Non-Legal Jobs for Lawyers

Now that tech layoffs have hit, you may be thinking of other careers. Here are other jobs I’ve seen lawyers successfully shift to:

• compliance
• privacy/data
• HR
• legal operations
• business operations
• founder (e.g., of tech or services company)
• consulting
• crisis management
• finance
• banking/trading
• sales/channel/business development
• venture capital
• real estate
• government
• recruiter
• coach
• writer

Lawyers who want to try out a non-legal area may want to do it first at their company since they already have a proven track record there, and if it’s a big enough company, they can switch back to Legal more easily.

Doing a legal-adjacent job is also an easier first step. For example, if you support M&A or alliances, you can join the bus dev team, or if you advise on employment issues, you can switch to HR.