#117 From Law Firm Attorney to Building a High-Stakes Translation Business

Sarah Dray took a sick day from her Tel Aviv law firm to complete a freelance translation project, not because she was ill, but because that single job would pay more than her entire week's salary as a junior attorney. That pivotal moment crystallized a truth she'd been avoiding: the practical career path she'd followed since age 18 was leading somewhere she no longer wanted to go. In this episode of Lawyers Who Learn, host David Schnurman explores Sarah's journey from studying law in Hebrew, to building a thriving translation business that now handles high-stakes legal and financial documents for publicly traded companies. After immigrating to Israel for what was supposed to be a gap year, Sarah navigated law school while ultra-Orthodox and married at 19, juggling cultural expectations with an independent streak inherited from her Moroccan immigrant parents. Sarah's entrepreneurial evolution didn't stop with translations. During COVID, she co-founded a seven-figure e-commerce business selling VR headsets on Amazon, a venture born from scrolling TikTok while trapped at home. Her translation business has weathered AI disruption by pivoting from routine litigation work to complex financial documents that still require human expertise and formatting precision. Now, as she considers her next chapter, Sarah's contemplating a new mission: helping women entrepreneurs make the leap from zero to one, drawing from her own unconventional path of building multiple businesses while navigating motherhood during wartime in Israel.