One Mom’s Journey From Severance to Six-Figures

By: Ann K. Levine

Eight days after the birth of my first child, with all of the exhaustion and nipple-soreness that accompanies that experience, I returned to billing hours. My loyalty to my employer and mentor, my drive to be the best possible attorney in a competitive litigation field, and –frankly- my ego all led me to get right back to work.

Haley came with me. The office had plenty of room for a bouncy seat, and blanket spread out for tummy time. I nursed her as I spoke to clients on the phone and typed letters. Once, I went to the receptionist with a 3-inch thick client in one hand and Haley in the other. I dropped both. I caught Haley. At least my priorities were in order, I thought.

Within a couple of months, I felt in the swing of things. Returning from a successful motion hearing where I’d secured the payment of our fees from plaintiff’s counsel, I flew into the office to brag about my conquest. Sitting down with my boss, I got “the speech.”

The speech that starts with, “Your major case settled today,” and moves into “…downsizing.” Although this news, to me, was worse than the shock of my divorce from my college sweetheart, I remained calm and collected outwardly as my heart fell and then raced. I inquired about a severance. Some balking ensued, especially after some chauvinist comments from my boss about how I shouldn’t worry because I was married and my husband had a good job, but I we came to an agreement. I cleaned out my desk, said my goodbyes, and went home to let the nanny go.

I pounded the pavement and knocked on doors, but work for a litigator/new-mommy proved scarce. The next month was depressing. I’d felt so important, working with influential clients, being involved with sophisticated business dealings, taking depositions and appearing before judges. Plus, I loved making a good income and the pride I had in that paycheck. Suddenly, I had none of that. I had a baby, and no job, and a husband in the first years of his career as an attorney (not the “get rich” years, let me assure you).

While pushing the jogger in the park a few weeks later, and walking with my friend Michelle (also an attorney, also with a new baby), I said something the second I thought it and, if I hadn’t, the entire trajectory of my family’s well being and happiness might have turned out very differently.

Five years have now passed since I blurted to Michelle, “What if I helped people applying to law school?” Five years since I spent a week scouring the web for information about how to get a business license, a business phone line, a domain name, take credit card payments, how to build a website (for free!), how to use the web to advertise…. I knew nothing. No one in my family ever started a business. To me, a job meant a steady paycheck paid by someone bigger than yourself.

However, at the end of that week, I told my husband I thought I could make a go of this new consulting practice if I had $1,400. With our new house, his first year lawyer salary, and my unemployment check as my only source of income, I did not blame him for his hesitancy. “How about $700?” He offered. I told him I really felt it would take $1,400 to get the business up and running. $1,400 was the exact amount of my unemployment check. I see a lovely irony in the fact that from that $1,400 came a million dollar business.

The first year, I made a part time paralegal’s salary, but a living nonetheless. The next year, I made a part time lawyer’s salary. The third year, I matched the salary I’d earned as a lawyer, and in my fourth year I surpassed it. It doubled in my fifth year.

Five years later, I still work from home. I have two daughters now, and a lovely au pair who helps me with them. I have helped thousands of people through the arduous process of applying to law school: some were paying clients but many more (actually almost 100,000 a year) simply read the advice I give away for free on my blog. This year, I published (self-published!) a law school admission guidebook in which one of the people I acknowledge is the boss who let me go. After all, without his impetus, I would never have taken the leap. I would still be billing 2,000 hours a year, working in an office where someone else monitored when I worked and how I worked. I wouldn’t see my kids until bedtime. I certainly wouldn’t have time to go to the gym or meet friends for lunch.

Although I was devastated at the time, and felt my entire ego washed down the drain along with my livelihood, losing my job was truly the best thing to ever happen for my family. I see my kids, take Haley to ballet, volunteer in her Kindergarten class, cook dinner for the girls, and still make time to chair a non-profit board, spend time with friends, and enjoy a weekly date night with my husband (who feels so much pressure removed from his shoulders because the burden of providing for our family is not his alone).

Mostly, though, I am proud of myself. Whether it was buying myself my first pair of designer shoes or writing my first significant check to the nonprofit I care most about, or even the example I am setting for my daughters for what being a “mom” can mean, I feel proud of what I’ve accomplished. I could not have done it alone, and there was a lot of luck, but anyone with a vision who follows through on the vision and talks to people about how that vision might be achieved, has the potential to feel this kind of pride and to improve her quality of life and relationships with others. Oh, and also to make some serious money.

Ann K. Levine, Esq., is a work at home mom, law school admission consultant and owner of Law School Expert. She brings her experience as director of admissions for two ABA law schools and five years as a law school admission consultant. More than 100,000 law school applicants and pre-law students depend upon Ms. Levine’s advice through her blog www.lawschoolexpert.com/blog as a guide through the daunting law school application process. She is the author of the new book, The Law School Admission Game: Play Like An Expert.