From in-house lawyer to interior designer
By Jerome Doraisamy
After 20 years as a lawyer, Katie Riddell decided to transition to a career that she felt would allow her to be her creative self: interior design. A few years ago, Ms Riddell was sitting in an ethics lecture in which the presenter said that lawyers work as though they have a judge looking over their shoulder, checking their work. Such a feeling, she thought, goes a long way to explaining why so many lawyers are stressed and anxious, and helped her realise that her legal career “felt contrary to my creative self”. The work, she said, was “causing me to feel out of alignment”. It was difficult, Ms Riddell told Lawyers Weekly, to leave the law after 20 years of practice (most of which were spent in-house) and enter a new industry.