 So you know how some people are good on paper and other people are just... So we're going to talk about all the things that I've done with my law degree and how my law degree impacts my life. Keep watching. Kyla Denigno. So in today's episode I'm going to give you my professional resume because I'm fancy. My professional career is very rocky, very different and that's usually what you'll find when you talk to a lot of people, right? I wanted to do this. I took this path and I ended up doing that. I loved it. I hated it, whatever. You are now where you are. So I graduated from law school in 2015 from Southern University Law Center which is in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and then I took the bar exam in July 2015 and it takes a couple of months for them to grade all of the exams just because the share volume of people, the different schedules with the bar examiners, all of it, right? So I found out my bar exam scores in October 2015. When I found out the score I was already in Ohio and I was working at a call center. So since the age of 15 I've always had a job. I really love working. In fact, I didn't even attend law school until I was 28 years old because I wanted to work. I had law school in the back of my mind but I really... I like working. I like doing things. I like mastering your craft. I love all of it, right? And so I told myself that I can... I can start working and start earning an income, getting a career, all of the stuff and if I keep thinking about law school I'll go. And I kept thinking about law school. I would get one job. I would keep thinking about law school. I would get promoted. I would keep thinking about law school. I would do something else. I would keep thinking about law school. So I went to law school. So I worked at a call center immediately out of law school. That is because I needed a job after I took the bar exam. I needed something to do and that was great for me because I had nothing but idle time. I just spent all of this time studying for the bar exam. I just spent the last three years in law school and I needed something to just consume my time and unlimited overtime. I'm gonna be here all day doing stuff, right? Calling people inbound, outbound calls. So I did that for a year and then I left there to become a document specialist at a law firm. So my second employer was a midsize law firm or big law firm. They say big law. It's a way of just saying big building, corporate law firm. I don't want to say flashy but I think of the show suits. That's the type of law firm I'm in. You know, free donuts on Friday, fresh flowers in the hallway, marble floors, 18 conference rooms, that kind of a law firm. So whether midsize, big law, whatever you want to call it, that kind of a law firm. And great experience. I took this job because it was second shift. It was from 4 p.m. until 12 30 in the morning and it gave me the full day to just hang out, do a little bit of whatever. And then in the evenings I could go to work. I loved it because there was no traffic. When everyone was leaving downtown at 4 o'clock, 4 30, I was going into the city to get to work. There was never an issue with that. They paid for our parking. Like it was it was beautiful. So I did that for 14 months and then I became a practice group assistant. I actually moved. So I said I had three jobs but technically I've had five jobs, right? So this is the beauty of your professional career. I've had three employers since graduating from law school but I've had five jobs since graduating from law school and let me explain. But what happened is the guy was dating at the time, my now husband, he got a job in a different city and so I needed to change my job. And so I switched to become a practice group assistant in an e-commerce section of this law firm. So I applied for this job internally. I had a phone interview. So video conferencing existed but it wasn't a video conference or video meeting. It was just a conference call that I had with a partner and an associate. They decided that they enjoyed my personality. I was a hundred miles away living in a different city and I was like do you want me to come down there? Do you want to meet me? And they were like no you're fine. I remember I sent them a hand written thank you card, sent it through the inter-office mail, never heard back but I think it worked because I was hired. And so I transferred to the different office with the same law firm and took on a different role. So working in that role I was in the intellectual property department of this law firm learning all new things. I don't think I took any corporate type of courses when I was in law school. I remember I specifically took business entities which explains the difference between LOCs, corporations. It basically just explains why due diligence is important. Those types of things. It was nothing like the stuff that I was seeing in e-commerce or in intellectual property. My law school had those courses but I definitely didn't take them. That was not on my radar. So that I was thrown into that incredible, incredible opportunity. Wonderful practice group. It was a really young practice group. Had only been around for a couple of years. So I was really able to jump in, do all kinds of work. And as a practice group assistant it wasn't a pair legal, right? The law firm has pair legals as well. I thought the work that I was doing was stuff that a pair legal wouldn't typically be billing for. So I did use a billing system. I did have to build my time but a lot of the research and other things that I was doing just they weren't billable tasks. So because it was brand new starting from scratch I was actually labeled as a practice group assistant. That for a year and I started to get more and more responsibility and I began to let people know like hey I need a little bit of help. I need some assistance. And I got together with the partners and some of the associates and we decided to scale the department. And so when they scaled the department they were they said well Kyla can you run it? And if you run the department you can bring people on. You can train them. And the phrase they always say is we need more Kylas. We need another Kyla. And I was like wow like it was never a negative thing like a replacer. It was saying we need another one of you. How can we find another one of you? And so we started to interview. We started to collect resumes. We started to hire. And when I left that firm there were a team of six people who were working with me to complete work draft letters, work on task for attorneys in four of our seven offices to support this practice group. And it blew up and exceeded my wildest dreams. I worked here from 2016 until 2021. So on top of the fact that I was in two different offices, worked in three different roles. I also started with that firm being 100% in the office all the time. You know Monday through Friday going to work and ended working remotely 100% of the time. So that was I saw the gambit of experiences and differences at that firm. But wonderful time, great place. It's just amazing how many things can change and be different when you're somewhere for five years. But I did work in a law firm with just my JD and I was a valuable asset to a law firm. So don't ever underestimate your JD. The things that we learned in law school the ways that they changed our brain. I like to say that I became an adult when I was in law school. And it's because even though I went to school at the age of 28, law school pulled stuff out of me that I I just didn't even know was there, right? I already loved to read. I already loved words but it pulled out of competitiveness. It pulled out competency. It pulled out a lot of grit, which was there before but I really hadn't needed to use it. And those things I just can't I can't undo. I can't unlearn them. They'll always be here. They'll always be a part of me now as a lawyer. And they really benefit me and they definitely benefited me when I was running a department and managing others. So that was my second employer. And then the third employer I have is a smaller law firm. It was 100 remote. I was working in a boutique trademark and copyright practice. This was a really fun job because I had never met any of my co-workers. I knew one person when I was coming into the role but everybody else was remote. And so that was completely different for me to come into a new space, be a hundred percent remote, you know, be emailing people and on calls with people and stuff people that you've never seen at all. So that still kind of makes me laugh. It's a completely different and new thing that I never would have expected. So my professional resume has call center, well it has law school, call center, big law firm for five years, and then small boutique firm for a little under a year. So that is my professional resume. I do not regret any of it, any of the experience. Even thinking about the call center and all the time and energy that I put in there, it was a good distraction right after law school. It reminded me of how hard I work and how much I enjoy working. It was a different part of my brain coming from law school. Then being in the big law firm, getting back into office culture, having come from corporate America before I even went to law school, that felt a lot different. Three different employers, five different roles since graduating from law school. Don't regret any of them and I use my law degree in each of the roles in my own way. Okay, so I hope you enjoyed this video. I hope you learned a little something. Leave a comment. Let me know what kind of jobs you've had since graduating from law school. Let me know the kind of job that you want when you get out of law school. And I will talk to you next time. This is Kyla. Bye.