How Did You Know You Wanted to Be a Lawyer
When I quit my task as a corporate lawyer in 2008, I thought that I was taking a i year sabbatical to travel effectually the earth. I never expected that this website, something I started every bit a blog to go on my family and friends updated virtually where I was going, would turn into a bigger project, and eventually a new career.
Since 2017, I am disabled and sadly that culling career in travel and food writing came to a halt. But the benefit of an agile business pays off: I have swiveled to write more about chronic illness and tried to raise sensation for my status in the process.
During my decade of nomadic living, I as well created a "life after law" serial to provide case studies for lawyers or constabulary students who wanted something a trivial less conventional than private practise. With so many emails from lawyers over time, it was clear that people wanted help to find alternative careers in the legal field. I called the serial Thrillable Hours— a play on billable hours, which I found hilarious. Non-lawyers didn't seem to become the joke.
I asked the same 5 questions to each former attorney to ask them how they saw the world today. The interview also focused on advice for for people seeking to exit the law. Where should they begin? How to navigate that kind of change? These interviews are at the lesser of the page, and have been a bully source of communication for lawyers and students alike.
Equally Legal Nomads grew, I received more than and more emails from lawyers and law students confused about what options existed for them with their background. Some were miserable, some were bored, others were merely curious. My own bound into a much less structured career was one that fellow lawyers wanted to emulate or evolve from, and I built this resources folio to assistance lawyers look for alternative careers, or reframe their educational activity in untraditional ways.
The truth is that "BigLaw" can be a very harsh environment, even when we knew what we were getting into. As an April 12, 2021 commodity near the industry in Business Insider noted, "[a]ny semblance of separation between piece of work and personal life has been obliterated," made worse past the boom of work in the COVID-19 era. Per the BI piece,
"The hardest part nigh this task isn't necessarily the long hours. It's the unpredictability of the long hours. What looked like a free weekend or costless night can quickly turn into an all-nighter. You quarantine for two weeks so you tin can see your parents, and, as much notice as y'all give, as much as yous prepare for it, the realities of what you lot're being paid for is that that can blow up at any moment."
Pre-pandemic, that unpredictability was there but the electric current mural has only added to the expectation of availability at all hours. So it comes equally no surprise, then, that I have received many more than emails virtually leaving the police in the concluding twelve months than I have for the few years preceding it.
Hopefully this page provides some guidance, comfort and help. Please do feel gratis to use the contact class and reach out if y'all take questions that it does non respond.
Final UPDATED: MARCH 2022
Life After Law: What to Practise When You Don't Want to exist a Lawyer Anymore
But the series wasn't enough for my resource, considering while case studies are helpful most of the states need something more constructive. Personally, before I quit my job as a lawyer I focused on checklists and preparedness — stuff that helped me feel a chip safer in my decision to turn my dorsum on being an attorney.
Preparing took the form of reading books and articles from lawyers-turned-whatevers, but more importantly to focus on agreement what my fears were and how to face them without letting them control me.
The Best Questions to Enquire when Facing Fear and Changing Careers
These are a great starting betoken to make a career shift, merely also aid in mapping out some of the boundaries or consequences of that choice.
1. The virtually important 1: why are you leaving your career as a lawyer?
Before choosing to leave the police force, information technology's important to sit down down and make 2 lists: a listing of what it is that dissatisfies you with your current job, and a list of what y'all enjoy. The "I hate it" list may be long, and information technology may be very like shooting fish in a barrel to write; many a disgruntled lawyer has no trouble providing a litany of things that they dislike about their profession. Simply for some, doing this exercise may spotlight ways that they can still work within their profession's limits, but in a more than highly-seasoned way.
For example, in the age of COVID, office work is not the default everywhere. If 'commute time' or 'dressing upward for work' is on that list, possibly a remote position may set up that trouble?
If the billable hours are also much to handle, would a position as a general counsel / in firm work satisfy you lot instead?
For some, the outcome may truly be the nature of the piece of work itself. Non everyone will autumn into this category. So the first matter I recommend is to truly, actually take stock of what yous dislike.
Ask yourself:
- What scares you most about irresolute careers?
- What do you gain the most by making this shift? This can be personality-based or lifestyle, or more.
