I graduated from Stanford law school in 1994 and went to work for big firms in what we now call Silicon Valley. I had two small children and a single mother, which in those days it was like being a unicorn large firm. Even those repeaters being good places for women attorneys to work. Always in the partner track, they're susceptible to what you are describing.
Relationship working for big firms was analogous to being an abusive relationship. And 10 years of practice, I never had a single conversation when the attorney or recruiter that touchdown issues of the human need to be supported. I will say that I was in IP transaction at a time when it was an amazing and exciting field to be in. Recently having come back from a long time out of practice, I started my own small farm. But I know I'm in the wrong geographical place and looking for a career where I can use my skills. I think IP transactions actually is a good practice area right now.
And I think if you went to Stanford, you can certainly work in large law firms. I don't think you'll have difficulty finding positions, even after that much time. But I think having your own firm, one of the things that I would recommend is, I know someone that's a solo practitioner in the same
field as you are, doing tech transactions. And honestly, if you got experience and it was 15 years ago, you can pick up on everything you learn back then fairly easily. I think, with your own practice, you could market yourself nationally with a good website and probably get quite a bit of work. In your practice area there's a lot of work for solos. And I think you can do well, even if you're in bad geography, or you can always set up a virtual office in Silicon Valley as well. But the type of work that you're doing now is not just done in Silicon Valley anymore. It's done all over the country.
So I don't think you're going to have too much of a problem with your own practice. But you do need to market it nationally and maybe even have virtual offices in different parts of the country that you submit to Google, and Google can hopefully send you people. I think you'll do fine.
