Abigail Molina:
And I decided that I was done playing small. I was donestruggling with one assistant, two assistants. I was ready to start havingassociates. I gave myself 10 years. I wanted to get to 30 team members, 5million gross annually.
Sonya Palmer:
Coaching has seasonality to it. I don't know that youshould be with the same coach for 5 years, 10 years. There should be a growthaspect to it.
Abigail Molina:
All of us think that we're the only ones struggling. Andthe only way to get through that is by connecting with others who are insimilar situations and have the same questions, have the same fears, have thesame feelings. And how to talk those through because the facts will always helpus debate the feelings.
Sonya Palmer:
For the eighth consecutive year, women outnumber men inlaw schools across the nation. Yet this wave of change has not reached theshores of power. Women hold a mere 25% of seats at the table as board membersand managing partners, but the tides are turning. Women in law are no longermeekly waiting for an invitation. They are boldly striking out, creating afuture where success is defined on their own terms, and law firms fit intotheir lives, not the other way around. As this new generation of trailblazersrises, we stand with them ready to amplify their voices and fuel thetransformation. This is LawHer.
I'm Sonya Palmer, your host and VP of operations atRankings, the SEO agency supporting you in claiming your rightful place at thetop. This season, we're thrilled to present our new miniseries, Launching HerFirm, where we follow the journeys of women attorneys in the early days ofopening their own practices. Be inspired by their stories as they navigate thechallenges of securing clients, managing finances, hiring staff, and achievingwork-life balance as founders.
Today, we're joined by Abigail Molina, a trailblazingimmigration attorney who's built a thriving practice from the ground up.Abigail's journey is a testament to the power of resilience, ambition, andembracing growth. In this episode, we'll explore how Abigail overcame impostersyndrome and made the bold decision to stop playing small. In 2020, she createda 10-year growth plan to reach 30 team members and 5 million in revenue by2030. This year, she has a team of 15, is hitting 2 million in revenue and ison track to hit the 10-year goal, 3 years early. We'll delve into thechallenges she faced along the way from Bar discipline to balancing motherhoodwith her career, and a topic that never gets enough traction, perimenopause.Let's dive in.
Abigail Molina:
First of all, I never wanted to be an attorney. So I justfell into being an legal assistant because I had eloped with someone who I knewfor two months and I needed a job. So I lucked out and got an amazing job withan immigration attorney, and I never knew anything about immigration law. Andthen after working there, like my very first week, I was like, "This iswhat I want to do for the rest of my life."
So took a long journey through a very bad marriage. Longstory short, marrying somebody that you've known for two months is not a greatidea. So three years of a very bad marriage. He told me I should go to lawschool and I knew that I would not have the support that I needed to getthrough law school, so I didn't do that. And then in my second marriage, assoon as we got married, he was like, "Why aren't you an attorney? Whydon't you go to law school?" And so seven years after being a legalassistant, I decided it was time to go to law school.
So once I graduated, the job market was not great. I tooka job that was pretty good, but just I wasn't happy. So about a year into it, Idecided to go out on my own. And that was now 13 years ago and haven't lookedback.
Sonya Palmer:
Can you tell us about the move to the Texas border andwhat prompted that decision?
Abigail Molina:
Yeah. So my husband and I, our faith is really importantto us. And so during my third year of law school, we started feeling like weweren't supposed to be in the town that we were in, which was weird because wehad a house and I had only applied to that law school because we were not goingto move. And so considering a move across country from Oregon to Texas was justso far out of character for us.
But we started praying about where we were supposed to beand really felt like we were supposed to be at the border, which turned out tobe an amazing experience as an immigration attorney being exposed to so manydifferent people coming through the Southern border, working in the detention centers.Just having that kind of experience right from the start as an attorney wasjust so impactful.
So it was pretty crazy. It was during the housing marketcrisis and we put our house on the market. We had put $60,000 into a fixerupper and ended up short-selling it for so much less than it was worth, but atthat time it wasn't worth anything. So we did that and moved across country,sold everything. We've basically done that twice now, selling everything thatwe had. And you learn from that, that stuff is replaceable and the stuff thatyou buy is never worth what you bought it for. So be careful how much you payfor things. That was an expensive lesson.