Then, move onto what you like. If you feel convinced that you do not want to be a lawyer anymore, plow to your "likes" listing. This will give you lot a thorough map for what you need to wait for as you motion into a new career or job, and makes the procedure less overwhelming.
2. Is there an emerging field of law that would work instead, and assist you feel similar yous're working on something heady and dissimilar?
With both the rise of remote work and actual "legal nomads" (as opposed to me, who quit constabulary practice to focus on the "nomadic" part), there are some shake ups in the legal industry. Opportunities to work as a lawyer in unconventional ways are increasing daily.
There are also new opportunities to work in emerging fields of police force that did not exist when I was in do or in constabulary schoolhouse. Fields like:
- Blockchain and cryptocurrency laws & regulations, whether related to revenue enhancement or otherwise.
- Cannabis laws, specially here in Canada where it has been legalized. Many jurisdictions are also decriminalizing and/or increasing access for medical cannabis.
- Geomatics and other spatially-referenced or location information, similar LIDAR, drone use, and more. One of my favourite courses was international air and space constabulary, something I would interested to go back and written report now with the current landscape.
- Advertising and technology police, which includes false advertising, gaming, apps, and intellectual belongings. This was the area of law I practised in during my last years, and information technology was really interesting. Probable fifty-fifty more than so now with the widespread use of new technologies.
- Medical police force and ethics, especially as the pandemic continues.
These areas may non interest you, but for those who aren't fully prepare to exit the law they may provide a lateral move that keeps you excited to acquire each twenty-four hours. If that's the instance, peradventure it's worth exploring commencement.
A resources to aid you figure out what this sweet spot may be is Design your Delta, a site that offers some brainstorming help via the existing "Delta Model". The Delta Model goes through three areas that can be helpful to examine for lawyers seeking change: practice area, people, and procedure itself. Y'all tin read more virtually their model hither. I take non engaged in their toolkit/procedure myself, as I am now very far away from the practice of police, but others I've recommended it to take constitute information technology helpful. (I have no amalgamation at all with the Delta site, for clarity!)
3. What is your worst case scenario after yous quit your chore as a lawyer?
When readers whoaren't lawyers write to ask me about career change and fright, I ofttimes become back to this series of questions nigh risk assessment. One time you lot've got a handle on worst instance scenarios, your fears eclipse a lot less of your center and mind.
To get to your worst case scenario strategy, you lot demand to sit downwards and call up though some some tough fact patterns to get to the center of your career alter.
As yourself:
- What'due south the worst case scenario for y'all if things go pear-shaped, for your life or emotional state?
- And (this is important!) what skills do you have to mitigate that worst instance from happening?
I'm not of the "detect your passion and take the leap" schoolhouse of thought, despite my trajectory from BigLaw. While information technology may look like I simply leapt into the unknown and said fuck it to the human being, what really happened is that I saved up to take a sabbatical considering of a dear of travel. During that trip, this website took off, I got offers for freelance writing, and a new career began to take shape. I did some risk cess showtime, of the kind I am advocating here, and information technology immune me the kind of mental space and liberty to make 'adjacent step' decisions based from a place of calm analysis and non unprepared panic.
In an April 2021 slice called, Dream Jobs Are a Myth, and More than Wisdom From 'An Ordinary Historic period', Rainsford Stauffer writes well-nigh the force per unit area to observe 1'due south purpose. The slice is in Teen Vogue, then it's geared at a younger audience, but this paragraph stood out:
[I]t feels backward to ascertain ourselves by what we do anymore, equally if job titles are status symbols and dream jobs don't incite their own version of turmoil: What if everyone else knows their dream chore, their calling, their purpose, and you don't? What if you lot end up unable to get a job in your called field, or go your dream task and realize information technology'southward not at all what you want? When these notions go encouraged in immature adults, it feels like undercutting more realistic expectations around what piece of work is, and how it feels. Maybe if so many of us weren't merely focused on defining ourselves by dream jobs, it would give us freedom to reimagine our pregnant, purpose, and what matters to us in other facets of our lives.
