A Strategy for Building the Life & Legal Career You Want

When Kayla Morán first set out to become a lawyer, her goal was to be in-house counsel for a lifestyle company. 

But during law school, she discovered a way she could create a career on her own terms. 

In 2018, while attending the University of Central Florida, she started blogging about her life. She wrote about her study abroad experience and the law school application process. She shared tips about everything from productivity to mental health.

Before long, brands began to take notice. Soon, she was reviewing contracts for her own deals. She started to wonder if she could combine her passion for social media and her legal training to build a career. 

A few years later, she did just that. 

Today, Kayla has her own law firm and influencer management company. She gets to help influencers promote brands they believe in and help entrepreneurs legally protect the brands they’ve built. 

So how did she get here? 

I love Kayla’s story because when she was 23, she used an exercise I recommend to ALL of my clients. 

She asked herself: “What do I want my life to look like in 10 years?” 

She visualized where she would be at age 33. She thought about everything from where she would be living to her career to her personal life. 

After getting really clear on the big picture, she asked herself, “How am I going to get there from where I am right now?” 

At the time, Kayla was at rock bottom. It was fall of 2020 and things were tough for everyone, but she was facing struggles on a personal level as well. She was going to law school in Tennessee, but wanted to be back home in Florida. Her mental health was failing. Her physical health was declining at the same rate. 

But she remembers the moment where she picked herself up. “I’m resilient, and I’m here for a reason,” she thought. She decided she didn’t want to keep playing the victim and being miserable. 

“I’m going to figure this out,” she told herself. 

She didn’t have the grades to get into the clinic program she wanted to in Tennessee, but she had met one of the professors a year earlier at a volunteer event. Even though he didn’t know her very well, he believed in her enough to accept her into the clinic. 

In January 2021, he asked her a question that changed her life: 

“What kind of lawyer do you want to be, and what kind of clients do you want to have?” 

No one had asked her that before. 

In law school, there’s a prescribed path: “Get this kind of job, and your life is set forever.” No one really asks what you’re envisioning for your life. 

“Hear me out, I have this really crazy idea,” Kayla told her professor. 

“I'm starting to get brand partnerships and reviewing contracts. I know what these clauses mean because I took contract law. The average influencer doesn't know what these things mean, so what if I was a lawyer for influencers and entrepreneurs in the creator economy, because I think that it's going to blow up?”

He said, “I don't think that's crazy at all. I think you're on something. I’m going to help you get there. Let me see what I can do.” 

During her time as a clinic student, she was also able to learn about trademarks through working with a mom influencer. 

At that point, she asked herself, “What if I did both the contract side and the trademarks side?” 

Through using her superpowers of community-building and connecting, Kayla went on to open her own law firm and influencer management company. 

Within a year of graduating, she was able to pursue being an entrepreneur full-time. Today, she gets to live her dream every day working with ambitious content creators and entrepreneurs. 

There’s SO much more to Kayla’s story you can listen to on my latest podcast where we sat down for an interview: A Strategy for Building the Life & Legal Career You Want 

Early on, Kayla decided the conventional path wasn’t for her. 

She remembers looking at people at big law firms and thinking it wasn’t the life she wanted. At the end of the day, she had to decide if her goal was to be a billionaire or if her goal was to be happy.

Did she want a life she couldn’t wait to come home to? Or did she want to make partner at a prestigious law firm? 

So when she asked herself that very important question about where she wanted to be in 10 years, she knew the answer. 

She wanted a family. She wanted to travel with her kids and see the world. She wanted them to have access to the same people and opportunities she had growing up. 

She knew being a lawyer could provide that kind of life for her, but she didn’t want it to be her whole life. 

In her words: “Being a lawyer isn’t just a job, it’s a lifestyle. So you get to decide what that lifestyle looks like for you.” 

So, my powerhouse friend, ask yourself the same questions:

Where do you want to be in 10 years? 

What do you want your life to look like and feel like?

What’s it going to take to get there? 

Get crystal clear on what you want your life to look like, then start to reverse engineer from there. 

When I say reverse engineering, I don’t just mean coming up with the small action steps it’s going to take to get there, but figuring out what mindset shifts you need to get where you want to go. 

Can’t wait to see all life holds for you in the next ten years. 

Erin