Meet Sabrina Cobb

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sabrina Cobb.

Sabrina, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’m a former litigation attorney who left a cushy job in “big law” to chase my entrepreneurship dreams of starting my own law firm – the Law Office of Sabrina Cobb, LLC. Taking that leap of faith required me to go through a period of self-reflection, where I had to thoroughly reevaluate my priorities, my values, and my non-negotiables. After I graduated from law school, I had dreams of becoming a trial attorney.

Through grace and hard-work, I landed my dream job as a litigation attorney with a nationally-recognized firm. In this position, my practice primarily consisted of medical malpractice defense and representing ERISA healthcare plan participants in breach of contract claims related to healthcare reimbursements. From the outside looking in, I was living the dream – I finished law school, passed the bar exam, secured my dream job, and was making a six-figure salary. But after two years, I reached my breaking point.

It’s no secret that the legal profession has a longstanding history of being one of the least diverse career fields. Some firms have adopted diversity and inclusion policies and have taken the next step of attempting to diversify their staff. However, the “inclusion” component is often neglected. Studies indicate that roughly 85% of minority female attorneys will quit their “big law” jobs within their first seven years of practice because they feel invisible in their work environment – I was one of these attorneys.

As the youngest and only minority-female attorney in my office, I silently suffered through feelings of being invisible and sometimes even inadequate. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t socially relate to my colleagues. I couldn’t relate to their topics of conversation, their hobbies, their jokes… nothing. To help compensate for my inability to socially relate, I threw myself into my work.

For nearly two years, I came to the office early, stayed late, worked weekends, rarely took vacations, all while making sure that my work-product was immaculate. While my colleagues certainly appreciated my dedication, my body was exhausted from constantly running on overdrive. Before I knew it, I was being hospitalized. This should have been my wake-up call but in all honesty, it wasn’t. Shortly thereafter, I went back to work, completely ignoring my doctor’s orders, solely out of the fear that I would fall behind on my work and be perceived as the “weak” team member.

After my hospitalization, I started to go through that period of self-reflection I referenced earlier, and I came to three life-changing conclusions. First, I recognized that my aspirations as an attorney had changed and that change is a normal part of life. I had met my goal of becoming a trial attorney but now I wanted something different and more meaningful. Next, I recognized that my feelings of being invisible were real, valid, and no longer negotiable.

Lastly, I recognized that my health needed to be a priority. This was the pinnacle point in my life where entrepreneurship came into the picture. Roughly a month later, I quit my “big law” job and launched the Law Office of Sabrina Cobb, LLC, a virtual boutique law firm dedicated to serving entrepreneurs and creatives with their business law and intellectual property law needs. Now my new goal is to empower entrepreneurs by helping them start, grow, and legally protect their businesses and brands.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road to success is never smooth. I’ve definitely experienced a lot of challenges throughout my journey as an attorney and entrepreneur. Growing up, I had very hard-working and loving parents but unfortunately, we had very little financial resources. My parents often struggled to pay the bills and to provide for me and my siblings. Watching them struggle strengthened my already-ambitious nature.

I knew that I wanted to go to college but I also knew that my family didn’t have the financial means to pay for my college education, so I buckled down in school which led to me receiving a scholarship to help pay my tuition. I went on to attend Georgia Southern University as a first-generation college student. While in college, I had to juggle my schoolwork, a job, and all of my extracurricular activities. My four-year “balancing act” was definitely challenging but I managed to push through it. After graduating with honors, I moved on to my next challenge – law school.

As a non-traditional law student, I once again had to juggle an even more challenging course-load, more demanding extracurricular activities, my never-ending responsibilities as a stepmother and fiancé, all while having a two-hour daily commute. This nearly broke me and I won’t lie, I almost quit. But through grace, hard work, and the support of my family and friends, I was able to graduate from the University of Georgia School of Law.

The challenges didn’t end there, the bar exam was up next. I put every last piece of me into studying for that exam. I studied anywhere from 15 to 20 hours a day. Most nights I slept on my friend’s couch so that I could avoid my normal two-hour commute and get a head start on studying at the law library. As the bar exam date drew closer, I went into “study overdrive” – taking thirty-minute naps instead of sleeping through the night, reviewing flashcard after flashcard and outline after outline. At that point, I had never pushed myself that hard but it was all worth it when I found out, not only did I pass the bar exam, but I killed the bar exam!

The challenges followed me into the beginning of my practice. As the youngest and only minority-female attorney in my office, I constantly dealt with feelings of inadequacy and invisibility and I often struggled to socially relate to my colleagues. This led to a downward spiral of me overworking myself for two years, a terrifying hospitalization, and me completely forgetting my life outside of “big law.” To overcome these challenges, I had to go through a period of self-reflection and transformation.

I had to remember my worth, accept my feelings as valid, and then make the decision to want more out of life – this is what birthed my love for entrepreneurship. Even deciding to leave my “big law” job and transition into entrepreneurship was a challenge. Making that decision involved a level of faith and courage that I didn’t even know I had, and that I rely on every day as an entrepreneur. My perspective is that challenges are par for the course and every success story is filled with them, so when you’re faced with challenges, just remember that they are a temporary necessity to get you to your definition of success.

Please tell us more about your work.
The Law Office of Sabrina Cobb, LLC is a virtual boutique law firm dedicated to serving entrepreneurs and creatives with their business law and intellectual property law needs. Our goal is to empower entrepreneurs by helping them start, grow, and legally protect their businesses and brands. Our services include business formation, contracts, trademark and copyright registration, general counsel services, and more.

Our office is unique because of my prior experience as a litigation attorney representing insurance companies and large corporations. I leverage this experience to help both aspiring and seasoned entrepreneurs from falling into legal pitfalls by ensuring that their businesses are built on a proper legal foundation. At the Law Office of Sabrina Cobb, LLC we firmly believe in providing dependable, relatable, and quality legal services to our clients along with loads of moral support and encouragement to assist them throughout their entrepreneurship journey.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I believe resilience is one of the most important components to success. When confronted with a challenge, most people experience an initial moment of panic or anxiety – that is just a normal part of our human nature. What matters most is that you push through those emotions. Oftentimes, we wallow in a state of self-pity and we allow our fears to talk us out of our potential successes. Success comes from weathering the storms. It comes from being consistent, being dedicated, and being disciplined. When I launched the Law Office of Sabrina Cobb, LLC, I definitely battled with feelings of fear, doubt, and uncertainty. Quite frankly, there are still days where these feelings bubble to the surface. Every day, you have to make the decision not to let those negative emotions control your success, your business, and your happiness. So for all of my entrepreneurs out there, I know it’s hard but just stay the course and remember that everything you want is on the other side of fear.

Contact Info:

• Address: 1072 W. Peachtree Street #77032
  Atlanta, Georgia 30357
• Website: www.sabrinacobblaw.com
• Phone: 404-465-4852
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: @sabrinacobblaw
• Facebook: @sabrinacobblaw
• Twitter: @sabrinacobblaw

Image Credit:
Jasmine Giles
KJ Rainey

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