Leah Gervais:

All right, visionaries. Welcome back to the your biggest vision show. I’m your host, Leah and I have the most special guest I’ve ever had. My husband, Adam.

Adam Pascarella:

I think I’m actually a returning guest.

Leah Gervais:

This is actually his second time, but it’s been a while. We have a very exciting reason that you’re on the show today. Do you wanna tell him, or do you want me to?

Adam Pascarella:

Sure. I could tell them. I’m promoting my new book called Reversed in Part, which is 15 law school grads pursuing non-traditional careers. Don’t mind the not for sale or resale title there. It basically tells a story of 15 law school graduates who have done amazing things outside of traditional legal practice. It’s a book that took me three years to create, I’m super excited about it. And I think it’s for you, whether you’re in the legal field or not in the legal field, you can take a lot of great lessons from this book.

Leah Gervais:

How well said, thank you. So I wanted to have Adam on the show today because the topic of his book is obviously something near and dear to my heart. So he interviewed 15 lawyers that did something different with their career other than being a lawyer. And for those of you that have followed me or who have listened to my show, you know that I, when we met, I was in the process of applying to law school and I ended up getting accepted. 

And that’s what I thought I was going to do with my life until I realized that was not what I wanted to do. And ever since then, ever since I’ve shared my story and built this business, it is one of the most common things that people reach out to me about is having a similar experience either with law school specifically, or with a different path that they really wanted to take, or always thought that they wanted to take.

And then somewhere along the journey toward it realized that they were not happy actually doing that. And what we learn is that a lot of the times what we think we’re working toward, we do, because we think it’ll make us happy, but we’re very influenced by society, by our parents, by religion and even by our own fears.

And so I thought that this would be a really interesting and exciting topic about navigating those things so that you can find what you actually want. So to start, I’d love to hear a little bit about your story, because this topic’s probably even closer to your heart than it is mine.

Adam Pascarella:

Yes. I actually went to law school. I graduated in 2014, went to Penn law school. It was a good experience. And then from there, I went to work at a large commercial law firm here in New York city. I was a litigation associate, which meant that I worked on disputes litigations. Um, mostly I was representing large corporations and wealthy individuals. So that was the general commercial litigation side.

I also did some white collar defense work, some antitrust work, basically at these larger law firms, you kind of take whatever work is presented to you. And I had the luck of working with a lot of great partners there. And by writing this book, this is not meant to say that you shouldn’t go to law school, that I had a bad experience in my law firm. It’s nothing of that sort.

I basically wrote the book because I wanted to do something different with my career. I was at my law firm for about two years. And before going into the firm, I thought that I wasn’t going to stay forever. I didn’t see myself as a partner retiring with the firm or some other big firm, but I didn’t know exactly what I was going to do next. And not only that, how I was going to get from point A to point B.

I reached out to some of my contacts that I had that, um, did this sort of transition that were attorneys and did something else. But my network wasn’t as big as I thought that it was or that I wanted. And I also recognized that there were others in my position that maybe they weren’t miserable at their law firm job or at any legal job, but they really wanted to know what else was out there.

And that’s why I decided to create this book, which tells the story again of 15 law school grads that did something different with their careers. Now some of them actually practiced after law school and some of them didn’t, but I think it really goes to show that you can do different things with your law degree. Now, that’s not saying that you should go to law school in order to do non-law things.

I think that’s a separate conversation because going to law school takes a lot of time and money, uh, hundreds of thousands of dollars to be exact. So it’s not a decision you should make lightly. However, if you are in law school or you’re a current attorney and you wanna do something different, I hope this book provides value and inspiration that you can actually do something different.

Leah Gervais:

So when, what were some of the things that you saw in these other people that you interviewed that you saw in yourself as well? Like were their commonalities about your decision to leave the legal field that you thought some of them had as well?

Adam Pascarella:

Yeah. Some of them went into working at a big commercial law firm, knowing that they weren’t going to stay forever. Like me. There was one gentleman I interviewed, Sandra Daniels, who’s the COO and co-founder of Thumbtack. And he went to work at Sullivan and Cromwell, I believe, which is one of the best commercial law firms in the world. He went there knowing that he would quit on a certain day. He had the date written out on his refrigerator. I’m going to quit by, you know, whatever day, 2000, whatever was his job outta law school. 

And at the same, he did that for a number of reasons. But one of the reasons was that he started working on Thumbtack while he was in law school. And he was working with his colleagues on that. And he knew that he wanted to do that in the future, but he couldn’t pay his bills at the time. Plus he had a great offer from Sullivan and Cromwell. So he wanted to get some work experience there, but he didn’t wanna stay forever.