Sonya Palmer:
It sounds like you're good at recognizing when something'snot right. You knew you weren't going to have a support system, you were not inthe right location. I don't know if that's a skill or something that'sdeveloped, but an important thing to have in life.
Abigail Molina:
I've never thought about it that way, but I think you'reright. And I think that part of it is my criticism is very well-honed, so Ithink I see the negative right away. But I think I'm also in many ways naiveand optimistic because when I started my law practice, I was like, "Well,I've been a legal assistant and now I'm an attorney. How hard can it be?"That's the reoccurring phrase that I find myself saying, "How hard can itbe?"
And so when we decided to move back to Oregon, I'd had mylaw practice for a little over five years. I was like, "Well, I started alaw practice where I knew nobody and I'm going back where I know everybody. Howhard can it be to start again?" Well, it's starting all over again and youhave to market, and the people that knew me didn't need my services. And then Iwas like, "How hard could it be to start a nonprofit?" And so you endup getting way in over your head because you way underestimate how difficultthings are.
Sonya Palmer:
I don't know, I think I like that though, to be optimisticat the beginning, but then know, you know what, that was maybe not the rightdecision, and then change it, do something different. So I like that. I thinkthat's better than being negative and never trying anything or being tooapprehensive. So a lot of trial and error, I imagine.
Abigail Molina:
That's true. And I think if COVID taught us anything, thepivoting portion of it, the importance of being able to pivot quickly, I thinkthat that's definitely a skill I've had to hone.
Sonya Palmer:
Yes, absolutely, all of us. What inspired you to pursue acareer in immigration law specifically?
Abigail Molina:
I knew that I liked working with people from around theworld, and I liked social work type things. And the thing that I love the mostis hearing people's stories and where they're from and what their life was like,why they want to come to the US. Sometimes I ask, "Really? Are you sureyou want to be here at this point in history?" There is some veryinteresting things happening right now that even I myself question like,"Do I want to stay here in the US?"
But just hearing from people's perspective what theirversion, their view of America is and what their American dream is, helps meremember, yeah, this is a pretty cool place that we have here. I always ask,"Why was I born on this side of the border instead of the other side ofthe border? And what are these borders that are just like imaginarylines?" Somebody's born two feet away and they have certain rights andsomebody else doesn't. So that's always been something that's frustrated me,challenged me.
And also, you hear a lot of love stories because lovebrings people together around the world, like how did you meet and how did youfall in love? I mean, the world is such a smaller place now because of theinternet, and I think that's amazing.
Sonya Palmer:
You certainly took a unique path to founding your ownfirm. Let's dive into how you've built your practice and the importance ofseeking help along the way. So many female attorneys think that they can orshould just do it all themselves. At what point did you realize that you neededhelp to grow your firm? And how did you go about finding that right support?
Abigail Molina:
I think we all assume that everybody else has it togetherexcept us, or at least that was my reoccurring thought is like, "Well, Idon't want to ask the question because then it'll give it away that I reallydon't know what I'm doing." People think you know what you're doingbecause you have your own business, but we're all just trying to figure it outand we're just figuring it out as we go.
And so I was just doing it the hard way for so many yearsand thinking, "Okay, I've got to just figure this out. Certainly it can'tbe that hard," again that reoccurring thing, "but why am I strugglingso much?" And so then I started realizing, oh, there are books on topicsthat I could read or listen to because I hate reading the physical books. So Istarted listening to books, audiobooks on business and leadership. Then Istarted posting things in Facebook groups because I started seeing that other peoplewere asking the same questions.
So it started feeling safer to ask questions like,"Oh, I'm not the only one struggling with this. These are commonstruggles." So you start feeling more comfortable asking the difficultquestions. And then as I was asking questions, a friend of mine was like,"Hey, you're asking these questions and I think that you would be helpedby this coaching group." And so through that I got exposed to coaching.I'd never really understood this world of coaching that's now exploded and howimportant it is to be able to have someone from the outside looking in to say,"Hey, maybe try this fix."
