When you leave government service, you don't just trade a job; you trade a safety net. Suddenly there's no built-in infrastructure, no agency systems, no guaranteed rhythm to your day.
The first few months
The first few months after I left the SEC were humbling. I went from reviewing enforcement recommendations in a structured environment to running my own calendar, my own marketing, my own morale. It was equal parts terrifying and liberating.
I remember realizing one morning that no one was expecting me to show up anywhere. And somehow that was both the scariest and most freeing thought of all.
Unlearning the structure
Government work gives you scaffolding, process, hierarchy, queues, declination procedures, internal counsel review, the cadence of Commission meetings. None of that exists when the firm is you. You build the scaffolding back, but it's yours this time, and it doesn't look like the agency's version.
What I miss is not the rhythm, exactly. It's the assumption that the rhythm was someone else's problem.
What I keep
Twelve years of seeing how the Commission actually decides, what reaches a vote, what gets declined, what makes a Wells submission move staff and what doesn't. The audience for these things is more specific than outside counsel often realize. That perspective is portable; it travels with me.
Leaving government isn't a clean break; it's a slow process of unlearning and rebuilding. You lose the structure, but you gain the chance to create your own.