Good Girls Don't Build Books: Conditioning, Courage, and Big Law

Rachel Clar has a law degree and chose to walk away from it early. Not because she failed, but because she was paying attention. She saw the billable hours, felt the misogyny, received no mentorship, and made a decision that would take 15 years to fully make sense. She went into real estate, affordable housing, urban infill, and renewable energy, and built a career entirely outside the walls of law. Then the pandemic hit and she couldn't look away from what was happening to the women she'd been quietly inserting herself into conversations with for years. Smart women. Women lawyers who were exhausted, underpaid, invisible to leadership, and had no roadmap for building a book of business no one had ever actually taught them to build. So she built Interconnected Us. In this episode, Rachel and I talk about what it cost her to leave law when everyone expected her to stay, what 15 years in business development taught her that no law school could have, and how the "good girl" archetype plays out as a very real career barrier for women in Big Law. We dig into non-binary thinking, her study of non-violent communication, and why she calls herself a compassionate disruptor. We also get into AI, specifically why Rachel believes the timeline is shrinking for women to take the reins of their careers, and why knowing the tools is not enough. This is a conversation about trusting the long way around, and why for some of us, that's the only path that was ever going to work. Connect with Rachel Clar: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelclar Website: https://www.interconnectedus.com Connect with Breaking Rank Podcast: Website: https://www.breakingrankpod.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/breakingrankpod LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/breaking-rank-podcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakingRankPod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@breaking.rank.pod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583609863334