Because you might just be spinning in your head aboutsomething and you can't get past it. Somebody from the outside can ... They saythe instructions to your box are on the outside, so you have to have somebodylooking in. And so from that, started discovering the importance of coaching.
And I've spent probably way too much on coaching, but it'sdefinitely an investment that pays off as long as you get the right coaches,something that's a good match. I think what I've had to learn is that noteverybody's a good match for me, and instead of adapting myself to them,there's somebody out there that's going to be a match for each person. So youhave to find them.
Sonya Palmer:
When you're owner, when you're CEO, when you're leadattorney, just the outside perspective because it's so close to you. It's soclose to you. It's your business. It's your livelihood. So having just thatoutside perspective of someone who has other experience can offer so muchinsight.
I also think coaching has seasonality to it. I don't knowthat you should be with the same coach for 5 years, 10 years. There should be agrowth aspect to it. So finding the right person, setting goals, fulfillingthat, can be extremely valuable in a business. What advice would you give tofemale attorneys who are hesitant to delegate tasks or seek help in theirpractice?
Abigail Molina:
Man, this is a hard one I think for so many women becausewe're used to doing it all ourselves and we feel like if we delegate, it'snever going to be done the way that we want. And so the first step is justaccepting that everybody does things their own way and everybody has their ownstrengths. And I think some of it too is an ego check. Just because I put thedishes in a certain way doesn't mean that my husband puts them in wrong. Itjust is different.
And so to be able to say that I want to delegate somethingin order to relieve myself of these tasks, I have to find somebody else to dothem and that means trusting somebody to do them. But I always say trust andtrain, and train and trust. So it starts with training. How do you want itdone, specifically, step by step, and not assuming that somebody knows, justlike the dishwasher.
I hired, actually, a personal assistant who I assumed sheknew how to load a dishwasher. Turned out her parents had never ... She'syoung. She's in college. Her parents had never required her to load adishwasher, so she didn't know how. And so to accept that and to not assumethat she knew how was the first mistake that I made. And then step by step,okay, here's how you load a dishwasher. Do you need a written instruction? Doyou need a video? Do you need to have me watch you do it?
So you have to figure out how somebody learns how to dosomething and then make sure that your instructions are clear, and then trustthem that they're actually going to load the dishwasher properly. And if it'snot exactly how you wanted it, did the dish get clean? Yes, it did. The endresult is what's most important, how to get to that result, but it requiresreleasing that control.
It's still important to have some controls in place, justso that you have the quality that you want and the end result is what you want.But once you give those instructions, I love seeing how everybody has differentapproaches to things. So if I let go of the control of something, somebody'sgoing to find something that's better than me. And sometimes it's hard to admitthat, but how much better can our organization be if we just let people do thethings that they're good at and find the better ways to do things?
Sonya Palmer:
Yes. We talk a lot about micromanaging via a checklist,and I'm like, "What's the goal here? Is the goal to load the dishwasherexactly the way that you want it? Or is the goal to get the dishes clean evenif you might do it in a way that I think is weird?" to not micromanage viathose checklists. How has building a team contributed to your firm's successand what challenges did you face during that process?
Abigail Molina:
So we started growing our team around the pandemic.Actually right before the pandemic, I went away for a week and I decided that Iwas done playing small. I was done just struggling with one assistant, twoassistants. I was ready to start having associates, and so I set a growth plan.By 2030, I gave myself 10 years, I wanted to get to 30 team members, 5 milliongross annually. And so I said that was about the time that I started coachingand start trying to figure out a path forward to that goal.
And so I started realizing that if I wanted to get to thenumber of cases that I wanted, I needed to have a quality team. And so I wentthrough several years of not doing very good hiring because I was hiringemotionally. I would see somebody that reminded me of me and like, "Oh, Ibelieve in you. You can do this." It wasn't a good fit for them. Learninghow to be an employer is a whole different thing and learning how to coachpeople and find the right fit. So it took several years of trial and error oftrying to build a team.
