From practicing lawyer to legal engineer: Why the safe bet isn't always the best bet

Leaving a prestigious law firm to join a legal tech company wasn't the most obvious career move, but it turned out to be the best one I ever made. Along the way, I picked up some hard-won lessons I wish someone had shared with me. Lessons that I hope will be helpful for other women willing to bet on themselves and make an unconventional move.

Lesson 1: Your problems can become your purpose

I went to law school in India, and after graduation, I secured a position at one of the best law firms in the country. I worked with incredible people and clients.

Unfortunately, on any given day, in addition to the tedious legal work, there was also a lot of highly manual "grunt work" and administrative tasks that made me think: Is this really what I went to law school for?

That's where the seed was sown for me to pivot and solve the issues I faced by pursuing the path that eventually led me to my current role as a legal industry specialist at iManage. I realised that I could draw upon my legal background, including the pain points I'd experienced firsthand, and put that to use to help fellow legal professionals. I now get to be in the middle of the AI wave, helping build tools that meet lawyers where they are and transform the way legal work is done within a secure ecosystem.

Lesson 2: Don't be afraid to upset the apple cart

As women, we sometimes box ourselves in and think: "Maybe I should play it safe. This is a great job that people would kill for. Why would I want to mess with a good thing?"

You can be your own biggest enemy if you fall prey to that mentality. My advice? Don't stay within the box that you've created for yourself. It's easy to focus on what might go wrong when you're looking to make a big change, so tune out that negative noise and take the plunge.

Lesson 3: Doing something "different" might just mean being ahead of the curve

Leaving the M&A practice at a BigLaw firm to go to grad school and transition into tech wasn't a common career move at the time. 

In my case, there were certain people who questioned what I was doing. Nothing quite as blunt as "Are you crazy?", but close. 

That skepticism meant it was doubly important for me to believe in myself. Fortunately, I also found a lot of support from my colleagues at the firm, especially my female colleagues, who recognised the spark in me when I talked about making the switch to tech and encouraged me to go for it.

Of course, today the move from law to legal tech happens much more frequently, so I feel vindicated in following my instinct. Looking back, I can see that what seemed unconventional at the time was really just me being early. The lesson? Sometimes your "crazy" idea is just an idea that's slightly ahead of its time.

Lesson 4: The safe bet isn't always the best bet

There's a fairly well-defined career path if you stay at a law firm long enough: a steady ascent to partnership. In that sense, staying put at the law firm was the safe bet.

But the safe bet wouldn't necessarily have fueled my creative problem-solving side or satisfied the part of my brain that was eager to learn new things and tackle new challenges. Three, five, or ten years down the road, would I have been happy at the law firm?

Maybe. But I also would've been thinking, "Why didn't I take a chance when inspiration struck and move into the tech world?"

In the end, making that leap was the best decision I could have made. I now get to use my legal background to help make the profession more efficient, so lawyers can spend less time buried in administrative work and more time doing the work they went to law school to do. 

It feels like a full‑circle moment, a reminder that an "unconventional" path often leads you exactly where you're meant to be.