of the large windows that looked out onto the parking lot. The father’s van was parked outside the window, and a group of attorneys were looking out the window and into the van where the young couple was “reconciling.”Â

The lawyers were watching and laughing, and one declared:Â “They’re making a new client for us!”

That day in the attorney’s room, I realized that a career in juvenile court was not the right path for me. While the insensitivity of the lawyers was distasteful, what distressed me most was that nearly all of the seasoned attorneys I met during my internship were content with navigating through a bad system, without any inclination to use their knowledge and skills to affect changes that I knew they could accomplish with reasonable effort.

Because I had a positive experience working for a nonprofit community foundation and its grants committee, I decided to make a radical shift to Estate Planning and Tax Law.  After being subjected to an IQ test as part of a job interview with a medium-sized firm, I withdrew my application and chose to go solo (with three advanced degrees, I felt no need to wait around for the results of that test). Â

Despite an extraordinarily successful practice, I was personally unsatisfied with my work and regularly searched through periodicals for alternative legal careers. Finally, after a traumatic childbirth experience, I found myself  processing my experience by spending most of my time researching health law, which I had never contemplated before. I unearthed  some of the greatest human rights violations I have encountered, and which appeared to have no legal solutions.  I decided that I had had enough of the law. With a J.D., LLM in Taxation and less than ten years’ experience, I retired from the practice of law on my 37^th birthday.Â

My husband and I decided to move to Boulder, Colorado, take a sabbatical year to spend with our two young daughters and slowly build a new life for ourselves. While the contracts for the sale of my practice were being drafted, my husband and I traveled to Fiji to participate in a healing retreat with Donny Epstein, founder of Network Spinal Analysis, at Anthony Robbins’ Namale Fiji resort. At that retreat, I had the great fortune of meeting James S. Turner, one of the original Nader’s Raiders, author of The Chemical Feast: The Nader Report on  Food Protection at the Food and Drug Administration, and partner at the 35 year-old Washington, D.C. firm of Swankin & Turner.

One afternoon, I was sharing one of Anthony’s extra large bean bags with Jim. I shared with him my frustration with legal practice and my desire to find something more satisfying to do with my life. Jim was not about to let me say goodbye to the law. We exchanged contact information and talked about getting me involved in some of his projects.Â

Well, so much for a quiet year off.

to be continued….