And that’s why he had on his refrigerator, I have this sort of quit date. So that was one similarity there. I think another similarity is that a lot of the people I interviewed in this get a bias for action. Like sure. They were, they weren’t exactly happy with their situation and what they wanted to do, or even if they weren’t unhappy, they wanted to do something else, but they didn’t just sit and think about it.

They actually took steps to do it. And it’s a pretty scary thing, especially if you’re a lawyer or you’re a law student because you invest so much time and money into becoming a lawyer. And then there’s also the identity factor too, because you’re investing so much time and money and energy into becoming a lawyer. Once you’re not a lawyer anymore, that sense of personal identity is gone. It’s almost an existential crisis. You’re wondering. Yeah, exactly. Who am I? What sort of value can I create and contribute to the world?

So that’s difficult, but notwithstanding all of those reasons why they shouldn’t leave or didn’t, or are not withstanding those reasons why they would wanna stay put in like a zone of comfort, they still did. They did anyway. Yeah. And, and there were plenty of, you know, resistance, uh, obstacles. They had fears they had to overcome, but they, they did it and they’re doing very well.

Leah Gervais:

I have so many questions with everything you just said. So first of all, I feel like lawyers are not great natural entrepreneurs, which might be an unpopular opinion, but the practice of the law makes you quite risk averse. And something that you said is that you felt like all the people you interviewed had a bias action. Do you think that that is that they are kind of like in the minority of attorneys that have a bias for action? Not to say attorneys are lazy, cause they’re very smart, but they’re not necessarily like proactive about doing things differently. Would you agree with that?

Adam Pascarella:

I don’t know how to answer that question really. Maybe I, I do think a lot of attorneys do have this bias for or action within them. It just, it just can be scary. You were trained in law school to look at the downsides of any sort of situation, especially as litigators. Uh, as I was you, you deal with situations where the worst case scenario happens and you go to court to litigate the dispute. So it’s easy to see in your day to day life that if you take this sort of risk, it’s easy to think that the downside is going to happen. Yeah.

So it’s kind of ingrained into you at that point, but I do really think deep down that attorneys, if they wanted to make this change, could do it. I’m not saying they should at this particular moment in time or anything like that because making this sort of decision to leave the law is very personal and there are plenty of variables that you need to consider among the, the financial aspects of doing so it’s especially true.

If you have a corporate law firm, if you’re making a six figure salary, it’s hard to leave that for something that’s more uncertain. And so you have to account for any law school debt that you may have your personal expenses, that sort of thing. So you have to have a, a really deep conversation, internal conversation with yourself about whether it’s the right thing to do. So in that respect, I think attorneys actually do have an advantage because they’re pretty analytical compared to other members of the population.

So really it’s about leveraging your strengths and kind of getting the courage to take a little leap. And I’m not saying you have to quit your job right now. I certainly didn’t when I wanted to leave. I stayed for, for a bit. You can, but you can take intermediate steps to make that endpoint much closer. Whether that’s meeting people outside your industry, you know, meeting potential, co-founders you wanna start a startup. There’s so many things that you can do right now without making that massive leap.

Leah Gervais:

What percentage of the book are people that went onto have their own businesses versus went into a different field?

Adam Pascarella:

Um, I’d probably say around 20 per cent. Yeah. So I would say Keith Rabois who’s well known. He is a member of the PayPal mafia. He started a bunch of companies. Um, there’s also Sandra Daniels. So I mentioned the COO of Thumbtack, David Hornick, who’s a venture capitalist. He started his own VC firm and Anthony Scaramucci as well. He started his own financial services firm, a restaurant, a whole bunch of things.

There are a bunch of entrepreneurs out there and I, maybe the book is biased in that sense because I wanted to start my own things. So I was looking for advice, uh, subconsciously for myself. But I do think in today’s day and age, it’s much easier to start a business. If that’s something you want to do, not not saying you have to do that, but the options are there.

Leah Gervais:

What do you think about, well, do you feel like the people who did end up starting their own businesses, that was a bigger risk generally? Like when they tell their story, did it feel like it was a lot more, there was a lot more at stake than people that just went into a different industry, but like probably had a secure job already by the time they left the legal field.

Adam Pascarella:

Sure. There, there are certain risks that are higher in that route compared to others. Yeah. For instance, the financial risk is much higher. Yeah. Unless you have savings that you’ve saved from your, your law job or from some other circumstance or situation financially, it is riskier. But also there are, there are other risks as well by taking a job because all of us have opportunity costs, right.

