Jacqueline Harounian on Work-Life Balance

Jacqueline Harounian, Esquire of Wisselman, Harounian & Associates, P.C. penned a great piece at The Glass Hammer. Her article, Raising the Bar: Balancing Professional and Personal Choices, includes some "inspirational anecdotes and advice related to the challenges of balancing professional and personal choices."

Part IV in Series: A Junior Associate's Networking Plan

Today's post in the series I've named "A Junior Associate's Networking Plan" is Community Involvement.  See here for the start of this series.

Dawn Johnson, Assistant Attorney General

In addition to his nomination of Elena Kagan for the position of Solicitor General, Barack Obama recently tapped Dawn Johnsen to be an assistant attorney general in his administration.

Johnsen is currently a Professor of Law and Ira C. Batman Faculty Fellow at the Indiana University School of Law—Bloomington. She spent several years as an attorney in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice, serving as its Acting Assistant Attorney General in 1997 and 1998.

A Constitutional Law scholar, Johnsen has published extensively on Constitutional powers and authority.  Her recent law review articles include Faithfully Executing the Laws: Internal Legal Constraints on Executive Power and Lessons from the Right: Progressive Constitutionalism for the Twenty-First Century.

Elena Kagan, Solicitor General

On a Tightrope

In her New York Times piece, The Tightrope of Managing a Law Office, Anita J. Cicero discusses the challenges of being an office managing partner.

Book Review: Lipstick Jungle

As I've posted about before, I am a fan of the NBC series "Lipstick Jungle".  Sadly, rumor has it that the series has been cancelled and this Friday's "Season Finale" is actually the end of the show forever.  Looks like my lot in life is to have the network dramas that I really like get cancelled. 

For Christmas, I asked for and recieved the book by Candace Bushnell that inspired the series.  Even though I pretty much read for a living, I still enjoy a good fiction novel every once in a while but it needs to be something good and something that keeps my attention so that I read it through to the end.  Lipstick Jungle was just that -- I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to professional women everywhere.

5 Things I Wish I'd Known Before Becoming a Lawyer, Mother

On the first day I reported to work as a summer associate, my employer handed me a copy of Maria Shriver's Ten Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Went Out into the Real World.  I quickly gobbled up the pages, hoping to discover the secret sauce to success in the law and life lying somewhere in the pages; I figured it had to be there, after all, a seasoned big-firm veteran had handed it to me with explicit reading instructions. 

But not long after getting out into the real "post-law school" world, I discovered that there were lessons omitted from that book--namely, those specific to raising a family and growing a legal career.

It seems that as lawyers, we naturally want to find success in what we do -- at work, at home, in hobbies -- even if it means giving no less than 100%, 24/7 in all areas of our lives.  But giving that much is impossible, making juggling a career in the law no easy feat--whether you work full-time, part-time or occasionally dabble in the law, especially when you're trying to balance work and family.

Ms. JD Weekly Roundup: Week Ending January 2, 2009

Women Partners Weigh in on Chief Justice Controversy

Memorial Service Scheduled for Attorney Pamela Dunn

Salem Author Traces the Path of Women in Legal History

Holly J. Fujie to Chair Judicial Selection Group for Senator Dianne Feinstein

The Height of Feminism?  Or do High Heels Demean Women as Sex Objects?

Justice Judith Kaye in the New Yorker: Special Kaye

Jeffrey Toobin penned a piece for the New Yorker this month on Justice Judith Kaye. The "Talk of the Town" profile, Special Kaye, reflects on a variety of Kaye's accomplishments, from the renovations of Foley Square courthouse that she championed to her promotion of jury service.

The jury room, with its dozing strangers awaiting the call to dispense justice, never fails to stir her soul. (Kaye always says “jury service,” not “jury duty.”) No detail is too small for her attention. The coffee stand, to her regret, can’t muster the technology for cappuccino; the in-house magazine for jurors has a crossword puzzle but, per her directive, no answers. “I want the jurors to learn to work together by figuring it out,” she said.

More recent articles on Justice Judith Kaye:

A sampling of the Kaye Court's rulings and dissents

Kaye exits 'role of a lifetime'

Justice Kaye's example

Unity Dow, First Female Judge of Botswana's High Court, Also an Author

Unity Dow, Botswana's first female High Court judge, "considers that in writing novels she is 'reclaiming the voice' to speak out on human rights and women's issues."  Dow has published three novels to date: Far and Beyon', The Screaming of the Innocent, and Juggling Truths.  Dow's books have a strong focus on women's struggles for equality and justice in Botswana.

