I Quit Being A Law Firm Partner (And Never Looked Back) - Helen Pamely
Lawyer Unleashed
In this season finale of Lawyer Unleashed, Helen Pamely shares her raw journey from being a Magic Circle law firm partner to becoming a psyc
Key takeaways
- Helen Pamely transitioned from a prestigious law partner role to psychotherapy and executive coaching after witnessing extreme burnout in colleagues.
- The Lawyer Unleashed podcast achieved over 1 million views and 10,000 subscribers within its first month of launching.
Main topics
- Career transitions
- Mental health in the legal profession
Notable quotes
It's either a massive mistake or it's going to be your breakthrough.
Conclusion
A powerful testament to the value of radical authenticity and the pote
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:00) I saw friends in floods of tears at 3am, completely exhausted, not having slept for two weeks. I saw behaviour and dynamics that you can't unsee. I just said to him, Dad, I can't do this anymore. And he said, then you'll have to leave. I left with nothing. It's either a massive mistake or it's going to be your breakthrough. Speaker 1 (0:20) You had something crazy like 10,000 subscribers and a million views in a month since launching. Speaker 2 (0:26) I got flooded. in my inbox with letters of lawyers pouring their hearts out to me. We've still got a lot of very powerful people who want to make money at all costs. Make money, be rich, be abundant, but don't do it at the expense of breaking people. Don't do it at the expense of crushing their mental health. That's not okay. Speaker 2 (0:56) In its first month, Lawyer Unleashed gained a million views on social media and over 10,000 subscribers. It blew my mind, but also it confirmed something I already knew deep down. Law has been waiting to break open for a very long time. The toxic cultures, the broken structures, the devastating human cost. In this episode, for the very first time, I share my personal journey, how Lawyer Unleashed came to be. and how together we're stepping into a new era of leadership. A big thank you to my friend Dan Hobson, head of Asia at Clio, for having this conversation with me. Speaker 1 (1:36) So, you worked at a Magic Circle firm for over five years. You then made it to partner at another reputable firm. And at the point where most people would think, I've made it, here we are, you leave law and you start all over again. Are you nuts? Speaker 2 (1:55) Am I not? Possibly, possibly. And I think, you know what, that was a really, it was a really hard time for me leaving law because I think it was one of the moments where I had to dig so deep. I had partners, people I really respected coming to me saying, what the hell are you doing? You're making the biggest mistake of your life. And my uncle even wrote to me, someone I deeply, deeply respect. And he sent me this letter. And in it, he just said, look, I get that you're doing all this other stuff, you know, and I get that you're interested in other things aside from law. But you can do that in your free time. You've achieved so much. And if I didn't tell you this, if I didn't tell you not to do this. I would be doing you a disservice. But when I received that email, I heard it and I appreciated the love with which it was sent. But I also knew it was 100 % the right decision for me. In the end, there wasn't a choice. Speaker 1 (3:14) Yeah. And what do you think that was? What got you to that point? Speaker 2 (3:18) I think the honest answer is we see people who make these big pivotal life decisions and you think it happens overnight. Speaker 1 (3:27) It Speaker 2 (3:27) doesn't. It never happens overnight. There is always a journey and there's always a build up. And I suppose to explain my journey, if I rewind back to 2007 when I started my law degree, I was the keenest person there. Like anyone who wanted to be a lawyer, there was no person who wanted to be a lawyer more than me. I loved my law degree. I loved the cases. I loved the learning. I loved everything it was about. And then it got to the point where I had to apply to law firms. And I was like, oh, shit. I don't really know how to do this. I didn't come from money. I didn't come from anyone who knew anyone who had a job like this, who even worked in the city of London. Speaker 1 (4:15) This Speaker 2 (4:16) was this foreign world. And that was a place of struggle. because I was applying for vacation schemes, then I was applying for training contracts, and I just wasn't getting anywhere. And initially, the way that I got there was because I had done my year abroad in Germany, and I wrote a letter in German. years before chat GPT. And I just wrote it to all these major law firms saying, hey, I'm this English girl and I just did a year in Germany and could I do an internship in the summer because I wasn't getting anything in London. And I made a couple of quite cute grammatical mistakes in my letter. Speaker 1 (4:58) And Speaker 2 (4:59) funnily enough, those played to my advantage because these partners and some of these firms thought, oh, that's really sweet. She's really trying and this is interesting. And I had to really put myself out there, send letters to these firms in Germany. And somehow I got this internship at Mayer Brown in Berlin. And that