My First Blog Post: Thinking Back on Five Years as a Freelance Lawyer.

I posted the image above on social media in May 2016 on my very last day working at Gibson Dunn, the law firm where I began my legal career in 2009. I loved the people I worked with, the challenging work, and let's be honest . . . the money. But I did NOT love the long, demanding hours which often led to working nights and weekends, and the stress that came along with it. I also had two young daughters at the time (two under two) and a spouse who had been deployed since the start of that year. Many are able to figure out how to balance working in so-called "Big Law" with parenting, even with a co-parent who is gone a lot (or in my case, completely gone for 7 months), but it wasn't working for me. I craved something different, something more flexible, that would enable me to be a more present mom while also not walking away from my legal career completely. Enter: freelance work.

Looking back on the last five years, I am so glad I made that leap. Little did I know in May 2016 that we'd end up adding two more children (twins!), and end up moving from California to Alabama and then to Nebraska all in the course of less than two years. Freelance work has enabled me to continue working for the same clients throughout all of our military moves without missing a beat, and has provided huge flexibility for me to manage all that comes along with raising four small children.

I have learned so much in the past five years, and I get a lot of questions about freelancing, so I have decided to add a blog to my website and start answering some common questions and sharing resources that have been helpful to me, for others who might be interested in making this transition! This might just be a limited series or it might bloom into something more. Stay tuned!