Hello everyone. I am UMAIR SHAIKH, your host of the My Career Shop Podcast, a full-time BigLaw Associate (Lawyer), basketball enthusiast, and struggling golfer. What a time! So how did we get here?

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Well, I myself had an action packed journey from the time I was a young and confused student in Canada attending the University of Toronto in hopes of fulfilling my parents dream of becoming a doctor. Like many other South Asians, I started off in Life Sciences and double majored in Psychology (Neuroscience) and Biology, but the only thing those years taught me were, how much I disliked biology, how interesting the brain is, and how much I loved basketball as I spent the vast majority of my time learning how to hoop. Following receipt of an underwhelming Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) degree, I dabbled with multiple jobs concurrently, working full-time during the day as a manager at a furniture company, evening sales associate at Best Buy, and at a start-up, when I had the privilege of having my best friend telling me he expects better from me, followed by my brother-in-law intervening in my life a few weeks later. During his vacation from the UK, he observed my chaotic schedule from afar and upon questioning me regarding everything in my life and nailing down my nominal financial output from those long hours, we sat down to determine what the next move was with respect to my career. Based on my educational background and personality, we laid out six potential career paths:

(1) Doctor;

(2) Dentist;

(3) Pharmacist;

(4) Optometrist;

(5) Lawyer; and

(6) Financial route via MBA.

I picked the brains of many friends, family members, and I reached out to individuals from each one of those professions to see what these folks do on a daily basis and to see where my skill set would flourish the most. I narrowed down my choice to becoming a lawyer or taking the financial route. Finally, I decided on law and I made my decision based on the fact that at that time in my life, I saw multiple people around me experiencing legal hardships, I felt a burning sensation to bring change, I happened to debate everyone I met, my sister was a lawyer, and collectively, I felt that the profession of law happened to align with that passion and my personality more than the financial route. Was I right? I don’t know, but it's too late to tell. The legal career path is pretty awesome. Next week, I took a week off my 70 hour a week work load per my brother in law’s demands and I made 150% efforts towards applying for law school in the UK. I got in! Some thousands of pages of reading later and after facing many 100% finals, playing on the school basketball team, and winning the intramural championship on behalf of the Canadian Lawyer's society, I got my Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree and $200,000 in debt.

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Following that, I began my journey to becoming a lawyer in Canada (Ontario specifically) and after passing many exams (accreditation and bar examinations), I got the opportunity to practice at a firm doing commercial litigation and personal injury work. I still remember my first court appearance, drenched in sweat from the fear of a judge for an incredibly non-consequential motion. I pretty much just had to say my name, but it was intimidating. I had always planned to go to the United States, so after waiting for multiple years while the New York bar authority allowed me to sit for the bar exam, I continued to argue before judges in Ontario. Finally, after New York decided to let me sit for the exam, I quit my job and moved to the United States, where I took on, guess what? More exams. JESUS! First the New York Law Exam, then the Uniform Bar Examination, and then the Multistate Professional Responsibility Examination, and upon defeating them all, one by one, I became an attorney in the state of New York. 

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After that, I got a job practicing both litigation and transactional work, and lo and behold, turns out, I like contracts! WHAT? Hopped over to Capital One to learn everything about contracts, and after that I landed a job at a prestigious law firm in Washington, D.C., where I can finally say that I am a technology transactions lawyer, which in a nutshell means, I help my clients get into a relationship with software providers (via contract).

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PHEW! Anyways, all that to say, I have studied in three G7 nations, and have sat and flourished through MANY exams. My journey to BigLaw was not straight forward, and from the first day that I was in court when I sweat through my suit to my journey today, I learned that, despite me only choosing between six professions, there were thousands of jobs and professions that I never knew about, and that law is very different than what I anticipated. Mostly good, but some bad too! Based on all of that, I decided to begin the My Career Shop podcast in hopes of bringing awareness to what actually happens in the day to day of different careers, the steps to getting there, what your life looks like and much more.

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Hope it helps and you enjoy it! If you don't like something, email me and let me know! THANKS!