Now we're at 15 and half of us are remote. So I'm halfwayto my 2030 goal. I think we'll get there much sooner than 2030. But what I'velearned along the way is how important it is to find the right people and putthem in the right places. And I think that that's become one of my superpowersactually, because I love getting to know somebody. What is it that they love todo? What is it that fires them up? What is it that they're good at and also isa need in our organization?
So because we're small still and we're growing, manypeople have different hats. So we have one woman who, she came in as areceptionist, but then I found out she's a graphic designer. And so she endedup doing our logo and now she does all of our marketing. And then she starteddoing sales and now she's really good at sales. And so the difficulty with her,she's so multi-talented, it's like she's getting spread too thin. But I lovethat she loves her job because she's doing what she's good at and she'sreleased to do those things. So I love finding what their superpowers are andreleasing them to do those things.
Sonya Palmer:
What resources or support systems have been most valuablein helping you achieve those goals or have kept you on track?
Abigail Molina:
I think definitely coaching, surrounding myself by otherentrepreneurs who are on the same path and watching their growth. It's neverlinear. It's always all over the place. So it's up, it's down. Learning how toget numbers. So much of my failure was based on feeling, like it feels like weneed to hire somebody or it feels like this person is not being productive.Well, where's the numbers to support those feelings because feelings are sofickle.
I just started Orangetheory and one thing I love aboutthat kind of exercise is that it's based on your heart rate, which is based ona monitor. So it's based on all these numbers and you can feel like you'rereally working out, but the numbers aren't going to lie. And one day might feelharder than the next, but your heart rate is going to respond the same. And sohaving those numbers is so important to be able to base decisions on. Andwithout those numbers, you're just making decisions based on feelings andfeelings are going to change day to day.
Sonya Palmer:
Abigail's insights on using data to validate or invalidateour feelings resonated deeply. It's a powerful tool for managing our emotionsand decision-making in high pressure environments like law. But I wanted to digdeeper into something Abigail mentioned earlier, her decision to stop playingsmall and aim for bigger goals. Many women in law and in professional fieldsgenerally, grapple with imposter syndrome or feel pressured to downplay theirambitions. I was eager to understand how Abigail overcame this mindset andembraced the idea of growth and expansion.
Abigail Molina:
I think you get to levels in your life where you'recomfortable and you're ready for the next challenge. I am an Enneagram 3, soI'm driven, and so I'm always going to be looking for a challenge. And I thinkthat once I had been practicing law ... So by 2020, I had been practicing lawabout a decade and I enjoyed it. I liked being in the courtroom, but I startedrealizing that this is eventually going to get old and I need a new challenge.
And so that became, how do I grow now a business? How do Iturn this law practice into a business and hopefully one day be able to walkaway from it less and less? I'm still really entrenched in it, so walking awayis still hard, but the goal is how to develop a team so that they can be doingthe day-to-day in the courtroom and how to find people that are excited aboutbeing in a courtroom.
Right now there's three of us attorneys. One of them hatesbeing in the courtroom and one of them really loves just research and writing.And so each of them have strengths that I don't have and I have strengths thatthey don't have. And so how do we all come together as a team to do that?
But there's always going to be imposter syndrome. Like Isaid in the beginning, I think all of us think that we're the only onesstruggling. And the only way to get through that is by connecting with otherswho are in similar situations and have the same questions, have the same fears,have the same feelings. And how to talk those through because like we're sayingthat the facts will always help us debate the feelings.
And if the fact is that, yeah, this situation sucks rightnow, you're going to get through it, you always get through it. That is amantra that always settles me whenever I'm feeling anxious is like, "It'sgoing to work out. It always works out. It's worked out in the past, it's goingto work out." So just that reminder of I've gotten through so many challengingthings and what I'm facing right now, I already have what's inside of me that Ineed to do to tackle this.
