Risa Weaver-Enion leaves law to become a wedding planner and photographer

The Lawyer's Escape Pod

Risa Weaver-Enion is the founder and chief planner at Risa James Events, where she both plans weddings and offers product branding photography services. Risa went to law school thinking she’d get into entertainment law, but after her summer internship, quickly realized that there was a lot about actually working at a firm that she didn’t like. After some time in law and quasi-legal positions, a cross-country move proved to be an inflection point that prompted her to go back to the drawing board. She asked herself what she actually wanted to do, and that’s when she decided to start her wedding planning business.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Risa went to law school 12 years out of college because she was bored
• She decided she was interested in entertainment law from the IP angle
• She was counting down the days in her summer associateship, which was the first sign that she didn’t love the work
• She hated being beholden to other peoples’ timelines and unnecessary fire drills
• She ultimately took a job in an environmental compliance role in the UC-system
• When she moved to DC for her husband’s job, she had a hard time finding a legal job
• Not loving law anyway, she stopped to ask herself what she actually wanted to do
• She reached out to some local wedding planners and offered to work as an intern
• She started working as a paralegal part-time to help support her as she built her business
• Risa has started a product brand photography business as an exit strategy, because weddings can be grueling after a while

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