Employment Attorney on Own The Leap

What I'm Actually Asking the Attorney

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I printed the employment agreement this morning. The copy I found in the guest room closet last week, eleven pages, originally printed on an HP inkjet I got rid of in 2021. It’s on my computer. I highlighted the clause on the PDF two weeks ago. I printed it again anyway.

Something about a legal document in your hand on a Sunday morning that is different from the same document on a screen. The screen version I’ve been reading for two weeks. The paper version I made coffee first.

Six Sentences After Four Years

Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The walk was forty minutes. I’ve done that route a hundred times: down to the park, around the pond, back up the hill. The dog ran ahead and waited. I was not thinking about the dog.

When I got home I opened the laptop before I sat down. I have learned not to give myself the option of sitting down first.

I typed her name in the To field. The woman who has been emailing me every December for four years asking whether I’ve thought about going independent. She left corporate six years ago, built her own practice, then went in-house at a portfolio company. She is a former colleague, not a client of my current employer. That distinction matters, and I’ll come back to it.

The Real Deadline

Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The scheduling email came at 8:47 this morning. I was on my second cup of coffee and my third work email of the day when I saw it, and I did the thing where I close the laptop and then open it again because I wasn’t sure I’d read it right.

The consultation is Tuesday at 1pm. Video call, forty-five minutes, bring your employment agreement.

I have known this was coming. I submitted the intake form six days ago. I knew a date would arrive and I would put it in my calendar. And yet when it came, I sat there with my coffee going cold and felt something I am still trying to name correctly. Not relief, exactly. More like: oh. So it’s real.

The Intake Form

Tue, 26 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The box is back in the closet. I put it away Sunday after I found what I was looking for, which is what I do with things I’ve dealt with and also things I haven’t. I’m aware those two states are not distinguishable from the outside.

I have the document. I know the clause. I know there’s a missing exhibit, something called “Restricted Clients,” that I either need to locate or find someone qualified to interpret without. I know exactly who can answer this: an employment attorney who represents employees. Not employers. The distinction matters and is not obvious from most law firm websites.