Sonya Palmer:
Excellent advice. Hope is the great defeater of anxiety.Just there's a light at the tunnel. You've reached it before, you'll reach itagain.
Abigail Molina:
Yes.
Sonya Palmer:
Let's talk about learning from mistakes. Thinking big andstaying confident is crucial for success, but we all face setbacks and makemistakes along the way. You've mentioned that past mistakes have actuallyshaped your journey in a positive way. You mentioned that past mistakes likeBar discipline have shaped you and brought you to where you are. Can you sharemore about that experience and what you learned from it?
Abigail Molina:
Yeah, I think Bar discipline for an attorney is like theultimate anxiety inducer. We are taught that your license can be taken away inan instant, and it's not necessarily an instant. Now that I've experienced Bardiscipline, I know that there is due process. There's a procedure that the Barwill go through, but one wrong decision can set you on that course. And whileyou're on that course, the ultimate consequence could be losing your license.
My takeaway from it was number one, I got an attorney andthat attorney showed me how valuable it is to have an attorney. I thinksometimes we get into our work and we're like, "Oh, this is easy work.Anybody can do this." I was an attorney, but I didn't know how torepresent myself to the Bar. I didn't know how to explain what had happened orthe reasoning behind it. I needed somebody who was not an emotional wreck, whowas not a ball of anxiety to be able to present my case to the Bar. And so fromthat I learned how valuable it is, the work that attorneys do.
I also learned that I did not want to lose my licensebecause at one point I was like, "This is too expensive. I can't keepfighting this. I'm just going to give up." And fortunately my attorney waslike, "Please don't do that. We're so close. This is going to end okay."I finally had to pull some resolve out and say, "No, I love being anattorney. I do not want to lose my license and whatever it takes, I'm going todo this."
So through the process of probation and the discipline, Iwas able to get some really key skills that I didn't have before because whenwe go to law school, we're not taught how to run a business. So things aroundtrust accounting or client interactions, we're told, "Don't mess up yourtrust account." But we're not giving an accounting class on how to actuallydo the trust accounting. So spoiler alert, my discipline was run a trustaccount and it is so easy to mess that stuff up if you're a penny off.
So this is stuff that I think many attorneys are doingwrong. That was one thing my attorney said is like, "Trust me, so manyattorneys are doing this wrong and they just haven't been caught yet or ithasn't blown up on them." And so hearing that, again, other people arestruggling with this, this is not just me. Because we can spiral in our headslike, "This is just me. I'm just dumb. I can't figure this out." Atthe end of the day, we're not accountants.
So getting the help that I needed, hiring the people thatI needed. We have to monitor our books, but we have no business actually doingthe day-to-day bookkeeping. And so I was forced to get a bookkeeper and forcedto get accounting software. But when I started, I didn't even realize thatthere was software to support. And so learning how to utilize technology andpay for it. It's not cheap, but these are things that help us to do ourbusiness.
Sonya Palmer:
Here on the show, we hear over and over and over againjust how law school teaches you how to practice law. It does not prepare youhow to run a business or a law firm. It does not prepare you to use newtechnology, to vet technology. So I think that's a super important piece. Andthen get the people that were trained to do it, like you said, hire the peoplethat are the experts to make sure that stuff gets taken care of. I also likewhat you said there because I do think a benefit to making a mistake is oftenclarity. You learn how you really feel about something, so it's not allnegative.
Abigail Molina:
There's so many benefits to making mistakes and tofailing, and I think that word failure has such a negative connotation,especially people in law school. We do not fail. We are winners. We are bred tosucceed. We are over-achievers. We do not fail. But this concept of failingforward where you can learn more through the failure than you did through thesuccess, it really causes you to sit back and say, "Okay, what wentwrong?"
We just missed a deadline in our office and the attorneywho missed the deadline, she called me and she was crying and, "So sorry.This is what happened." We were maybe a week in responding to a request.And so I just said, "Okay, calm down. Everything works out. It will workout even if we have to refile it and eat the filing fees. Whatever we have todo, we will work it. It'll work out." They ended up accepting it as lateand it was fine. But through that we realized how did we miss this. Okay, thesewere some of the holes in our processes. And so being able to use that failureso that we don't repeat that again, was more beneficial than if it had goneright.
