Each month, PracticeLink’s “Packing My Own ’Chute” series will chronicle the unique trials and challenges of Sandra L. Schulz, Q.C., a lawyer and mediator who operates a private practice from her home in Alberta. Sandra had a successful, 20-year career as a litigation lawyer and partner in an Edmonton law firm, and served as CBA Alberta Branch President in 1994 -1995. Besides being lighthearted and entertaining, the series will offer practical advice that readers can use to help shape their own career paths. In Part I, Sandra chronicles the events that led up to "The Decision" to leave the law firm and go it her own.
Packing My Own ‘Chute: Part I – The Decision
By Sandra L. Schulz, Q.C.
I was actually sitting on a beach in Mexico when I made The Decision. Perhaps that should have been my first clue that a change was necessary. There I was, lounging on the white sand, a tall cool beverage in my hand, the wind lightly blowing through my hair, the waves quietly lapping the shore—and I was thinking about work!
The decision to leave private practice and start my own mediation business was not an easy one for me. I graduated from the Faculty of Law at the University of Manitoba and moved to Edmonton to do my articling in 1982. I loved articling. I loved the hustle and bustle of the little day to day emergencies. I loved constantly learning new things and running to court for a quick Order. I felt like I was part of the team, fighting the good fight.
I then joined the Canadian Bar Association and quickly expanded my circle of friends and acquaintances. I became a partner in the firm and the firm became my family. I became genuinely fond of the people I worked with, especially the lawyer who had been my Principal.
But something happened as the years went by. Slowly, I became dissatisfied with the direction my practice was taking. As I became more senior, I was getting into court less often. My colleagues seemed more interested in the fight than in resolving the problem. I was waking up in the middle of night, thinking about files. I was beginning to resent the long hours and the lost weekends.
I tried to deal with my dissatisfaction by changing the focus of my practice to personal injury matters, but some of my partners were less than supportive of this type of work. I threw myself into my CBA work, becoming the Alberta Branch President and participating in as many national committees as I could. But even though I was consistently at the top of the Billings List, some of my partners were not very supportive of my CBA work. After all, I could be spending that time making more money for the firm! They couldn’t understand the tremendous amount of personal satisfaction that I was getting, and they didn’t see the benefits flowing through to the firm. I couldn’t point to a specific financial gain, but they could point out the financial cost to them. I felt unappreciated.
Then the house of cards came tumbling down. My best friend at the firm left to go solo. I felt more isolated and more alone. Some of the partners were complaining about the litigators, not understanding some of the special and different considerations involved in a litigator’s practice as opposed to a solicitor’s practice. Shortly thereafter, a financial decision was made by my partners that, in my opinion, changed the compensation rules in the middle of the game. I felt betrayed.
One thing was patently clear to me—private practice was no longer fun.
So there I sat on the beach. I had made The Decision—now all I had to do was act on it.
I returned to the office in January and took a look at my practice. Clearly there were some files here that I couldn’t pass on to someone else. Many were “dog files”, or clients that I felt some special connection with, or files that needed to be organized before someone else took over. I decided to make the announcement at the end of February, and began to concentrate on these files.
The end of February came and went. I hadn’t been able to get the files to the point that I wanted them to be at, so I decided that I need more time. I gave myself another month.
In March, I began to think about what it was going to be like working from home. My husband was a management consultant with a home office. Could we both work from home without killing each other? As a consultant, his practice was feast or famine, which meant that his income followed that cycle. What if we both had a down cycle at the same time? Did I really have the discipline necessary to hustle work on my own or was I going to succumb to soap operas and HGTV? I was working myself into a downward spiral of self doubt.
The spring wore on. My files were in shape. We’d just passed through a season of reruns so television didn’t seem to be quite the threat it initially appeared. I was running out of excuses. I was putting off the unpleasant task of “asking for the divorce” from my partners. I picked a day at the end of May. I was going to do it.
In mid-May, I found out that the managing partner was going on holidays for two weeks. This was his first real holiday in five years. There was no way I was going to tell him before he left and interfere with his holiday. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll do it when he gets back.” Another excuse.
At the beginning of June, I got a telephone call. There was a good chance that a big payment was going to come in on a file in the next couple of weeks. That would mean a monetary distribution to the partners. It would make financial sense to wait for that to happen. I delayed for a few more weeks. Those few weeks dragged on. It became clear that the payment would not be coming in the foreseeable future. It was now the beginning of July. Over six months had passed and I realized that there never would be a good time to do this. I just had to “bite the bullet” and do it. Agonizing over the task was proving to be worse that the task itself!
The day arrived. I picked a time when I knew the staff would not be around. I caught the managing partner as he walked by my office and nervously asked to speak to him. He sat down and all my carefully planned words left me. To my utter amazement and horror, I felt tears welling up in my eyes. He reacted exactly the way I knew he would, with understanding and compassion. I asked him to give me a day or two to tell my other partners. After all those years, I wanted to be the one to tell them. I also wanted to tell my legal assistant, a wonderful woman of whom I was genuinely fond. I knew that I would not have a job to offer to her, and they needed time to figure out whether she still fit within their structure.
Over the next several days, I told the rest of my partners. It was like asking for a divorce seven times over. The emotion was there and so were the financial issues. Fortunately, the partnership agreement was fairly clear on how a departing partner was paid out. Even so, there were a few issues that had to be dealt with. Some of the miscommunication that occurred made me draw on every bit of mediation training I had ever taken. Finally, everything was straightened out.
I began to tell my colleagues and clients. Some clients tried to persuade me to take them with me. I stayed firm in my resolve that I was not taking files with me, despite how fond I was of some of my clients. I did endless “Memos to File” and made lists of which lawyer was getting each file. I was determined to not let the clients suffer.
My legal assistant came to visit me one day and told me that the firm had given her notice. I was incensed! They needed her to make a smooth transition on the files and make the clients comfortable with all the changes! Then it occurred to me: I no longer had a say in that decision or any other decision about the firm. I felt a profound sense of loss.
I began to clean out my office. What a lot of junk I had accumulated! I decided that I could probably throw out those 20-year-old articling notes, and the long out-of-date precedents that I had religiously kept over the years. But the pictures and mementos of happier days brought a smile to my face as I carefully packed them into boxes.
The big day finally came. The vast quantities of accumulated junk were thrown out. My files were distributed. My personal items were either in boxes ready to go or were already stacked in boxes at home.
In some ways, that last day was anti-climactic. The hard part was already done. I said my goodbyes to my co-workers, knowing that our paths would cross again, if for no other reason that they were paying out my partnership interest over time. But I knew it would be more than just that. These people were still my friends and I knew that we would stay in touch.
Next Installment: The dogs and I set up my home office and chaos reigns.
Copyright © Sandra L. Schulz, Q.C.
