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It was no small feat to rearrange her schedule. To begin with, Chiamp—a family-law litigator and former Detroit Metropolitan Bar Association president—was principal of her own practice in downtown Detroit. “I was the ‘rainmaker’ for the firm,” she said, “the person who brought in business.” Eight other people depended on her for their livelihood, and she didn’t take that responsibility lightly. She considered folding her practice altogether until she began to get offers from larger firms interested in an of-counsel arrangement. She gladly accepted one of the offers: “Several staff members and I moved in with Hickey, Cianciolo and Fishman over the holidays.” Chiamp then informed her clients she would be taking a break from the business, but that the services of Hickey et al. were available to them in her absence. At the same time she was making this transition, she was also working three nights a week at Detroit’s Opus One, a fine dining establishment. “That experience, plus a high school diploma, was what I needed to be admitted to the institute,” she noted with irony. “They didn’t care a bit about my JD!” In March 2000, she left Michigan for school in New York and fell into an even more rigorous schedule there. The courses were intense. One of them, entitled “Breakfast,” met at 2 a.m. “We had to get up early to prepare all the foods that would be served at the school in the morning,” she explained. Another, entitled “Butchery,” met in a chilly meat locker: “I can now ‘take down’ a side of beef,” she said, laughing, “but, then again, who wants to do that?” To earn a CIA certificate, Chiamp would have also had to complete a year-long externship at an approved restaurant. But she decided to skip it. “It was never my intention to change careers and become a chef,” she explained. “I just wanted to have fun and learn something new.” So she finished her courses and came back to Detroit, picking up where she left off with her of-counsel situation: “I found I had no desire to be on my own again; it was actually a relief not to be in charge.” She also cut back on the hours she spent in the office before her sabbatical—from 55 hours a week to 30. But her calendar is still full. Tuesday and Thursday nights she’s back at Opus One, practicing her craft in the kitchen. In exchange for the freedom to punch out whenever she needs time to prepare for a trial or take a call from a client, she accepts no salary. But there are benefits galore. “I love to talk to the chefs there, to learn from them and try out new recipe ideas on them,” she said. “What more could I ask for?” |
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