Sarah Rutledge Fischer: From Biglaw to Working Artist, part 1

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In Episode 038, I’m sharing the first half of my conversation with Sarah Rutledge Fischer. (Look out for part 2 next week! We covered so many important themes, I’ve split our conversation into two episodes.)</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sarah is an artist and art teacher. She spent 3 1/2 years in biglaw before left and found her way to her current career as an artist. In today’s episode, we talk about lots of things, including her struggles with depression and the inhumane environment of many big law firms. This is an important conversation and I can’t wait for you to hear it.</span></p> <p><strong>In the first half of our conversation, Sarah shares about:</strong></p> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Loving art from a young age, but never allowing herself to consider it as a career possibility;</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Her winding path to law school;</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Why she took for granted the human element in her pre-law school jobs that ended up being missing from her work as a lawyer;</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Why she found her law school to have less of a feeling of grim despair than most;</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">How she ended up in biglaw even though it did not align with her interests;</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Why the law firm track is “intoxicating” and “disorienting”;</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Knowing that the firm wasn’t a right fit for her from right off the bat, but feeling trapped;</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">Experiencing intense depression while in biglaw, and not even realizing that was what was happening at first;</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style=