My path to law librarianship was a circuitous one. I always loved reading, writing, and arguing about the law, so I was sure I would spend my legal career litigating cases for several decades. After three years as an associate in a large law firm, however, I was ready for a change. I took a position in a smaller, thirty-lawyer family law firm in order to have more client contact and more time in the courtroom. It was a decision that would change my life in ways I never expected.

While at my second firm, I worked on a very contentious, high-asset divorce case. The case went to trial and resulted in a significant “permanent maintenance” (alimony) award for our client, which was affirmed on appeal. The permanent maintenance award stemmed from the fact that, decades earlier, our client left the workforce to raise the parties’ three children and manage their household, thus severely limiting her earning potential and employment opportunities. As part of his case, the opposing spouse argued that our client should return to work in her prior field in order to help mitigate her claim for maintenance. Her prior field was law librarianship.

“The even bigger message to me personally was that law librarianship seemed to include the pieces of the legal profession I loved without the highly revenue-driven pieces I struggled with as a practicing attorney.”

In order to assess the viability of this claim, I studied the profession of law librarianship, including speaking with several law librarians in local law schools and law firms. The one common refrain – which we used with great success at trial – was the enormous impact of the digital age on law libraries and how difficult it would be to try to return to the profession after several decades away. The even bigger message to me personally was that law librarianship seemed to include the pieces of the legal profession I loved without the highly revenue-driven pieces I struggled with as a practicing attorney. Before that case, I did not even know academic law librarianship existed as a profession, as the law librarians at my law school had little direct interaction with the students.

So, after a great deal of thought, I left my second law firm to return to school for a master’s degree in library and information science. Everyone I knew encouraged me not to do it, but I pushed ahead. Truth be told, I pushed through some big doubts and some sleepless nights, but I had to try. Upon finishing my library degree, I took a position at the Georgetown University Law Library in Washington, D.C., and I never looked back.

I love working as a law librarian – researching, writing, teaching, planning, and working with the other members of the team to create the best law library of the future we can. It is a level of collaboration and shared purpose I never experienced as a practicing attorney, and it stretches my brain in new directions every day. I have also lived up and down the East Coast in a way I never expected. Before changing career paths, I believed I would always live in the Midwest. Now, I no longer feel tied to a single geographic area.

I will always be grateful I found the courage to step off the well-worn legal path for one less traveled. It was not always easy, but it was the right choice for me, and I hope others in a similar situation find the courage to do the same, whatever their less traveled legal path may be.