As applied science has changed, as more and more than work moves online, finding work as a digital nomad or remote worker becomes more viable. Is there whatever shame in leveraging skills toward a n0n-dream job, if that allows you the flexibility to build a life y'all want? I don't recollect so. BigLaw's ruthless hours and punishing schedule are role of why it private firms remain a difficult structure to always change your life in the ways you want. Just in 2021, there is a lot of room for creative legal piece of work, or non-legal piece of work, that isn't a "full dream" in terms of twenty-four hours-to-day but does give some financial comfort and a much less restrictive schedule.
Cal Newport summarizes this conundrum of 'dream jobs' well in his The Passion Trap essay. A video version of Cal Newport's essay below, for those who prefer information technology:
4. What can y'all go more of an proficient at doing? What do you lot want to become more of an proficient at doing?
Figure out what yous could happily invest more fourth dimension in learning how to do better. This is a groovy "brain dump" kind of do to truly examine what kinds of skills become stale when you lot contemplate deepening them.
As a travel author, I did for work what most people do for vacation. This left me with a very different relationship to travel, but overall working on the writing skills, editing, photography, and public speaking did non curdle the joys of travel. It meant I needed to rethink how to relax, merely travel remained a joy for me.
Is the thing you dearest something you desire to get better at enough to flip information technology into a career? Or are at that place skills you have that you lot can deepen, broaden, become additionally certified in that you can use to change your law career into something different. Had I decided to focus primarily on writing without the travel, I could take become a freelance author, fiction or otherwise. Simply the thought of condign more of an skilful on writing itself did non sit down well; ultimately I opted for the area that working on my skills ad nauseam didn't make me, well, nauseous.
Another way to approach this question is to exercise a wholesale "life audit", to brainstorm the values and goals you have and how they marshal with both your dreams and the timeline that yous promise to reach them. The life audit process lets you lot dream "mondo beyondo" dreams (all the things you might not accept put to paper prior), so helps you reorganize them alongside your values and your life plans then that patterns can emerge.
I've found that getting all of these thoughts "out" and on paper (or post-it notes, as the process below suggests) truly helps lift a weight off. Doing so too let me be more than creative (skydiving instructor? really?) and detach from the expectations of others as I idea through my own trajectory.
So what is a life audit? Author Ximena Vengoechea describes at as:
An exercise in self-reflection that helps you lot articulate the cobwebs of noisy, external goals and electric current distractions, and revisit or uncover the real themes & cadre values that drive & inspire yous.Also known as:spring-cleaning for the soul.
Ximena sets out step by step instructions for a life audit here, which will require at to the lowest degree 100 mail it notes, a few hours of your time, and a dedication to your imagination.
5. What skill level practice you need to be valuable enough for the bargaining power y'all want?
Ok, you've got expertise downward pat. Now you demand to figure out how good you would need to go at those things in club to leverage them to build the life you want to build.
For me, this meant working for myself, not going into an part, and being able to eat as much street nutrient as possible.
In a piece about law practice in 2019, Marking Cohen interviewed a 1L who noted, "I regard law as a skill. I plan to leverage my legal training and meld it with my passion for business, technology, and policy. For me, law is not almost do."
What skills can you lot leverage too?
6. What experts can help you grow those skillsets and amass more leverage? What professional back up is available to get you there?
In today'south digital globe, access to experts and their knowledge has never been easier. Who tin yous engage with to double down on your skills? Who can provide a snapshot of their own path to meliorate inform you own? This includes professionals within the emerging legal fields I highlighted in a higher place. The more info gathering you lot can practice on a one-to-one level, the more y'all volition exist to make an informed determination.
Budgeted people in a placidity way – not "here are some times for a call" simply rather "I'd exist grateful if you could spend a few minutes of your time helping me sympathize your trajectory" – goes a long style toward answering your questions.
seven. How can you 'fall back' on your worst instance scenario in a graceful way?
For me, the worst instance of working in the law, even if not equally an acquaintance once more, was withal a much better case than many. Think about what happens if your shift in careers does not piece of work out. Is the 'worst example' you've established something you can't see yourself doing at all? If so, you need to reframe things and figure out a amend, more than palatable means of returning to some grade of stability before you ready out. It goes a long mode toward grounding yous in conviction before you accept that bound and exit the law.