was when I started to break into the profession because suddenly I had Mayer Brown on my CV. Speaker 1 (5:25) You Speaker 2 (5:26) know, I had to work really hard for that. And then I was applying to London firms. I got rejected. I got rejected. I got rejected like 50 applications. And then it came to the last interview of the summer and that was with Linknators. Speaker 1 (5:41) And at Speaker 2 (5:42) that point, I'd had enough. I'd cried so many tears. I'd broken down over so many rejections. I just thought, fuck it. You know, I'm going into that interview and if I get it, I get it. If I don't, I don't. I went in there and that's when I got the job. But there was blood, sweat and tears involved in that. I cannot tell you the amount of tenacity. I cannot tell you how much I wanted it. And I thought that was it. I thought I was made for life. I was starting out in the magic circle. I was going to be this incredible lawyer. All I wanted more than anything was to be a partner one day. That was my dream. And I got there. And from day one, it was nothing like I expected. I think I tried to convince myself for a long time that it was me. I just had to find the right department, the right place. And that never came. Because the reality of law is that... There's so much in the system that needs to change. Over the course of my career, I saw people having mental breakdowns. I saw friends in floods of tears at 3am, completely exhausted, not having slept for two weeks. I saw behaviour and dynamics that you can't unsee. I saw it happen with other people. I suffered it myself. Speaker 2 (7:05) And I just thought, what is this world? Where on the one hand, you've got this incredible career. You're working on the biggest deals in the world. You're intellectually challenged. You're inspired by so many of the people around you. but the system is broken. And that was something that was hard to live through from a personal perspective. It was also something just really hard to witness. And... Through that journey, through having had some really challenging experiences, I then went to another firm thinking this is all going to be better. Speaker 1 (7:47) And Speaker 2 (7:47) it just wasn't. It just wasn't. And I left within a few weeks of joining that firm. And that was really hard. I had this incredible career. I had everything on paper. And I remember walking up towards the Strand. It was a really cold January morning. And I don't know why I didn't have earphones, but I didn't because my hand was like freezing and shaking next to my ear. And I was on the phone to my dad. I was probably quite depressed at the time in retrospect looking back. And I just said to him. Dad, I can't do this anymore. Speaker 2 (8:29) And he said... then you'll have to leave. Speaker 2 (8:34) And at that point it was like a huge weight lifted from me. Speaker 2 (8:39) because on some level I think I needed that permission from him. I wanted to make my parents proud. I wanted to make me proud. Speaker 2 (8:50) And that was the first time I left law. Speaker 2 (8:55) The story does go on, but that was the first time and I left with nothing. Speaker 2 (9:02) like You think you're magic circle, right? You're this top litigator. You go to another US firm and then you leave into nothing. I remember my mom saying, don't leave a job without a job. That was when I first stepped into the abyss. And that was where I went to find myself. You know, I went to this meditation and yoga retreat in Scotland. It was this old farmhouse. And it was freezing cold. And I just remember being there and thinking, I've got to find a way forward. And I don't know what that way forward is. Long story short, that led me to find the Psychotherapy Institute, where I actually ended up studying psychotherapy. And I met the woman who changed my life. She was a Buddhist nun. She'd founded this incredible institute based on meditation, Buddhist beliefs. eastern philosophies and fuse that with western psychodynamic practice and so for me that became a spiritual journey it wasn't about becoming a therapist it was about knowing myself better finding my own purpose and so i signed up immediately after doing a week introductory course with them for this Masters, but the Masters was three years long, had 13 weeks residential and it was really expensive. Speaker 2 (10:30) So the realities of this was I went back into law. In the meantime, I've been temping at a US firm. But then I got the job where eventually I made partner. Speaker 1 (10:40) I Speaker 2 (10:41) went in as an associate at Roslyn King and I didn't care anymore. And ironically, that's where I became powerful because I became confident. I dropped the imposter syndrome. And within two and a half years, working part time, training as a therapist on the side, I was made a partner. Speaker 1 (11:02) But Speaker 2 (11:03) that was never my dream. Speaker 1 (11:07) And Speaker 2 (11:07) at that point, then I knew it was time to try coaching. If that's the label you want to give it, Speaker 1 (11:14) this Speaker 2 (11:15) idea of coming back to the industry. offering something different and really trying to bring about the change that we need in law. Speaker 1 (11:24) Wow, it's a hell of a journey. Speaker 2 (11:28) It is. It is. Speaker 1 (11:30) So tell