Time applies to all of us. So, and we, and we can’t go on every single path that we want to have. I mean, speaking for myself, I have so many different interests, uh, that I wanna pursue. And it’s hard because you have to choose one thing over the other. We don’t have infinite time. So everyone’s taking on opportunity costs, whether you’re starting a business or finding another job. So there is risk in, in the choices you make. That’s certainly applicable.

Leah Gervais:

Yeah. I don’t know. I still think that the biggest risk is starting your own business. Yeah. Because I mean, I guess really the biggest risk of like, if you go into another job is that you end up spending time in a career that you don’t, that’s actually kinda a dead end, but I don’t know. I think that that’s still a risk with your own business. Well,

Adam Pascarella:

Especially for lawyers too, because if, if you, yeah, if you take a non-legal job, you stop practicing. Yeah. It does be become harder to go back into the legal field. Um, not only because there is some sort of stigma around leaving the law, you never know if you’re going to leave again, but you’re also not refining your legal skills. I mean, the practice of law is a practice. You have to keep practicing.

Leah Gervais:

You’re kinda like pausing it.

Adam Pascarella:

 If you’re not practicing, you’re not getting better.

Leah Gervais:

Right. You’re not evolving. Do you feel like any of them gave you any idea or like suggestion that they would ever go back to the legal field or did they really like close the door once they stopped?

Adam Pascarella:

I think pretty much everyone closed the door. The only person that is somewhat still in a legal field is Jay Bilas. Who’s an ESPN commentator for college basketball. He’s still of council at a North Carolina commercial law firm, but that’s not nearly the extent of what he works, son. He spends almost all of his time at ESPN, but for, for the other people, I, I don’t really see them going back into legal practice.

And again, there is the question of whether they actually could. I think a lot of them almost, probably all of them could because they’re that talented and skilled. And they could probably bring a different elements of their legal practice later on because of the experiences they’re having outside the legal field now. So they’d be even more marketable, but I, I just don’t think they want to.

Leah Gervais:

Yeah. It’s kind of like once, you know, you know, what surprised you about this book and the interviews that you had?

Adam Pascarella:

Um, good question. What surprised me? I think, well, it’s something that I knew, but I guess was reiterated when I made this book is all about the power of personal relationships. Mm. Especially when you’re leaving a legal field, you’re not going to find your dream job by submitting your resume on indeed.com or whatever job board is out there. I don’t think maybe you can find out that way if you’re looking for cash, that that is perfectly fine. There’s something wrong with that. But if you’re looking for more fulfillment, I, I think that you need to rely on your network or build or expand your network to find that sort of position you’re looking for.

And every single person in this book has a story about how a personal relationship got them to where they are now. Mm. So I think even if you’re not in the legal field, it’s very important to cultivate your network. And not only that, but to continue reaching out to people in your network, because now it it’s just very difficult to, to do so. And we’re all so busy. I mean, well, speaking for us, we have a new child. It’s, it’s harder to, to stay in touch with, with friends and especially personal or professional connections, excuse me. But it it’s an important thing because you never know where your career is going to go.

Leah Gervais:

So you had to leverage some personal connections in order to write this book. Right. You’ve interviewed some pretty high profile people. How did you get your interview with Anthony Scaramucci?

Adam Pascarella:

Well, that was through cold email.

Leah Gervais:

What a good lesson called email. A lot of times we discount ourselves by thinking we can’t do something unless we have a connection and you don’t always need it. 

Adam Pascarella:

And I suppose this goes against what I was saying. Yeah. But a good number of the, um, interviews I got were through cold email, I just reached out to people. But that being said, I also leveraged my network to get that too. So I may have had some connection with an interviewee because of the school I went to, whether that was pan Michigan in my case. So I mention like, Hey, I went to pan, along with you, we have this sort of thing in common. Can I talk to you about this book project that I’m doing? So I, I think it’s a little bit hybrid of both.

You need to rely on your network for basically everything, but there’s also power in cold email. And again, speaking with Anthony, I reached out to, I think it was his publicist or someone at SkyBridge capital, which is his company. And then they directed me to someone else and then someone else. And then I got a, uh, a sit down with him for about an hour. And this, this happened with almost everyone in the book, except for one or two people that, that you helped me with. I appreciate your help with that. But it, it does go to show that there’s also power and hustle and cold email. So it’s, that’s worth keeping in mind.

Leah Gervais:

Yeah. I think that’s the lesson here. I mean, you can build your network by hustling. You don’t have to like have gone to Penn, or whatever in order to write a book or in order to leverage connections to quit your job or anything like that.

Adam Pascarella:

Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s through hustle. It’s through reaching out to people, trying to provide value first upfront. That’s, that’s always helpful as well, but yeah, you, you definitely don’t need to come into anything with a prior network. You can build it yourself and it just takes time. It takes time and effort.