The Paint Drop Method: A Fashion to Figure Out What to Practice After Leaving Law
My friend Taylor Pearson wrote a mail in April 2019 about how people tin can figure out what they should practice with their lives. Even if went through that process to become a lawyer, you're on this page because you may want a alter. Among his advice is to go on request yourself of import questions, such as "what practise you lot practice well?" and "what do y'all find interesting?" while seeking a Venn-diagram overlap between the two and the very of import question of "what will people pay for?"
To do so, he focuses primarily on skillset, considering it is your unusual cognition that will set up you apart in today's globe. Taking a rare skill and combining it with a creative application is far more of import than simply fitting into an existing mold.
I referred to this as the sweetness spot betwixt your wants, your skills, and the pain points out there that demand to be solved.
Per Taylor:
What is valuable today is not learning how to be normal or mutual, but the contrary: developing a unique, uncommon skill set that is in loftier demand. The cyberspace has massively broadened the possible infinite of careers by allowing you to scale almost whatsoever niche obsession or interest. The fundamental belongings of the net is that it connects every human on the planet to every other.
Check out his total piece here to endeavour the Paint Drop Method for yourself.
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Resources: Books and Articles to Support a Career Change
Books Most Culling Careers for Lawyers
- Life After Law: Finding Piece of work Y'all Love with the J.D. You lot Have, by Liz Brown (2013). Book summary: the book" provides specific, realistic, and honest advice on culling careers for lawyers. Different generic career guides, Life After Law shows lawyers how to reframe their legal feel to their competitive advantage, no matter how long they have been in or out of practice, to find work they truly love."
- The Unhappy Lawyer: A Roadmap to Finding Meaningful Work Outside of the Police force, past Monica Parker (2008). Book Summary: "The Unhappy Lawyer volition assistance you uncover exciting alternative careers with a unique step-by-footstep programme that will make you feel similar you have your very own career coach. With capacity containing existent letters from lawyers who are desperate to leave the do of police, tales from lawyers who have shut the door on their legal careers, and powerful exercises."
- Leaving Law: How Other's Did It and You Can Too, by Adele Barlow (2015. Note, I worked with Adele at Escape the City). Book Summary: "This is the ultimate companion for lawyers who want to escape their profession but are sceptical about career counsellors. It is based on years of experience helping hundreds of confused lawyers at Escape the City, a community of motivated corporate professionals who want to do something different with their careers."
- The Official Guide to Legal Specialties (Career Guides), past the National Association of Police force Placement (2008). Book Summary: "An inside wait at what it's like to practice law in 30 major specialty areas, including appellate practice, entertainment, immigration, international, taxation, and telecommunication. This book gives you the insights and expertise of top practitioners-the issues they tackle every day, the people and clients they work with, what they discover rewarding virtually their work, and what classes or work experience you lot need to follow in their footsteps."
- 24 Hours with 24 Lawyers: Profiles of Traditional and Non-Traditional Careers, by Jasper Kim (2011). Book Summary: "This volume gives you lot a unique "all-access laissez passer" into the real-world, real-fourth dimension personal and professional person lives of twenty-four constabulary schoolhouse graduates. These working professionals each nowadays you with a "contour" chronicling a typical xx-iv-60 minutes day in their traditional and non-traditional careers."
- What Color Is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers, by Richard N. Bolles (2017)Newly updated;Included in this section instead of above equally this is the world'south nearly pop task-search book.
- The Creative Lawyer: A Applied Guide to Accurate Professional Satisfaction Paperback, by Michael F. Melcher (2007). Book Summary: "Starting with self exam, readers will be able to analyze their personal values and and so create their own personal fulfillment plan. Create a step-by-footstep plan for life and career that will get y'all back on runway with your personal definition of happiness with this important volume."
- The new 'What Can You Practice with a Law Degree?' book, by Larry Richard (2012). Notation: more expensive textbook pricing for this book. Book Summary: "This book contains career exercises, practical career-finding techniques, and a compendium of 800+ ways to use your law degree inside, outside or around the constabulary."
- Lawyer, Interrupted: Successfully Transitioning from the Practice of Law–and Back Over again (2015), by Amy Impellizzeri. A good read for both the applied and the ethical considerations of leaving the police force. What I like about this volume is that it doesn't but address people leaving because they want to, only likewise those practitioners who take to get out for life reasons, for example leaves of absence, taking care of family, retirement, and more. A useful book that covers a broad diverseness of circumstances.
