Balancing Private and Professional Life

When You Run Out of Steam...

mnienaber-foster — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 19:36:50 -0500

Remember the scene from "The Graduate" when Benjamin is rushing to the wedding in his spunky little convertible when ever...so...slowly...the...music...slows...down...until...he's out of gas?

Have you ever been on the treadmill at the gym and thought, "Gosh, I would be so mortified if I couldn't keep up and fell off this thing!" ?

This is how I'm feeling these days. Like a meteor hurtling toward the earth, without knowing whether I'll burn up in the atmosphere or burst through successfully.

Law Firms Turning to Family-Friendly Culture

Ms. JD — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 21:06:45 -0500

Citing handheld devices, home offices, part time schedules, on-site daycare, and longer maternity leaves, a Los Angeles Times article describes techniques that law firms are using to create a family-friendly culture that accommodates personal lives.

In the article, Deborah Epstein Henry, founder of Flex-Time Lawyers LLC, comments on the female attrition rate at firms, pointing out that losing a second-year associate can cost a firm between $200,000 and $500,000.

Table for Two

jlwallace — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 21:42:44 -0500

The benefits of eating dinner together as a family are well documented, but a recent study indicates that the benefits of family dinner time apply to couples without children, too.

[The researcher, David] Schramm said that while more couples are dining out, simply eating together may not be enough. The tasks surrounding mealtime—food preparation and clean up—also can be beneficial to a relationship.

Business or Pleasure?

jlwallace — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:33:45 -0500

A recent New York Times article, Business or Pleasure? More are Choosing Both, caught my eye today. Adding leisure time to business travel is something that my husband and I have done on many occasions. With one airfare and several days of hotel paid for, adding on an additional ticket and a few extra days at the hotel can be a cost-effective way to explore a new city.

Mr. Cohn of Orbitz for Business said that given rising travel costs, it made sense to tack some family leisure travel onto a business trip in which “part of the cost can be absorbed through the work trip.”

A Savvy Sacrifice?

jlwallace — Thu, 4 Sep 2008 17:17:56 -0500

The Feminist Legal Theory Blog, organized by Professor Lisa Pruitt at UC Davis School of Law, directed me to this article in the ABA Journal's online edition. The article, based in part on a recent Time magazine feature, characterizes Michelle Obama's career choices as "savvy sacrifices":

Working as an associate at a powerhouse international law firm based in Chicago, Michelle Obama had what many would have considered a dream job for a lawyer.

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin Named as McCain's Running Mate

Ms. JD — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 19:44:24 -0500

[Ed. Note: Ms. JD will be featuring the biographies of some of the professional women who have figured prominently in this year's presidential election. Some are Democrats, some are Republicans; some are lawyers, some are not; all have dealt with work-life balance issues throughout their careers. Note that this series is not exhaustive - we encourage Ms. JD bloggers to post about other women who they feel belong in this series.]

This past week, presumptive presidential nominee John McCain named Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice-presidential running mate for the 2008 election. While not an attorney, Governor Palin provides a good example of how women can seek work-life balance in their lives.

Family Dinner: The Working Mother's Cross to Bear?

jessie — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:53:07 -0500

Slate.com's Emily Bazelon has an article detailing the results of a new study of IBM employees that observed a perception of lesser professional achievement among those working mothers who failed to regularly eat dinner with their families. The benefits of regular family meals for children are well-documented, but this is noteworthy as a study of the impact on parents.

The WSJ's Sue Shellenbarger notes that since married women spend more than three times more hours each week cooking meals and cleaning up afterward, compared with married men, regular family meals more likely are a source of more stress than comfort.

I've written about my feelings on family dinners before. Basically they are the focal point of my fondest childhood memories, but I have yet to work a full day and cook a full meal myself.

This latest study, published without recognition of domestic labor disparities, seems a little cruel to me. It's like, "Hey you, working mom. Feeling stressed about being able to balance your professional and personal commitments? Well the good news is thanks to social biases and psychological constructs, you can trick yourself into thinking things are better by taking on MORE work!"

