From Motor City Roots, Lawyer Found Her Way After Driving Manure Rig, etc.
Growing up in Motown as a barber’s daughter taught Denise Palmieri early on that one person’s financial well-being is interconnected with how others are doing.
When the auto industry was doing well, her father prospered. And, like others in Detroit, he knew that he had better be prepared to hunker down when bad times hit, with savings from better times and living expenses that could quickly be cut to the bare minimum, she writes in a Private Equity Hub post today.
Benefited by this early knowledge, Palmieri had other options when she tired of practicing law at her own boutique in Washington, D.C. Initially, she thought she might start a children’s bookstore or open a bed and breakfast in Italy. But traveling the country changed her mind.
Purchasing a motor home, she went on the road. Once a month, she made a point of stopping at the pancake dinner or town meeting wherever she was and talking to people about their jobs, she recounts. Selecting the person whose work was most interesting, she asked if she could spend a week with that person at his or her job, in exchange for performing whatever tasks were assigned to her. Usually the person said yes.
During the time she spent on the road, Palmieri worked on a lobster boat and at a dairy farm, among other one-week volunteer gigs. Although the jobs involved some scut work (the dairy farmer told her to wear boots and assigned her at one point to drive a tractor full of manure), the experience was a blast, she says. And, just as important, it helped her move forward in her own career.
“Ultimately these experiences helped me to define what my particular talents were and how I wanted to use them in my next role,” she says. “It still helps me to think regularly about how I will retool for the next stage in my life.”
Now the director of client relations at Pinnacle Group International, Palmieri regularly works with executives who are struggling to find new jobs after being laid off by the financial services industry.
Her advice to them may be relevant for a number of laid-off lawyers, too: Due to the downsizing economy, there won’t be as many jobs in this specialized field as there used to be. So it’s time to think creatively about looking for work in an entirely different arena and/or in a different part of the country. To do so, she says, the first step is to “think about precisely what are our tangible talents and how they can be used in a different way.”
Her PE Hub post offers a detailed description of exactly how one attorney did just that.
Write a letter to the editor, share a story tip or update, or report an error.