- Given the rates of addition and depression in the police force (see Vice Mag's bearding piece here), I wanted to too include Brian Cuban'sThe Addicted Lawyer.
Books About Career Change and Finding Creativity
- The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles, by Steven Pressfield. I've found inventiveness and fearfulness are two sides of a very like, shiny coin. This book helps y'all get more comfortable with that gnawing fear of impending alter, because (every bit Pressfield argues) that fearfulness is actually a very good sign — information technology tells u.s. what comes adjacent. The more than scared we are of what nosotros are excited about work-wise, the more nosotros need to give it a shot. Instead of beingness held back by that deep, powerful resistance, Pressfield tells united states to face up it head on.
- The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Backside Extraordinary Results, by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan. I'1000 including this 1 because lawyers accept a skillful, trained tendency to focus on all of the amass problems or obstacles – it'south what we're paid to do, after all. But in times of change, you lot need to reframe with narrower focus so as not to drown yourself in anxiety. The premise is simple: in a earth with boundless amounts of options and distractions, those who can focus will achieve meaning and depth that is unparalleled.
- Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. The premise of the volume tin be boiled downward to: when we get mired in problems that seem unsolvable, nosotros need to reframe our relationship to them and try again. The book gives you tools to do that, and ways to craft a life that is fulfilling and meaningful regardless of our myriad backgrounds. While personal mindset matters most, the I institute the book interesting at providing practical means to rethink big problems like "what is the life I want to lead?"
- Take the Bound: Alter Your Career, Modify Your Life, by Sara Elation. Instance studies of people who accept made unconventional career changes, transforming their lives in the procedure. They aren't all lawyers – there is, however, one lawyer who went from billable hours to surf education – merely the interviews are interesting and the wisdom inspiring from entrepreneurs, writers, artist, athletes, and more.
- Pin: The Only Move is the One You Make Next, past Jenny Blake. This book is — equally the title would suggest — all about the pivot, a startup term that can likewise apply to changing our lives. Blake, a public speaker and career jitney, aggregates her advice about taking pocket-sized steps to move in new directions and modify goals and careers in the process. Actionable and interesting.
- How to Exist Everything, by Emilie Wapnick. Having a lot of unlike interests, projects and curiosities is something I was told "makes you an all-around gymnast – non a aureate medal winner. Wapnick, who studied law at McGill University, argues that the narrowed experience theory is an outdated one. Instead, she urges people with many creative pursuits (multipotentialites, in her words) to leverage that diversity and passion as their biggest strength. The book teaches y'all how to build a life that you dearest, not because you 'follow your passion' but because you come up into who you lot really are – which allows you to find meaning in whatever work you do.
- For a bit of spirituality braided in, see Design the Life You Love: A Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Meaningful Future, by Ayse Birsel. It's an interactive periodical – which may not appeal to all of my readers! But if doodling and listicles help you think stronger, this may be a adept start for getting a better handle on changes you want to me.
- Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, by Elizabeth Gilbert. Some may argue that this book belongs elsewhere merely I firmly believe that entrepreneurs and changemakers demand to have a strong and brave creative streak, and this volume speaks direct to artistic pursuits in a linear world.
- Seth Godin's Linchpin, virtually making yourself indispensable in creating new businesses and products, and Imperial Cow, virtually transforming your business to make it remarkable, are both highly recommended. From Linchpin: "Your art is what you do when no one can tell you exactly how to exercise it. Your art is the human action of taking personal responsibility, challenging the status quo, and changing people."
For more books and resources relating to entrepreneurship and location independent work, delight see here.
Manufactures About Fear and Resilience
- Tim Ferriss' Fright Setting exercises, with good questions to ask before undertaking decisions you're afraid of. Bonus: the interview is with Hans Keeling, a former lawyer.
- Strategies for Overcoming Fears of Change and Failing FindLaw (This is an extract Career Change: Everything You Need to Know to See New Challenges and Have Command of Your Career, by David P. Helfand)
- How tin can I face my fear of making a career change? A list of questions relating to fear.
