Getting back into work after taking some time with your kids

I recently attended a symposium on work-life balance where the keynote speaker was Deborah Epstein Henry.  She was there to talk about her FACTS program.  In a portion of her talk, Debbie mentioned some current initiatives at Big Firms aimed at helping with the work-life balance concerns of women.  Most that she mentioned, I was aware of already because of blogs like Ms. JD.  Most were programs seemingly aimed at making the unbearable billable hours requirements more bearable or aimed at creating reduced-hour alternatives for lawyers.  However, she also mentioned that some firms are putting into place initiatives aimed at bringing back their "regrettable losses" -- i.e. attorneys that leave the firm that the firm wishes would have stayed and that may be in a position to come back at some point in the future.  One such program is the "Sidebar" initiative at Skadden and, frankly, I am not sure how I missed it. (JDBlissblog.com covered it last month here.)  You can find some information on it on Skadden's Women's Initiatives page here even though I think the program is not just for women.  According to the site:

Through Sidebar, attorneys in good standing may decide to leave the firm for any number of personal reasons for up to three years (more than the six-month maximum permitted under a leave of absence), with the expectation that they will return to the firm at the end of that period consistent with the needs of the firm and their department. The firm expects and encourages Sidebar participants to remain connected, for example, by attending certain firm-sponsored events and gatherings and continuing legal education programs.

This is not intended to be a plug for Skadden but more of a head's up to other law firms.  I think this is genius.

Ms. JD Summer Book Series: Flux, by: Peggy Orenstein

Flux: Women on Sex, Work, Love, Kids, & Life in a Half-Changed World 

One of the great discussions that women today have, not only on the Ms. JD forum, but also among friends, at work and with their families is how they are going to "have it all."  And, perhaps more importantly, what "having it all" means for them. 

In 'Flux', Peggy Orenstein explores these questions and more, through a narrative based on a compilation of conversations she has had with over two hundred women, at varying stages of life.  Ranging in age from twenty-five to forty-five, these women have shared with Orenstein their personal opinions, struggles, and triumphs concerning such varying topics as, well, sex, work, love, kids and life.

Ms. JD Reader, be advised, this book is not exclusively about women lawyers.  This, however, can be a refreshing quality.  Not that one gets tired of hearing about women lawyers - this is posted on Ms. JD, after all.  Rather, it is somehow comforting to know that women in diverse professions are facing the same issues.

Seeking A Just Balance: Law Students Weigh In On Work and Family

A Better Balance: The Work & Family Legal Center is publishing a study, Seeking A Just Balance: Law Students Weigh In On Work and Family.  The study is a survey of NYU law students and their expectations around work/life balance.  Generation-Y lawyers – American men and women born between 1978 and 1998 – are extremely worried about these issues and are willing to trade money for time.  

The demand for work/life balance is greater among both men and women than in the past.  Family life is a high priority for today’s young attorneys, and they do not want to make the same sacrifices for their careers as their parents did.  It’s not about the money anymore, but about the big picture in their lives.

The study found that as firms have competed for talent over the last ten years, salaries have increased exponentially.  The result of that is an increased expectation of availability and billable hour requirements.  They offer “lifestyle perks” designed to keep people at work instead of flexible time that would allow workers to be with their families.  Up-and-coming lawyers would rather trade money for more personal time, and will leave for a pay-cut if the result is less time at work.  Many respondents commented on how the private sector works attorneys to death, and that if they are required to put in 80 hour work weeks or stay until others leave so that there is face time, they will leave the firm.

This is not a new trend, but represents a shift in cultural values in Generation Y.

Don't Forget the Summer

As I typed a client letter today at work, I realized for the first time that it is the middle of June already! As I have sat at my desk for the past month, the warm haze of summer has set in, but I have only seen it out of the corner of my eye as the sun shines in to my office window. Granted, I am working full-time at an amazing legal services agency, and I have been taking classes at school part-time so that I have less of a load during my last school year, but I realized that I have been unable to engage in any of the frivolous activities of summer thus far! I have yet to don a bathing suit, or even a pair of shorts. My always fair skin has yet to need a substantial dose of sunscreen. This is not good.

I am sure that we sometimes feel as if we are more busy this summer than during the school year. Despite complaining all year long about the stresses of the classroom, it almost seems safe now--to hide behind my laptop screen and relax in the safety of being one student among eighty others. Now, I am one of eight clerks and there is nowhere to hide if I botch a memo or write a bad letter. I almost miss the hours set aside for studying, where I had the ability to stop for ten minutes and check Perez Hilton in between 150 pages of casebook reading. Now, I fight myself for 8 hours a day to try and bill six hours! I quickly scan assignments over dinner before my evening class. THIS is summer vacation?

And the worst of it is that my kids are having a BALL! And they should. They're kids and it's summer. They go to the pool, the zoo, our science center. But they are doing all of this with the nanny and my heart is full of jealousy when I get home and kiss their greasy faces that have been slathered with sunscreen for a day of fun without me. I love my job and enjoy the work that I do, but I can't help thinking about what kind of memories my kids will have of childhood. Will I be a part of that, or will it just be thoughts of their time with our nanny?

No formal vacation means, well, no formal vacation

Recently, as I was contemplating taking a couple of days off work when the school year ends for my kids in June and I got to remembering when I first started as a biglaw associate.  In a session on one of the first days, we met with junior associates who were supposed to answer all of our questions that we didn't want to ask in more formal sessions.  Quickly the question came up about how to ask for vacation days and I remember the others that I was starting with being almost giddy about the fact that there wasn't any formal approval process and that we didn't need permission to take time off and even that it didn't seem like anyone was keeping track of it.  I also remember being a little relieved that it didn't seem like vacation had to be something that one planned far in advance and didn't need to be coordinated with the entire office.  Afterall, it seemed nice that you could take vacation whenever your work scheduled allowed.  Ha!-- what a misnomer that whole idea is.  See, the schedule of a junior associate in a national law firm, will never allow vacation.  Instead, one has to force vacation into a riduculously busy work load and take it regardless of whether you have time to take it or not  -- or not take it at all, an option that many see to go for.

Also, I have come to learn that the fact that vacation is very informal for attorneys means, exactly that -- it is informal.  The truth is that vacation in general is a very loose concept.  I've tried to take a grand total of 4 vacation days since the beginning of this calendar year and have actually only been able to take 1 vacation day where I didn't work, although I was not in the office for the other three.

I was reminded of this today when reading a post on The Glass Hammer.

Loving what you are doing

I stumbled across a great little article about successful women attorneys today, here.  (Okay, so I am a few weeks behind on my reading!).  This article in New York Magazine is, for once, all about successful women lawyers and talks to many to find out their secret to success.  It is refreshing to find an article that, while starts with an introduction that sounds much like the Ms. JD Mission Statement, is really not so much about why women leave the profession but, instead, what makes the successful ones stay. 

What is their advice to young lawyers and other women executives? In a nutshell, you have to be prepared to work very hard for very long hours, they say. And, unless you really love the work, it won’t be worth that very high cost.

So true.