Avoiding the Mommy Track: How Does Having a Family Affect Your Career

Editor's Note: Ms. JD's annual conference, Avenues to Advancement, was held November 20-21, 2009, in Chicago. These are six tips from the Motherhood panel.

One of the biggest questions a young female lawyer often wants to know is how having a family will affect her career.  Our panelists spoke candidly about how having families has affected their careers and offered tips for being having both a busy career and a busy family.  Below are six pieces of advice the panelists offered for making sure that having a family does not alter the career path you want to take.

1.  Make yourself missable.

Yes, this sounds a bit corny, but the premise is very important.  If you make yourself an integral part of the team and establish a reputation for doing the best work, then when you have to be out of the office for a period of time, you’ll be missed, not replaced.  

2.  Stay connected

Before you have a child, do things to stay connected to your co-workers and your supervisors.  Get your name out there and when you’re away, keep in touch with your network.  If you already have children, use your network as much as you need so you don’t miss out on the good work and the best opportunities.

3.  Find a mentor who will advocate on your behalf

This is very important.  If early on you establish connections with mentors who have leadership positions in your company or workplace, you can be assured that your name will stay in the game.  So find someone who wants to help you out, prove to that person you’re worth helping and then keep in close contact to ensure your name is the one being said when important work is being handed out and promotions are being considered.

4.  Manage your workload.

Moving up in a company or organization is about quality of work, not quantity.  Consider the difference between document review and contributing to a brief.  Sure, you may not always get the best work, but make sure you are doing work that advances your career to balance the work that may be more monotonous.  And when you have less interesting work, think about ways you can make the job you’re doing a more integral part of the bigger picture.

5. Build a strong support system.

Whether it is family, coworkers or friends, remember that you may have to rely on your support system a lot as you build your career.  So find a group of people that can help ease your load, whether it is at work or at home.

6.  Realize that your life may not take the path you expected.

As in so many other panels, the panelists here stressed flexibility!  Life will not always go the way you want and you may find that the job you thought was perfect is actually keeping you from doing things you find more important, so stay flexible and be open to opportunities that allow you to balance your life in the way you think is best.

Moderator:  Ellen Ostrow, Founder, Lawyers Life Coach; Asilia Backus, Associate, Littler Mendelson; Lauren Hennessey Breit, Attorney Human Resources Director, Kirkland & Ellis; Diana Doyle, Partner, Latham & Watkins; Stacy Smith Walsh, Associate, Day Pitney

"Whatever You Do Don't Get Pregnant"

Over the years I've grown accustomed to unsolicited advice from professional women. It has been my experience that women feel empowered to tell one another what they should be doing with their lives to a much greater extent than men (at least with respect to younger women).

That set of assumptions came to a screeching halt last week when my young male physician told me, "Whatever you do, don't get pregnant." This was my first appointment, so we were having the obligatory pre-exam, get-to-know-you, chat. I'm 27, a lawyer, single but in a committed relationship, and enjoying my job as ED for Ms. JD. His reaction to all this: stay that way. "You're doing good work. And you might be able to continue with a child, but ... probably not." Whoa nelly.

After the jump: the article that convinced me I should share this experience with the Ms. JD community and my thoughts on the matter going forward.

Ask a Mom in Law School: The Possibility of Pregnancy

Cross-posted at (Formerly) Knocked Up (and in Law School):

A new reader asks:

I just found your blog after googling "taking the bar exam while pregnant." I'm not in law school, but I am in the dead middle of a PhD. What is your take on the possibility of being pregnant during a major exam (in my case my "orals"). Terrible idea? Disaster? Not as bad as it sounds?

Just reading these comments on your blog makes me feel better about the prospect of pregnancy - so nice to see a bunch of women thinking about families and careers happening at the same time!

Congratulations on being a PhD candidate and not a law student! You obviously make better life decisions than I do. (I'm only half-kidding.) But I certainly understand the hard work involved in pursuing advanced degrees, in both graduate school and law school. To choose to become pregnant during such a time takes a special kind of determination, a special kind of insanity, and keeping a balance between the two.