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A millennial lawyer who quit her 6-figure job without another lined up took 4 steps first to make sure she could afford it
When her company refused to accommodate a family emergency, lawyer Erika Kullberg knew she had to walk away.
One day, Erika Kullberg was earning over $200,000 at her job as a corporate lawyer. The next, nothing. “My salary after I quit was zero,” she says.
Kullberg left her law firm after she was denied an extension on a work assignment despite being in the middle of a family emergency. “It was heartbreaking, and I always say I don’t blame the boss … but in that instant I knew I was going to quit,” she tells Insider.
Kullberg worked for years to get to the point she was at. Her job was intellectually stimulating, and she got to work on billion-dollar deals daily. But it was also a lot of hard work, wasn’t always fulfilling, and often came with long, unpredictable hours.
“I never made plans in the evenings because I never knew if I was going to get done with work at 7pm or 2am; there’s no predictability in that type of life,” she says.
It all came to a head when she was denied the extension, and no matter how much she had once wanted this life, it was no longer serving her. So she left.
