I Used to Want to Be A Lawyer

Howdy from Denver,

No good news on the van quite yet, but we're hangin' in there.

Leverage's effect on my choice of profession & van video #3 are included below.

"You'd make a great lawyer."

When you're young and you don't quite know what you want to do, the words of the adults in your life carry a great deal of weight.

Growing up, family and friends told me incessantly that I was bound to be a lawyer.

This is in large part due to my stubbornness and a healthy appetite for spirited debate - 2 things that have gotten me both into and out of a great deal of trouble.

Life as a lawyer made sense to me. I love to think critically, and I thoroughly enjoy reading, writing, and debating.

Ultimately, it wasn't a fit.

3 reasons why I didn't pursue law school after college.

I began engaging with pre-law resources on-campus during undergrad, but practicality, uncertainty, and creativity got in the way.

Practicality - I am the youngest of my siblings and the final one to launch. I knew that a paycheck right out of college and my own health insurance plan would ease my parents' minds.

Uncertainty - There are an absurd # of resources out there on getting into law school, but there aren't nearly as many that depict what life as a lawyer is actually like. I hated the "beat the test" culture of the LSAT, and I wasn't sure what a lawyer's day-to-day responsibilities were (or if I'd enjoy them.)

Creativity - I wasn't convinced that life as a lawyer would allow me to express myself creatively. I like to break things, fail fast, and build ideas into reality. Life as a lawyer seemed rewarding financially, but I rarely heard of innovation in the profession.

Limited equations apply to both lawyers and consultants.

Spoiler: I didn't become a lawyer. I became a technology consultant.

While the responsibilities of a lawyer and a consultant are different, the revenue-generating model is the same.

I have a billable rate at $X/hr. At a clip of ~40hrs/week, I work roughly 2,080 hours per year.

Therefore, the model is ($X/hr * 2,080hrs) = revenue I generate for the firm.

The hourly rate (X) changes based upon skills, experience, etc. for both lawyers and consultants, but the general premise of the model is the same.

You bill hours to a client. The firm collects money. The firm pays you out a fraction of the revenue as a salary (typically about 1/3 of your billable rate).

The issue is that the traditional professional services equation is limited.

Leverage - build it once, sell it X number of times.

There is a clear cap on the # of hours one can work.

Even at 60hrs/week, the total # of hours you work in a year is 3,120. It's possible that you make more money via bonus incentives, but your work-life balance has suffered.

What if innovation allowed us to make variables in the revenue model limitless while also allowing us to maintain a good work-life balance?

That's exactly what technology allows us to do. It acts as a lever that scales our work.

Say that you build a piece of software once. It took you 100hrs to build it. You list the software online at $20/license.

Your revenue equation would be ($20/license * # of sales). The # of hours you invested to build it remains the same (100), but there is no limit to the # of sales.

You can broaden the reach of your work, increase your revenue, and decrease the # of hours spent working.

What's not to like about that?

Application: you can largely break up what is scalable into 2 things - code and content. I mentioned an example of scaling code above (fixed rate of 100 hrs, unlimited # of sales.) You're currently reading an example of scaling content (I spend 4hrs/week on each newsletter, but there's no cap on the # of people who read each newsletter.) An application of scale before your very eyes.

Archimedes said it best more than 2,000 years ago. Today, the lever and the fulcrum are pieces of modern technology. They increase our leverage far past what man had previously known.

Does this mean people shouldn't become lawyers?

It depends.

I made my decision based on the season of life and skill set:

1. Season - I entered the workforce in an era where tools allowing me to build things that scale were more accessible than ever before. COVID only accelerated this.

2. Skill set - I still love to think critically, read, write, and debate - the skills that originally made me think that I wanted to be a lawyer. But now I want to think critically, read, write, and debate about what people need. Then, I want to take it two steps further. I want to build and scale products that solve those needs.

Other folks may have different responses to these 2 variables which lead them to become a lawyer, and that's okay.

My two responses have led me to become a builder and storyteller.

I shifted out of traditional consulting and now help build software products that we can sell X # of times.

I write and podcast about topics I'm interested in so that my stories can be read/listened to X # of times.

X has no limit.

This means the solutions I build to serve others have no limit.

Practicality, uncertainty, and creativity slowed my thinking about becoming a lawyer.

But ultimately the idea of the limitless X-variable, otherwise known as scalability, is what changed the trajectory of my career.

Van Video #3

I recorded the van build and broke it into 5 videos:

1. Design & Demolition

2. Vertical Framing & Sound Insulation

3. Building the Bed Frame

4. Wool Insulation & Walls

5. Cabinets & Countertops

The third video, Building the Bed Frame, can be found below.

I'll continue to release each video here in the newsletter over the next couple of weeks.

Photos of The Week

Location this past week: Denver, CO

Wash Park birthday picnic for Emily. Van breakdowns are wack, but I do enjoy continuing to be a part of my friends' events in Denver. Happy 26th, EJ!

A mural of Serena Williams that I stumbled upon in downtown Denver on the day that she announced she'd be stepping away from the game of tennis soon. The GOAT.

Rex and I served alongside one another when I lived in Denver last summer. He left for Oklahoma for some seasonal work and I left for Pennsylvania to build the van, but the two of us unknowingly returned back to Colorado to serve on the same day. We've been able to reconnect over the past few weeks which has been so dang cool.

Thanks for reading

When you were a kid, what did you think you'd grow up to be?

Hit the reply button, and let me know!

Josh

Want more Build content? Check out the links below

Read Previous Newsletters // Read Essays

Listen to the Building Out Loud Podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts