Create content within the site instead of the Drupal modal popup?
It is, but you'll need a bit of jQuery:

(function($) {
  $(function() {
    $('a[href="/node/add/client-request"]').addClass('overlay-exclude');
  });
})(jQuery);


That will add the overlay-exclude class to any link that goes to the node add form for your content type; all this is does is force the overlay to close when the link is clicked, and forward you on to the right page. It'll also stop any links on non-overlay pages from invoking the overlay for that path.