The Unemployed Life

Life Lessons from a Laid-Off Lawyer

Earlier this year, just out of knee surgery, with a wife in school and just a few thousand dollars in the bank, David Koller got booted out of his job.

That night, the Philadelphia lawyer asked himself the kinds of questions that (we’ve learned) bubble up after you’ve been forced out of a job: Was he happy? Did he really see himself choosing the traditional company for the long term? Was what seemed so impressive to other people — a good salary, a respectable law firm — actually satisfying?

On Law.com, Koller explains how he turned around and started his own law firm. Sound snoozy? I can’t remember the last time I read every single word a lawyer wrote. I’ve been asked several times how someone who has just been get kicked out of a job can have the confidence and pluck to start a business. Well, here are a few lessons from his account:

If you think your job was too good to leave but not good enough to go back to, you’re probably right. I recall my grandmother describing a man in much the same way. Is that the kind of relationship you want? Seriously? Then go grovel for your job. But if it’s not, then it shouldn’t be the kind of work you want, either.

The voice that tells you to be afraid is not your friend. It took Koller one evening to come to the conclusion that he should start his own firm. And then he immediately started talking himself back out of being an entrepreneur. “I could feel reality begin to set in,” he wrote. “Was I ready to do this? Was it the right time?” He had to realize again that he didn’t actually want his old job.

It might be simpler than you think. Having no idea how to start a law firm, he called a friend who had—and seemed genuinely happy running it. “At dinner, Stu wrote down on a napkin six or seven things I needed to do before I opened for business. One was malpractice insurance. Another was finding office space. A third was telephone and fax service. A fourth was a computer and printer. A fifth was clients.”

Do the math up front, even if it’s daunting. Once Koller added up his startup costs, he realized he was going to have to get creative—and did.

All you need is one person’s support. For Koller that one person was his wife. When she saw him designing crappy-looking business cards just hours after losing his job, she didn’t pitch a fit. She laughed and threw in her support. “I don’t think I could have moved forward without that,” he says.

Tags: advice, The Unemployed Life, The Working World