‘I always loved debating and
was opinionated at school so
studying law was a natural
progression for me,’ she says.
‘After completing a
degree in Arts/Law at
university, I scored an
internship with the United
Nations International
Criminal Tribunal for
the Former Yugoslavia
in The Hague, Nether-
lands and later worked
as a solicitor for a top-
tier law firm.
‘However, in time,
I started to find work
boring and stif ling.
The thought of spend-
ing the majority of
my life in an office chair
filled me with panic and I
decided that was not how I
wanted to live my life... no
matter how good the money.’
She started pole dancing
for fun at around the same
time. ‘It helped me to survive
long hours at the office,’ she
says. ‘One day, my friendsuggested that I should open
a pole studio. I thought it was
a crazy suggestion. After all,
I hadn’t studied law for five
years to throw it all away and
open a pole dancing studio!
But the more I thought about
it, the more it made sense.’
Shimmy and her
sister Maddie opened
their first Pole Dance
Academy studio in
Bondi in 2009, then
studios in Redfern and
Crows Nest.
‘While I don’t have
any plans to return to
my old career, I’m very
happy that I started
my professional life
as a lawyer. I utilise many of
those skills today and also
believe that if I wasn’t so un-
happy as a lawyer, I wouldn’t
have taken the plunge,’ she
says. ‘Running your own
business is a lot of hard work
but it’s worth it. I am my
own boss and there really
is nothing better.’‘I went from
corporate
lawyer to pole
dancer’
Michelle Shimmy, 35, is a born debater who honed
her skills on the courtroom floor as a solicitor for
a top-tier Australian law firm. That is, until
her love of pole dancing took over‘RUNNING
Y O U R O W N
BUSINESS IS
A LOT OF
HARD WORK
B U T I T ’ S
WORTH IT. I
AM MY OWN
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