5 years have gone by fast. That’s how long I’ve been working and running a business remotely. I’ve learned a lot over that span of those years while at the same time racking up a pile of mistakes along the way. I overcame those errors, and when I tally my remote working successes and failures, the win column far exceeds the losses.  I’d like to share my journey towards what I call the Office Without Walls ™ lifestyle so if you decide to embark on your own path to freedom as a remote professional, you too will wonder “where did the time go and why did I wait so long?”

My journey began with my taking a leap of faith and leaving my full-time, comfy salary position with a mid-sized firm in Largo, Maryland to start my own law practice and become a self-sufficient entrepreneur. My decisions to work for myself was one made out of necessity. I was miserable working for others, mainly because I was always tied to a desk or table and working within the confines of traditional “9 to 5”. I felt like these manufactured boundaries prevented me from taking care of myself and the people I cared about. I knew there had to be a way to work and really live at the same time.

I had tried working in several fields including for the judiciary, non-profits, as a State’s Attorney and finally the private sector, including for top ranked law firms WilmerHale and Arnold & Porter in DC and Boston. In 2015 I found myself at a mid-sized firm in Prince George’s County, Maryland where I was finally being assigned trial work, (which is what I had wanted to do all along) but I was still miserable. I drank daily and while I was extremely active, running full marathons several times a year, I was the unhealthiest I had ever been in my life. It was either find a way to practice law that made me happy, or find another career…and I wasn’t giving up being an advocate! I love helping others. So, I set out on my own to make my own rules and write my new normal.

Two things that were important to me were my quality of life, (I needed to be free and travel) and contributing to making the law and justice more accessible to everybody. The result are the tenets and branches of the Office Without Walls ™ Collective you see today.

When I started, I didn’t have much. I rented a mailbox in the Rockville office of a prominent attorney and former Maryland Sate Bar Association President, for $100/month. I worked wherever I could, driving to meet clients in public locations close to their homes or offices. It was during this time that I learned the most about how to retrain my business brain to think outside the box. I had to make up for the things I didn’t have by being creative and relying on technology and free to semi-free resources.

After about eight months I was able to afford a small office space in Greenbelt, MD. I started working with my first remote employee in 2016 and that began my work-travel movement. How he came to work for me is a magical story, and if we ever have the chance to meet, you should ask me about it.  In 2018 I moved my physical office space to Columbia, MD and opened a satellite office space in College Park.

I now have four (4) remote employees and manage multiple businesses. We have one brick and mortar location that is rarely used in the age of COVID, yet we still operate seamlessly. I attribute our preparedness to our commitment to making work and life more accessible, for ourselves and for our clients, in the years prior.