Working out a notice period is a strange kind of limbo, especially when you’ve jacked in your job with no alternative employment. No one can hate me for defecting to a competitor and no one is bothering to cosy up to me in the hope that there may be a place for them in some brave new legal world I am entering.

My resignation has, however, encouraged fellow lawyers to make hasty tracks to my office to observe me as if I were some kind of new and confusing zoo exhibit. By their reactions, my colleagues tend to fall into two camps:

i) The Institutionalised

The law can engender a kind of wide eyed devotion (or Stockholm syndrome as I like to think of it). Lawyers can become slavish to the partners for whom they work. Viewing them as demi-gods, they frequently describe them as “my partner” and, indeed, treat them as some kind of Donald Trump a-like sugar daddy (for the partners are, almost without exception, male). Instead of a few quick rolls in the sack in exchange for a designer bag and a bijou flat in Mayfair, lawyers provide a steady supply of grunt work and late night IT support in exchange for a word or two of appreciation and the possibility of a profile raising position on the Health and Safety Committee (all counts towards partnership, y’ know).

For the Institutionalised, working consistently until 3 in the morning becomes a badge of honour to flash in the faces of your less committed colleagues who dare to leave before the clock clicks into the am. The ability to check up on hours you have billed translates into the most inane of competitions, as those who have had a heavy month attempt to slip this into conversations with their less busy colleagues. “Oh, you know, I managed to bill like 8,976 hours, just this week. It’s tiring but, well, my clients are relying on me”. OK love, perish the thought that anyone forgets for a moment that you are single-handedly propping up capitalism, one hour of proof reading at a time. What would the Fortune 500 do without you?

Often the Institutionalised take my resignation as their cue to interrogate me on what I had always imagined to be private matters:

"How will you pay your rent?"

"Are you leaving because you are getting married/having kids?”

"Do you have enough money saved?"

“Do you have any mental health problems?”

“Are you a Communist?”

What makes them think I am suddenly about to share with them intimate details of my finances, family planning choices and political persuasions?

I’ve found the best tactic is to avoid them at all costs, which would be easy if the Institutionaliseds did not so regularly visit my office to tell me that they always suspected the firm didn't suit me (read ‘can't hack the hours’), that they were sure I would find something more suitable (read ‘something more frivolous, probably without spreadsheets’) and to ask when was my last day again (read ‘you’ve got a really great view, I want your office’).

ii) The Dreamers

The equivalent to those child actors whose star waned irreparably once they hit puberty. Broken voiced, acne scarred and washed up at a tender age. They started out brimming with dreams of a life of fame and showbiz glory after a starring role in a sold-out run of some West End musical aged 12, only to find themselves, nearing middle age, selling mortgages and driving pimped up Ford Fiestas, telling tales of their precocious and long since dimmed talent over pints of Stella and a pack of B&H to anyone who’ll listen.

The legal Dreamers were bright academic over-achievers who had the world at their feet at school and could have done pretty much anything. As impoverished students, the law came calling and they found themselves at the age of 23, the most highly paid photocopiers in London.

Some of those in this camp, most of whom have not spoken to me since our perfunctory welcome chat when I joined the firm, have felt it necessary to open up to me about their plans for the future. I find myself unwittingly pulled into chats, which could more aptly be described as mini counselling sessions. Colleagues confess aspirations to become writers (all lawyers seem to be frustrated writers.....ahem), psychologists, florists and shoe designers. Crazy, creative plans to overturn the years of churning out corporate documents. Not right now though, you understand, but definitely in the future. For sure.

A little bit of me does want to shake them and ask what they thought they were getting into in the first place. A lot of me wants to shake myself and ask the same question.

Yet still, as days of getting my monthly wage draw to a close with a horrible swiftness, I can feel the panic rising. Five more working days to go. Five more days until unemployment. Five more days until freedom. So why does freedom feel so constricting? I wake up in the night in a hot sweat. What if I never get a job? What if my talents really are restricted to dictating sniffy letters and organising documents? What if I discover I really do find data analysis interesting? What if I end up hanging out with the local Bethnal Green Communists just to fill the empty unemployed days? Maybe cutting out some of the incessant rhetorical questions might be a start.