Leah Gervais:

What of, of all the people you interviewed, who do you think had kind of the most obstacles in front of them when it came to this, this transition that they made?

Adam Pascarella:

I guess I don’t wanna single anyone out because I, I did sit down with everyone for a good amount of time, but I’m sure there were some obstacles that they didn’t mention during the interviews. But the first thing off of my head is, is this man named Darren K Roberts. Who’s now an instructor of the University of Texas. But before that, he was an NFL assistant coach and he went from Harvard law school to the Kansas city chiefs.

And he really started at the bottom of the chief’s organization, but he was so set on becoming an NFL coach that he was willing to do that. And that just takes a lot of humility to do that. And a lot of hard work. And it’s when I first heard this story, it was so preposterous because you never hear a story about a Harvard law school graduate, going to the NFL and basically being a gopher for a couple of years in order for the slim chance of becoming an assistant coach.

It’s just so preposterous to, to at least to me, it was, but to Darren, he, he did it, he overcame a ton of obstacles. Like he told me he started out this a letter writing campaign. He basically treated like a political campaign for a team or to have to take a chance on him. And he wrote a letter to every single NFL team, every college football team from there, Herm Edwards, I believe it was from the Kansas city chiefs actually responded.

He gave him a chance and he worked up his way up from there. So that was an unbelievable story. And it goes to show again, hustle the power of hustle. Yeah. Power of hard work. And it’s really interesting because for Darren, he went to Harvard law school, which is one of the, it’s the premier name for, for law schools and even the legal industry, but at the Kansas city chiefs, that didn’t matter one bit, all that mattered was whatever value that he could provide to the team. 

And he had such little football experience. I think he worked at a summer camp, um, before he actually started working with the chief. So he was even starting with the limited knowledge, but that didn’t matter. He kept working at it and working at it and eventually got on the staff and worked for the Cleveland Browns, the Western Virginia mountaineers, a bunch of other teams. So that, that was a hugely inspirational story. And he did have a lot of obstacles in front of him, but he persevered and overcame.

Leah Gervais:

Do you feel like as he was going through that and as he was like, basically starting at the bottom, even though he graduated from like one of the best, if not the best law schools in the world that he just had a sense of certainty that this would work out, or do you feel like he was afraid like the whole time? Sounds like he had a sense of certainty.

Adam Pascarella:

No, he had a sense of certainty for sure. He did not have a backup plan. I specifically asked him that. Yeah. It was like, he, he needs to make this work. He is basically gonna die trying.

Leah Gervais:

How do you cultivate that sense of certainty when you’re seeing something that isn’t there?

Adam Pascarella:

I don’t know. It’s, it’s maybe from higher power from meditation praying. It’s, it’s some, you probably speak to this more than I could. Yeah.

Leah Gervais:

I’m just wondering if you have any different insight.

Adam Pascarella:

I think he would, I think he would talk about his religion and the fact, I think his father was a Baptist minister. He had some, a familial connection to religion. So that probably helped him think that would help other entrepreneurs as well. If you’re, if you’re religious, you know, relying on that or some sort of even person in your life, like if you’re trying to make a career transition in order to make life better for your spouse or for your children, I think that’s also something that can really help, especially in those dark moments,

Leah Gervais:

Like a deep why.

Adam Pascarella:

Yeah, exactly. Like, yeah. Or a totem, whatever you want to call it. That’s, a bunch of people in the book referenced that as well. Hmm. Some, some deep why that helps them persevere through the dark moments. Mm.

Leah Gervais:

Do you feel like there are a lot of more attorneys out there or people in just different fields that are, that are stuck and that could read something like this and have a little bit of a roadmap on how they could get out of it?

Adam Pascarella:

I do think so. Yeah. It, and it’s not, again, it’s not saying that they’re completely miserable or unhappy, but everyone wants a more fulfilling career. Uh, whether that’s, you know, the, the joy that you get from the job, or even if it’s more money, whatever it is, people are always looking for advancement.

Especially nowadays we’re in the midst of the great resignation, right? I, I think I saw a stat in 2021, 4 million people quit their jobs every single month, which is an all time high. So people are definitely leaving their jobs and looking for something more. And if you’re in the legal field, thinking of leaving your job, I, I do think this book could provide value, but even if you’re not, there are plenty of lessons here that are applicable, regardless of what you want to do.

Leah Gervais:

Something I talk a lot about is the power of going from good to great, and like not having to wait until things are bad to get them to great. And just making that choice, that things could be better and choosing the hero’s journey instead of like waiting for everything to collapse, you can just actively choose that you’re gonna go for something great. Even if things are pretty good.

