• Do be careful about the reasons you say you are leaving. To keep the relationships you have built intact, keep your reasons for leaving focused on the positive growth you expect by moving on rather than the negative experience you had which caused you to want to leave.
  • Don't forget to mend difficult relationships before you go. Find something nice to say and shake hands with those you had problems with at your old employer so that you will be remembered as pleasantly as possible.
  • Do stay in touch with your old employer. Maintain the good relationships you built because an old employer always has influence over your career and your reputation.

Resources:

Life in the Balance: Achieving Equilibrium in Professional and Personal Life, American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division 2002-2003 Members Service Project http://www.abanet.org/yld/about/writtenguide03.pdf

Sharon Meit Abrahams, 100 Plus Pointers for New lawyers on Adjusting to Your Job, A.B.A. Publishing (August, 2004)

Kathy Morris et al., Ask the Career Counselors...Answers for Lawyers on Their Lives and Life's Work, A.B.A. Publishing (2003)

M. Diane Vogt et al., Keeping Good Lawyers: Best Practices to Create Career Satisfaction, A.B.A. Publishing (Nov. 2000)

George W. Kaufman, Lawyers Guide to Balancing Life and Work: Taking Stress Out of Success, A.B.A. Publishing (July 1999)

Julie M. Tamminen, Living with the Law: Strategies to Avoid Burnout and Create Balance, A.B.A. Publishing (Aug. 1997)

“Striving for Balance in a High Stress Job” is a one hour on line CLE developed by the Lawyer’s Assistance Program and available at www.lapcle.org

© 2007 and 2011 Revised Edition by Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism