Back

Platform overview

Everything that powers firmwide growth in one place

Unified relationship intelligence across the firm

Targeted, compliant campaigns that drive engagement

Collaborative hubs to plan, execute and measure growth

Growth intelligence that drives action

Back

Company

People & Careers

Back

Resources

Explore

What's new White papers & reports Webinars BD maturity assessment Product tour All resources

Client Resources

Community Services catalogue Templates Help center Courses

Top articles

What is a growth system for law firms?What drives CRM adoption in law firms What is relationship intelligence? A guide for law firms The complete guide to choosing a CRM for law firms All articles

Featured News

The new constraint on law firm growth: How AI is shifting the bottleneck from capacity to demand

Back

Use cases

Partners & Lawyers

Give every lawyer clear next steps to drive firm growth

Business Development & Marketing

Connect BD and marketing execution to measurable growth

Managing Partners & Leadership

Lead firm growth with full strategic visibility

Stage overview

For firms building their BD foundation

For firms with structured, proactive BD in place

For high-maturity firms optimizing BD at scale

Leaving BigLaw Behind: Sarah Cottrell on Finding Clarity Beyond the Legal Path

Podcasts

Leaving BigLaw Behind: Sarah Cottrell on Finding Clarity Beyond the Legal Path

Ben Chiriboga, Sarah Cottrell

|

October 20, 2025

|

Season 3 Episode 36

Listen on

Spotify

Apple Podcasts app icon with a white stylized microphone inside a purple rounded square.

Listen on

Apple Podcasts

Listen on

Amazon Music

A stylized graphic showing a field of grass

Table of contents

Share

In this episode of This Legal Life, Ben Chiriboga sits down with Sarah Cottrell — former BigLaw lawyer turned career coach and founder of The Former Lawyer Podcast.

Together, they explore the courage it takes to step away from prestige, perfectionism, and external validation to rediscover what truly matters. Sarah shares her journey through burnout, anxiety, and uncertainty — and why true clarity doesn’t come from overthinking, but from taking action.

About Our Guest

Sarah Cottrell is a career coach who helps unhappy lawyers ditch their soul-sucking jobs. She practiced law for ten years and specializes in helping lawyers identify alternative careers.

Sarah hosts The Former Lawyer Podcast, where she interviews lawyers who have left law for other fields and provides advice and strategies for those who want to do the same. She is an ICF-Certified Coach, a Certified Career Management Coach, and an Academies-Certified Strengths Coach.

Website: formerlawyer.com

Ready to transform your firm's growth?

Gradient background blending from dark purple and black on the left to soft peach on the right.

Leadership & insights

Related posts

News

Why Herry Wiputra joined Nexl

Nexl's new CPTO Herry Wiputra on why he joined, what surprised him about the engineering team, and the culture he is building in Sydney.

Webinars

What drives CRM adoption in law firms

Fasken's BD and marketing leaders share how they drove CRM adoption across a large law firm by making the platform relevant to lawyers, starting small, and letting word spread.

White Papers

The new constraint on law firm growth: How AI is shifting the bottleneck from capacity to demand

AI is freeing up lawyer capacity faster than firms can fill it. See why winning work is becoming the real constraint on law firm growth, and how firms respond.

Ready to transform your firm's growth?

See how Nexl captures relationships automatically, structures business development workflows, and connects marketing activity directly to opportunity - so growth becomes visible, measurable, and systematized across the whole firm.

Gradient background with smooth transition from dark black at top to purple and then peach at bottom.

Gradient background transitioning from dark black at the top to deep purple, pink, and peach tones at the bottom.