Latest / The Comeback Career Podcast with Fexingo: Returning After a Gap, Stay-at-Home Re-Entry / Returning to Work as a Paralegal After a Career Gap
Transcript
- Lucas: So you take seven years off to raise kids, and then you decide you want to go back to work as a corporate paralegal. That's a tough sell to a hiring manager, right? But one listener actually pulled it off, and her story is a really good blueprint for anyone trying to re-enter the legal field. Luna: I love that we're getting into the weeds on a specific role. Paralegal is one of those careers where people assume the skills atrophy if you're not in an office every day. Lucas: Exactly. And I think there's this assumption that law firms or corporate legal departments are super rigid about continuous experience. But our listener—let's call her Jen—proved that wrong. She had been a litigation paralegal for about six years before her first child, then stepped away completely. When she started applying again, she was seven years removed. Luna: And if this episode helps you think through your own career comeback, honestly, if it was worth a coffee to you, that's the link—buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. We keep this show ad-free because of listeners like you. Lucas: Yeah, it's a small gesture that makes a big difference for us. Anyway, back to Jen. The first thing she did was address the obvious gap head-on in her cover letter. She didn't hide it or try to fudge dates. She framed those seven years as a period where she developed project management, negotiation, and crisis management skills. Luna: That's smart. Because hiring managers aren't stupid—they see the gap. The question is whether you can spin it as an asset. Lucas: Right. And she didn't just say it—she had concrete examples. She wrote about coordinating schedules for three kids, managing a household budget, and even mediating sibling disputes. Sounds funny, but those are real transferable skills for a paralegal who might need to juggle multiple cases, track billable hours, or defuse tense client calls. Luna: But what about the technical side? Legal research, document review, e-discovery—those tools change fast. Lucas: That was her biggest worry too. So she invested about three months before she even started applying. She took an online certification in legal research through a community college—cost about four hundred dollars—and she also did a free Coursera course on e-discovery basics. She put those right at the top of her resume, under a 'Continuing Education' section. Luna: Did she have any legal volunteer work during the gap? Because I feel like that's a common recommendation. Lucas: She did, actually. About a year before she started applying, she began volunteering one afternoon a week at a legal aid clinic in her city. It was mostly intake work—helping people fill out forms, organizing files—but it got her back in a legal environment. She could put that on her resume as recent, relevant experience. Luna: That's a great low-stakes way to rebuild confidence too. You're not under the pressure of a billable-hour target. Lucas: Exactly. And it gave her a reference who could speak to her current skills. The supervising attorney at the clinic wrote her a recommendation letter that specifically addressed her attention to detail and her ability to pick up their case management software quickly. Luna: So when she finally started applying, what was her strategy? Did she target small firms, big law? Lucas: She cast a wide net, but she focused on mid-sized corporate legal departments—companies with maybe fifty to two hundred lawyers in-house. She figured big law would be too rigid about the gap, and small firms might not have the training budget to bring her up to speed. Mid-sized seemed like the sweet spot. Luna: And how many applications before she got a hit? Lucas: She sent out about forty applications over four months. Got interviews at six places, second interviews at three, and ultimately two offers. One was from a healthcare company's legal department, and the other was from a regional bank. She took the healthcare role because it offered a more structured onboarding program. Luna: Forty applications over four months—that's about ten a month. That seems manageable. I think people imagine they need to send out hundreds. Lucas: Right. And she was strategic. She tailored each cover letter to mention something specific about the company's recent litigation or regulatory news. For the healthcare company, she referenced a new compliance requirement that had just been announced. It showed she was current. Luna: How did she handle the salary question? I imagine she was worried about being lowballed. Lucas: She was. Her previous paralegal salary seven years earlier was about fifty-two thousand. She did her research—looked at Robert Half's salary guide and the National Association of Legal Assistants survey. The going rate for a corporate paralegal in Chicago with her experience level was around sixty-five to seventy-five thousand. She asked for seventy-two and settled at sixty-eight. Luna: So she actually came out ahead compared to her old salary, even after the gap. That's encouraging. Lucas: Yeah, and that's not uncommon. The market for paralegals has tightened in the last couple of years, especially in corporate settings. Her timing was good—she started applying in early 2025, and by mid-2025 she was working. Luna: What did she say was the hardest part of the whole process? Lucas: The interviews. She said she had to fight the urge to apologize for the gap. She prepared a two-sentence explanation: 'I took time away to focus on my family, but I stayed current through continuing education and volunteer work. I'm now fully ready to return to a demanding role.' And then she immediately pivoted to talking about the company. Luna: Short and confident. No defensiveness. Lucas: Exactly. And she practiced with a friend who works in HR. They did mock interviews where the friend would press her on the gap in different ways. That rehearsal helped her stay calm when it came up in real interviews. Luna: One thing I wonder about is networking. Did she rely on her old contacts? Lucas: She did reach out to a few former colleagues, but most had moved on or were at different firms. What worked better was joining the local paralegal association's LinkedIn group. She participated in discussions, shared articles about e-discovery trends, and that led to a couple of informational interviews. One of those informational interviews turned into the bank job offer. Luna: So it wasn't about 'using' old contacts—it was about building new ones in the current landscape. Lucas: Exactly. And she wasn't aggressive about it. She just started commenting on posts and asking thoughtful questions. People noticed. Luna: What's the one piece of advice she'd give to someone in her shoes? Lucas: She said: 'Don't wait until you feel 100 percent ready. You'll never feel ready. Start applying when you're about 70 percent prepared, and you'll learn the rest on the job.' She also emphasized that companies are more willing to train than most people assume, especially if you show initiative. Luna: That's a great mindset. And it applies to almost any career comeback, not just paralegal. Lucas: Totally. I think the key takeaway from Jen's story is that a gap doesn't have to be a black hole on your resume. If you can frame it as a period of skill-building—even if it's not traditional work—and you invest a little bit in updating your technical knowledge, you can absolutely re-enter a field like corporate law. Luna: And forty applications over four months isn't that many when you break it down. About two a week. Lucas: Right. And she had an offer by month four. So it's not a years-long grind. It's a focused, strategic effort. Luna: Good for her. Next week, we're going to look at a completely different path—returning as a financial analyst after a gap. That's a whole different set of challenges. Lucas: Can't wait. Until then, keep building your story.