Women CANNOT do it all

AdversePossession — Mon, 7 Jul 2008 10:19:13 -0500

Neither can men, for that matter, but no one expects them to.

7 Truths that Every Working Woman Should Know Before Having a Child -- Part VII

Peg — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:42:38 -0500

Finally, the 7th and final installation of the series that I started many months ago and haven't been able to bring myself to finish. Way back in November, I promised to tell you the truth about the seven things that I wished I would have known about being a mom -- information that I thought would be helpful to professional women that are not yet moms but are contemplating starting a family.

I hope that my series was information and helpful, even if it was personal and only one girl's opinion and advice. (I've put links to the other six posts below.)

The thing that I promised to write about last was: "You'll be the Same Person But Now You'll Just Have a Kid". I've been putting this off because, well, the myth is self-explanatory. However, with a lot of thought I think I have nailed the reason why this is a myth -- besides the obvious reaons like how could you possibly be the same person if you are only getting sleep in 1.5 hour increments or painting you two-year old daughter's toe nails with peel-off polish instead of getting a pedicure of your own in your free 30 minutes on a Saturday afternoon! The truth to counter this myth is that the center of your life changes when you have a child...

Are Women Judges The Meanest?

sintecho — Fri, 23 May 2008 21:41:48 -0500

The Las Vegas Review Journal's "Judging the Judges" survey asked lawyers who practiced before Clark County District Court judges to rate the judges' courtesy. Of the attorneys surveyed, two-thirds were male. The results ranked female judges as significantly less courteous than their male counterparts with even the highest-ranked female judge still scoring lower in courtesy than "all but two of the male judges." According to "experts who study judges and the courts, attorneys and litigants favor a judge similar to them, whether in age, ethnic makeup or gender," which could explain why the primarily male survey base would be biased to find male judges more courteous than female ones. Legal Blog Watch posits that the dispairty "may just be that when a male judge acts sternly or impatiently, he's merely regarded as firm or strict, whereas a woman who conducts herself the same way is labeled as strident or obnoxious."

When I read these results, I couldn't help but wonder if women judges just have to work harder to get the respect that should come with their position automatically (but doesn't, unfortunately), and if the lawyers who may have needed "encouragment" by said female judges to give the judges the respect they deserve might be bitter in filling out the survey. I've had the experience of older male attorneys not taking me seriously on the job, and I've sometimes felt forced into taking a hard stance to stop what seems to me as a conversation where I'm being belittled or even verbally abused. I've had (more than once) a male attorney then accuse me of being the rude one, and each time, I've been very taken aback since, in my view, I was only responding to the caller yelling at me first (and in each case, I never raised my voice--it's funny how women just speaking firmly in a normal tone can be viewed as MORE rude than a man actually using a raised voice).

I've also been in courtrooms where male attorneys push around relatively new female judges (i.e. talking over them, arguing back with contemptuous "with all due respect, Your Honor" lines thrown in to offset their rudeness, and basically just refusing to accept the female judges' rulings as final). I can't claim to have watched an entire genesis of a new female judge turning hard to demand the respect she's not given automatically, but it doesn't take much of a stretch to imagine it happening. I also think women walk a very fine line in being taken seriously without being "bitchy" and that only certain personality types (the lucky snarky and funny ones among us) can do it successfully without resulting to firm behavior that will inevitably be interpreted as rude. In some ways, this "courtesy" measure by which these judges were judged could easily turn into a proxy for "bitchiness," and there are lots of reasons a man might view a woman in a position of power (like a judge) as "discourteous" regardless of how objectively courteous that judge is. Honestly, if I were the LV Review Journal, I would be wondering how to eliminate the bias from my survey since I think it's completely ridiculous to think that results so skewed are in any way a real measure of whether men or women judges are more courteous.