Will you celebrate with me today? 🎉🥳

Because five years ago, 9-22-2021, I hit “post” here for the first time.

I hoped to find law students who might need my tutoring help.
(I also secretly hoped someone would notice me and offer me a “real” job.)

What I found instead was a professional home, a workplace, and eventually all of you.

And THAT feels worth celebrating.

I had 486 connections when I started.
Today, there are 67,000+ of you.
That is still completely surreal to me.

But it’s the people behind those numbers that actually matter.

You see, I had stopped practicing law in 2016.

By 2020, I hadn’t worked a “real job” in years.

I didn’t know that my skills were worth anything.

I’d fallen completely out of touch with the professional world.

And I’d honestly lost a good deal of my own sense of worth.

Then I helped one struggling law student.

And something clicked.

I realized that the things I had learned over 20 years of lawyering were actually useful to someone else.

But how to find more students to help?

Well, with some prodding from my then-19-year-old daughter, I came here.

I didn’t know anyone who posted original content.

I didn’t know what I was doing.

But I started.

And then I kept going.

One law student became more law students.

Law students became lawyers.

My tips became “Dear 1L” and “Dear Legal Writer” letters.

Those letters became a book.

And somewhere along the way, this little experiment became my second career.

But the best thing that came out of all this?

🔻

All of you.

Because when I stopped practicing law, I lost more than a job.
—I lost colleagues.
—I lost a workplace.
—I lost the place I went every day where people knew my name and expected me to show up and.

I didn’t understand how much I missed that until I found it again here.

LinkedIn has somehow become my workplace.
You have become my colleagues.
I have made real friends here.

I have found people who make me laugh, teach me things, challenge me, cheer for me, and notice when I disappear.

And I hope I have done some of that for you, too.

So whether you were among my original 486 connections or became a follower yesterday:

Thank you.

Truly. 🙏🏻 🙏🏻

And please celebrate with me today:

Everything that has grown from my starting here has changed my world in ways I could never have imagined—because of YOU.

This experience has also taught me quite definitively that you do NOT need to know where something is going before you start it.

The woman in the photo certainly had no idea.

Thankfully, though, she decided to hit “post.”

💌 Amanda

#Dear1L
#DearLegalWriter