Sonya Palmer:
Navigating setbacks and learning from mistakes is a keypart of an attorney's journey, but one unique challenge for women is staying inthe legal field. Women often leave the profession earlier than their malecounterparts. Abigail has managed to build a thriving practice while staying inthe game. I was curious to learn more about her motivations.
Abigail Molina:
I definitely would be lying if I said I never thoughtabout quitting, and I am not surprised to hear that women step out more oftenthan men. I think probably more for family responsibilities because that's awhole nother subject we haven't even touched on. I'm a mom, I'm a wife, and youfeel this push and pull. Even though my husband's super supportive, you stillfeel like the burden of caring, like you want to care for your family. And so Icould see, I think it would've been easier to step out and be like, "Okay,I'm just going to be a full-time mom, or I'm going to do something a little bitless demanding."
I think what's kept me in the game partly out ofnecessity, I've been the primary breadwinner for our family for at least thelast decade. So partly out of necessity just staying in it, but also just thatI think I just have the tenacity, like I'm not going to quit. You can shoot medown, you can throw all this stuff at me, but I'm going to rise again. And Ithink that that's just one of my core values is I'm going to figure out a wayand there's got to be a way. It can't be that hard.
Sonya Palmer:
I think you're absolutely right. I do think that womenleave more because of the family. The series that this is a part of is OwningHer Firm, and I think I want to encourage in the show is just instead ofleaving the field, start your own firm because there is more flexibility there.It's still hard work. It's like a different type of hard work, but you have waymore flexibility and autonomy to raise your family or any other pursuits inaddition to being a practicing lawyer.
Abigail Molina:
Actually, we had been trying to conceive for years, andthen when I started my practice, I got pregnant five months later and I waslike, "This is the worst timing ever. Why now?" I didn't even haveinsurance or anything. And when she was born, I was like, "This is theperfect time." I had all the flexibility. I could bring my baby to workand not many places you can do that.
So I definitely think that it's challenging. I think thatwomen do a disservice to other women by saying, "Oh, it's so easy and youcan just do some contract work." No, everything has to fall into place andthe stars align, which I feel like is what happened to me, to make it work out.I really feel like there was divine intervention in my start to my practice.
So I never want to make it look like it is super easy, butunless you're in a position where your employer will give you that flexibility,it's definitely a way to build a life and a career that revolves around yourfamily instead of your family having to accommodate for your career.
Sonya Palmer:
Absolutely. Staying in the legal profession for thelong-term requires not only passion and resilience, but also an awareness ofthe unique health challenges that women may face such as perimenopause. You'vementioned that perimenopause is a topic that doesn't get enough attention. Iwould agree with that. What challenges have come up that were unexpected?
Abigail Molina:
I wish people would talk about this. I didn't have anyclue until I started finally reaching out for help and everybody's like,"Oh, yeah, this is a thing." I felt like I was going to burn my lifedown in my mid-40s, just mad at everybody, anxiety. I had never had anxietybefore, and I started struggling with all these things. I was like, "Whatis going on in my body, in my mind?" And so this is why I talk about it somuch.
I know that many people have different symptoms, but justthis pervasive, it's such a big part of our life. It's more than 10, sometimes15 years of your life where your body's starting to transition. There's help. Iused to think, "Oh, I don't want to go on medicine," or, "Idon't want to do this or that," but there are so many supplements outthere now that can help ease this process and make you so you don't want tokill your husband and make you so you actually love your husband again.
There are reasons, and I just assumed it was because I wasjust tired of the bull anymore. I thought that I had just reached my limit. Butit's actually, there's hormone stuff going on. And it makes sense, but at thetime, you're just like, you think you're going crazy and you have to find theright healthcare providers to really help you through because so many justtraditional providers, they won't offer you the support that you need.