Prior to being appointed to the High Court, Dow was a human rights activist and lawyer.  In those roles, she helped to advance important laws concerning child support, rape and married women's property rights.  Dow has also established a women's centre in her home village and co-founded the Women and Law in Southern Africa Research Project.  She is a member of International Women's Rights Watch. 

For more information on Unity Dow and her novels, click here.

Ms. JD Weekly Roundup: Week Ending December 26, 2008

Indian President Patil Speaks About Women Empowerment at National Conference of Women Lawyers and Law Teachers on Justice for Women

Ann Rieger Ready for Challenge of Leading Davis & Kuelthau SC

Single Mother Latina Alston Perseveres to Earn Law Degree

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer to Female Lawyers: Wear High Heels, Embrace Your Femininity

Study: Female Partners in D.C. Law Firms Take More Part-Time Hours Than Male Counterparts

Maltese Labor Leader Muscat Says Legal Notice Discriminates Against Female Lawyers

Mothers Earn Less Than Other Lawyers: Study

Women Partners Slowly Increasing

Q & A with Managing Partner Brigid Higgins

Brigid Higgins, Managing Shareholder, Gordon Silver, rose from associate to managing partner in less than ten years.

In her interview with In Business Las Vegas, Higgins discusses what is like to be a female managing parter, how she balances her duties, and how she made such a rapid rise to the top. She also gives some advice to new lawyers:

For new lawyers, I think - and this goes to the issue of the influx of regional and national law firms in the area - one of the things I think that's gotten lost since I started practicing law is that being a lawyer is a career. I don't believe it's just a job.

Single Mother Perseveres to Earn Law Degree

The Witchta Eagle rencently ran an inspriring story about a single mother who overcame adversity to become the eighth African-American member of the Wichita Bar Association.

Latina Alston is not yet 30. She has three children out of wedlock with three fathers, two of whom have not helped much with the kids. She raised the children in poverty all their lives.

That's about to change.

Latina's story goes beyond absent fathers, food stamps and welfare checks.

Overcoming poverty, stress, guilt, heath concerns, and potty training, Latina passed the bar in 2008.

Equal Justice Works on Student Debt

Ed. Note: The following post will be of interest to Ms. JD readers entering law school, attending law school, or those readers already working.  Whether a student, an attorney at a private firm, or an attorney working for government or a public interest organization, the following links provide information to those readers about planning for student loan debt and the pay-back process. 

Several recent posts on Equal Justice Works discussing student loan debt caught my eye:

• Equal Justice Works and American University’s Washington College of Law have teamed up to launch an all-new podcast: The Student Debt Relief Series. The first episode, “How to Figure Out if You Benefit from the College Cost Reduction & Access Act - and How Much?” is available now.
• The Project on Student Debt joined 12 other national organizations to send a letter to Congressional leaders urging that their economic stimulus bill include major new investments in college affordability. The proposal includes a Pell Grant increase, a boost in funding for Federal Work-Study, more access to PLUS loans, and emergency federal loan funds for some students.
• The Legal Services Corporation began the second three-year cycle of its Pilot Loan Repayment Assistance Program, bringing much needed assistance to civil legal aid lawyers.

Will BigLaw Embrace Grade-Less, High-Pedigree JDs?

Ed. note: The following article comes to Ms. JD courtesy of author Michael Estrin and bitterlawyer.com.  They interviewed a number of hiring partners at major U.S. law firms, who expressed concern about decisions by Harvard and Stanford law schools to switch to a pass/fail system.  This article might be of interest to many Ms. JD readers, especially given past issues and discussions concerning the compatibility between current law school learning frameworks and female law students.

Class rank is everything. It separates the future scholars from the posers; the potential Big Firm Partners from the 9-to-5 government slackers. If there were no grades, there’d be no way to differentiate among prospects and the entire legal hiring system would implode. Or maybe not.

In the past year, Stanford and Harvard have adopted a pass/fail grading system similar to Yale’s. This means no more grades at three of the top five U.S. law schools. Does this make sense? Are the schools doing the “real world” a favor or a disfavor? Does the elimination of competition from a highly-competitive profession make any sense whatsoever?