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Many women entering the legal profession from Generations X and Y are pioneers in their families: the first to go to college, the first to go to graduate school, the first to do both of these and raise a family.

My mother once told me about a commercial from the 80's that featured a beautiful woman who enters her house carrying a briefcase and wearing a tailored suit.  She proceeds to put down her briefcase, let down her hair, step into the kitchen and prepare an amazing gourmet meal for her family. The tagline was, "I can bring home the bacon and cook it, too."

There are countless real-life women heroes to choose from. For example, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, raised three sons. Justice Pamela Minzner, the first woman chief justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court, raised two sons. Michelle Obama, the First Lady, Princeton Graduate, and Harvard Lawyer, has two daughters.  Most of my female law professors also had children - one even had three-year-old twin daughters.  Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg raised two children. She cared for a newborn daughter and her husband, during his bout with cancer, all while attending Harvard Law School. 

From the outside, these women look like the woman from the 80's commercial: they have it all figured out, they have successful careers, they take loving care of their children, they take admirable care of their husbands. But they are real women with real problems, and they are pioneers who have made a trail for you to follow.

Chances are, if you look around at your law school, your law firm, or your community, you will find accomplished, successful, powerful, and loving lawyer-mothers. And most of them will be delighted to share their wisdom with you.  For example, Ruth Kovnat, a Professor Emeritus at UNM School of Law and the mother of four sons, once told me that she and Justice Minzner used to joke about the disheveled condition of their linen closets.  They were successful career women who were deliberately overlooking things that were not important enough to make it on the list.  Despite appearances, they weren't magical beings - they were real, live women who had their priorities in order.

The common characteristic of all these pioneering women and mothers is that they never gave up.  Despite encountering a range of difficulties, illnesses, set-backs, and discrimination, they relentlessly kept pursuing their goals.