Adam Pascarella:

Yeah. And you can avoid a lot of pain too.

Leah Gervais:

Actually, if you think it’s harder, or, not harder, but like more courageous in a way, because you’re leaving the comfortable

Adam Pascarella:

For sure. Yeah. Your situation may not be horrible. You may be making a, a good living.

Leah Gervais:

That’s kind of how we were.

Adam Pascarella:

Yeah. Yeah. It’s making our jobs are making a good living, you know, generally satisfied, but you’re searching for something else. And that like, like you say, that could be even harder to leave. Yeah. And that’s why, at least in the, the legal field, they talk about the golden handcuffs. Right. Which is this phenomenon of you’re getting paid pretty well. And because you’re getting paid pretty well, your expenses are rising because you wanna spend money and you want to have fun and everything like that, but it makes it harder to leave.

Even if you’re not miserable at, at your job, you’re, you’re just content. You could have higher expenses than you normally do. And that makes it tougher to leave. Especially if you’re looking for a job with a lower salary or even starting a business with zero salary, that makes it tougher. So it’s, it’s important to remember.

Leah Gervais:

Do you think that anyone who’s trying to transition out of their career would benefit from this? Or do you think it’s specific to the legal field?

Adam Pascarella:

Well, like I said, I think anyone really can, like the book is catered toward the legal field. Um, just because it’s coming from my experience. And I started this book with a specific issue in mind is that, oh, they, they say you can do anything with a law degree. I kind of wanna test that and see how people reacted once they left law school or left legal practice to do something else.

So that’s why I wrote the book in the first place. But in the course of writing the book, there are plenty of lessons here, like the power of personal relationships, those sort of things that are applicable no matter what you’re doing. So even though it may be a little legal habit, I definitely encourage you to check it out.

Leah Gervais:

What is the biggest takeaway that you have in terms of the mindset for your career and like being successful that you got from all of these interviews?

Adam Pascarella:

Um, well, it’s definitely always a work in progress. Um, I, I think that’s, that’s certainly true no matter where we are in our careers, but I think the number one thing is a bias for action. It’s tough for me because I’m more the analytical part of our family.

Leah Gervais:

I’m the action, but it’s good. We balance each other out well.

Adam Pascarella:

For sure. And you’ve helped me a lot in becoming more, um, action oriented. Yeah. Um, just because I don’t know if I call myself a perfectionist, but I’m definitely leaning towards that side. And because of that, I like to think things through, I like to look at the pros and cons of certain situations and then act, and while that may be helpful in much larger, more consequential decisions that are tougher to reverse, it’s actually hindrance when you’re looking at most decisions.

In most situations it’s better to decide and then iterate from there. So you’ve held me on that front and in the course of writing this book and talking with all these impressive people, that lesson has been integrated into me even more.

Leah Gervais:

That’s a really good takeaway. I always say it’s better to make the wrong decision and adjust course, you know, because you will have learned something than to still be stuck in indecision.

Adam Pascarella:

Totally. Because otherwise it’s in theory and all those lessons are in theory. Right. Then stress test in reality.

Leah Gervais:

And in those situations you are wasting the only finite thing we really have, which is time, you can always make more money. You can always change careers. You can always do something different if you make the wrong decision.

Adam Pascarella:

Yeah. And that’s why for this book, uh, again, you don’t need to quit your job right after reading this book, but you can, if you want, you can, as long as you thought it through this sort of decision, leaving the legal field to do something else, I do think take some time to think about it’s, it’s a big decision. But before you make that decision, you can make a lot smaller decisions, which you can do right now, whether that’s meeting someone in a different industry, you know, starting a blog. If, if your firm lets you do that, those sort of things you can do right now.

Leah Gervais:

Hmm. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for sharing this with us. Where can people find a book?

Adam Pascarella:

You can find it on Amazon Barnes and noble, apple books, Google play, wherever books are sold. 

Leah Gervais:

Reversed in Part. If you guys listen to this, then send us a message. I hope that you guys enjoyed this. Thanks for sharing all your lessons.

Adam Pascarella:

Thanks so much, Leah. Thank you, visionaries.

Leah Gervais:

Appreciate it. Yeah. I hope that this helps your biggest vision and congratulations on writing your book. Thank you. Maybe next time we have we’ll have him on all about sharing, how he wrote it. Let us know if you guys want that. It took you three years, right?

Adam Pascarella:

It took three years. A long project, but happy I stuck it out.

Leah Gervais:

Yeah. Good job. That’s definitely part of the vision process is sticking things out. It’s not easy. Right? Everyone. Thank you guys so much for tuning in. We’ll talk to.

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