Sonya Palmer:
Because the symptoms for perimenopause are similar to PMSwhere it's you're tired, poor concentration, brain fog, or like you said,anxiety, sometimes depression. That can be easily dismissed as a part of ademanding job or being a mom, and people don't pay attention to it. So yes,it's very much a thing. And I agree with you too, I think you always have toadvocate for your own health no matter what, seeing doctors and things. Butadvocating and figuring out things on your own, developing your own plans, andthen having a team that will support you is super important. What do you wishyou had known about it? Just that there's treatment or that it was normal?
Abigail Molina:
Yeah. I think I wish I would've known because I think theway it was presented to me is, you have periods and then all of a sudden youhave no periods and that's menopause. It was never explained to me that there'sa whole part, just like the process leading up to starting your period. Mydaughter's turning 12 and she's getting ready to start her period soon, andit's been a process of a couple of years of her body starting that transition.
It's not overnight, and I think that that's what I assumedis it's just overnight. One day your periods just stop. No. And you're not inmenopause until you haven't had a period for 12 months straight. And so I'vegone a couple of times where it's like 10 months, 11 months. Nope, here we are.Here comes a period.
I'm glad that people are speaking out about it now, but Iwish I would've known that it's a process. I had a baby at 36 and I've only hadone baby, so pretty much right after that is when perimenopause started for me.So I've been in it for over a decade now. So yeah, I wish that I would'veunderstood that. And it makes sense when you think about, like I said, startinga period is not just overnight, so ending your periods is also not overnight.
Sonya Palmer:
Any benefits to going through perimenopause?
Abigail Molina:
I hear this from a lot of women turning in their 40s, youstop caring so much about everyone's opinion. And there's a bucket of fucks andthe bucket keeps getting smaller and smaller the older you get and you justhave less room to carry around these things. And so you start having to filterthrough like, "I just don't care about this anymore. I'm not going to getall upset about this anymore." And so you just start caring a lot lessbecause you're just tired and you have no more fucks left to give.
Sonya Palmer:
What gives you the greatest hope and optimism for thefuture of women in the legal industry?
Abigail Molina:
I love what we're seeing in our country, the response torecent politics, to Roe v. Wade, and all of the things around women andreproductive health. I love seeing the response that's been happening, and evenmen that are like, "Wait a minute, what is this trend that we're seeing?Is it our right to be passing laws about women's bodies?" And so I lovethat I'm seeing a lot of young women fired up. There's fights to be fought inthe political and legal world, and so that gives me hope.
Sonya Palmer:
As we wrap up our conversation with Abigail Molina, we'rereminded of some powerful truths that can propel us forward in our careers.Let's remember that we're all figuring it out together. That nagging voice ofimposter syndrome, it's not just you. Even successful attorneys like Abigailhave felt it. By connecting with others and sharing our experiences, we canovercome these doubts together.
Abigail's decision to stop playing small is a rallying cryfor all of us. It's okay to think big, set ambitious goals, and pursue growth.Your practice, your career, your impact, they can all be bigger than you mightinitially imagine. Her journey also underscores the power of resilience. In theface of challenges from Bar discipline to personal struggles, Abigail'stenacity shines through. Remember, it's not about avoiding mistakes, but aboutlearning from them and coming back stronger.
Abigail's success highlights the importance of embracingtechnology and outside expertise. In today's legal landscape, leveraging theright tools and surrounding yourself with skilled professionals can begame-changing. As you continue on your path in the legal world, whether you'reconsidering starting your own firm or climbing the ranks in an establishedpractice, carry these lessons with you. Your journey may not be linear, butwith resilience, ambition, and the right support, you can create the career youenvision.
If you found this content and insightful, inspiring, or itjust made you smile, please share this episode with a trailblazer in your life.For more about Abigail, check out our show notes. While you're there, pleaseleave us a review or a five-star rating. It really helps others discover theshow. And I will see you next week on LawHer, where we'll shed light on howanother of the brightest and boldest women in the legal industry climb to thetop of her fields. Until next time, stay inspired, stay empowered, and keepmaking waves in the legal industry. You've got this.