- Five Science-Backed Strategies to Build Resilience. 12 of resilience practices (squeezed into five categories), which can help you confront life changes more skillfully. Building resilience through mindfulness and habits is an excellent backstop to career transition, as information technology allows you to act from certain place, 1 less overcast by fear.
(For those not seeking a change at the moment, check out Acquaintance Mind'south long listing of online resource for new lawyers, from books to articles and much more, as well every bit Hastings College of Law'south New Models of Legal Practice publication.)
Resources and Manufactures: Jobs for Lawyers Leaving the Constabulary
In that location are also a few other sites around the web that provide resources for lawyers seeking a career change:
- Georgetown Law'south alternative careers folio.
- The Canadian Bar Association's alternative careers page.
- ABA for Students' alternative career paths.
- Life After Police's job board.
- Non-Lawyer Jobs for Lawyers from Santa Clara Law School.
- threescore Alternative Jobs to Being a Lawyer from Police force Crossing Great britain.
- Also from a UK perspective, All Well-nigh Law's alternative career'south folio here.
- The American Bar Association's (ABA) advice for tackling an alternative career, too as their career centre'due south 2017 video about career changes and alternative tracks for lawyers.
- The ABA also has a landing page for alternative careers for lawyers, here.
- University of Toledo'southward list of resources for nontraditional law careers options.
- Loyola University Schoolhouse of Police force'due south culling law careers resources page (several resources in hither).
- Life After Law: What to Exercise When You Don't Want to Be a Lawyer Anymore, by boyfriend McGill grad Devo Ritter.
- Work-as-An-Attorney-from-Home job suggestions from an American perspective.
- National Associates for Constabulary Placement has a few PDFs of note, including on emerging legal jobs. The others are hither.
- Marc Luber'south JD Careers Out There site has an alternative careers for lawyers page with some of the obstacles that attorneys may feel hamper them from taking the leak.
- "Alternative Uses for Your Constabulary Caste" – article from the Missouri Bar Clan.
- Escape the City'southward job listings lath for many culling careers that don't involve a fixed location.
- Get Educated has an alternative careers folio with salary listings, focusing on loftier-paying alternatives (America-focus).
- For Canadians, careers at the Section of Justice, if opting out of private practice is the main concern.
- Some other Canadian perspective: Simon Rollat's piece nearly alternative paths in the Canadian system. Simon runs DALA, an alternative careers group at my alma mater, McGill Academy. The piece likewise quotes from Dean Robert Leckey (who was in my twelvemonth at McGill) most a non-traditional path.
- Pepperdine's alternative jobs for constabulary school graduates page, here.
- And from a different perspective: someone who opted tobecome a lawyer at later in life.
- For those who desire to make a lateral move to a not-house environment, Corporate Legal Operations Consortium (CLOC)'southward
- job board includes a lot of general counsel work.
Case Studies from Former Lawyers
Earlier I quit my chore as a lawyer, I found information technology really helpful to read through instance studies and details from former lawyers. This both bolstered my courage, but also showed me how many others have taken the leap and landed on their feet. Information technology'south a daunting prospect in a career that tells you that lock step salaries and billing units are the accented norm. Information technology's a lot harder to think of something dissimilar when you lot're wearied and everyone else is keeping their eye on the prize they want: partnership. Only making partner isn't for everyone. It wasn't for me, and it wasn't for the people beneath. Hopefully these former lawyers give you lot more than encouragement and steps to retrieve a little differently nigh your life and what it can hold.
- I wrote a piece in 2015 on Redbook about why I quit my job to travel, and what to think about if you lot are considering doing the aforementioned.
- Simply Sweet Justice has a long, loooong list of lawyers who are now bakers hither. Seriously, there are a LOT of lawyers who became bakers.
- Higher up the Police force's Alternative Careers folio.
- New York Times recently featured Rob Friedman, erstwhile lawyer who became a baseball pitching "whisperer" and adviser. "People have come up to me to get my autograph," Friedman said. "I'thou like, what the hell is that? I'm a freaking lawyer!"
Thrillable Hours: My Case Studies from Life After Police
I hope this series is helpful. I know I take learned a lot from the interviewees, and expect forward to standing to interview and highlight these smart and interesting people.
Source: https://www.legalnomads.com/alternative-careers-for-lawyers/
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