Elise Burns enrolled in Duke University Law School in 2019, using federal student loans to cover her $63,000 tuition and living expenses. A career in law seemed like a viable option, but before she graduated she knew she wouldn’t be able to work as a lawyer.
“I feel like everyone knows that you can make a good living as a lawyer, but you can’t make a good living as an artist. It’s kind of a stereotype or mindset,” the 28-year-old says.
In 2015, Burns started selling hand-painted canvases on Etsy. She says she opened a bank account and linked it to her Etsy seller account on her 18th birthday and sold two items within a week. She says her company, Elise Briand Design, had six-figure sales by 2020, bringing in $360,000 that year.
After graduating from law school, she was able to devote herself fully to her business, which now sells a wide range of products including stickers, coloring books, stationery, and household items. By September 2023, she had fully repaid the student loans she took out to get her law degree without even taking the bar.
Burns started Elyse Breanne Design as an Etsy store when she was 18 years old.
Elise Barnes
Although Burns didn’t end up pursuing a career in law, she doesn’t regret going to law school and sees it as part of the path to success for herself and her business.
“I was very lucky, and getting here included attending law school,” she says. “Sharing on TikTok that I went to law school and owned a business was part of what caused my business to collapse in the first place.”
Why Burns chose a career in art over a career in law
Burns began attending law school, but the art business remained a side hustle. She spent her summers working at Duke University’s First Amendment Clinic, but couldn’t resist the itch to focus on her art.
“I was doing exactly what I wanted to do legally, but I was still like, ‘Well, I want to get this done for the day so I can paint,'” she says.
She joined TikTok in 2020 and began posting her own work on the platform, and began selling her designs wholesale through Faire, a platform that connects brands and retailers. That’s when things really started to take off, she says. Talking about running an art business while studying law seemed to resonate with TikTok viewers.
As Burns earned a livable income in the art business, he began to reconsider his career as a lawyer. None of the different ways she had considered paying off the loan — working in corporate law and earning a big salary to pay it off right away, or working in public interest law and spending 10 years seeking public service loan forgiveness — seemed appealing to her.
Burns suggested the idea of skipping a career in law to her now husband. Working in law would make her depressed, she says, and she felt that working so hard would “take away everything from my life.” He fully supported the idea of her pursuing a career with more passion and had faith in her ability to repay the loan. Still, she says, she “felt motivated” to finish the law degree she started.
“I knew I didn’t need this, but the degree didn’t do much for me. I think I was so convinced that I had to do it,” Burns says.
All of Burns’ loans came from the federal government. That means when she graduates in 2022, she will still be in the pandemic-era interest-free grace period. That gave her an incentive to pay it off quickly before interest started accruing.
She finished repaying the loan balance of more than $75,000 in 2023, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. Burns doesn’t know how much money she ultimately paid back, but she estimates it costs her $63,000 a year to attend, plus about $20,000 in living expenses. She received a $25,000 scholarship each year and paid for her third year of school out of pocket, she said.
Business remains strong
In 2025, Elise Briand Design generated approximately $4.6 million in sales across various online retailers and at Mill and Meadow, a stationery store that opened in Durham, North Carolina in 2022. She is the sole owner of Elise Briand Design, and she says she has consistently reinvested the company’s profits to expand the business. The company has 18 full-time employees.
As a small business owner, Burns has faced his fair share of challenges, mostly learning how to manage a company as it grows. Business growth comes with ever-changing and expanding needs. “This is a big problem,” she says.
Since Burns began leasing warehouse space in 2021, the company has outgrown each commercial space it occupies, she says. Burns said the next big goal is to get more products in more big-box stores. For now, she says, shoppers can find her designs at Brick Art Materials stores and about 40 Hallmark locations.
Burns sometimes feels exhausted and overwhelmed and wishes another company would buy her company. But if the opportunity ever arises to sell her business, she says, “I don’t really feel like it, because I don’t know what else to do.”
Taking the bar exam probably won’t be on her agenda.
“What else am I really going to do? It has my name on it. If I can sell it, I just want to start another business just like this,” she says. “So I think the path forward is pretty much the same. We’ll see what happens.”
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