Working Women And Pregnancy

Anyone reading this blog ever throw up at work due to nausea from pregnancy?  Anyone have the experience of telling their boss the “great news” and asking the senior partner for maternity leave?  Anyone have tips on how to juggle preparing for an arbitration, drafting a statement of defence, and holding a plastic throw-up bag in your hand, all at the same time?

Pregnant lawyers and working mommies everywhere, please comment with tips and stories!!!

Funding for maternity leave for small firms?

Some ideas are just brilliant.  Even me, critic of the year, can’t say bad things about this idea:

http://www.lawyersweekly.ca/index.php?section=article&articleid=682&rssid=4

Lawyers going on mat leave is a popular topic around the water cooler in law firms big and small. Let’s bring the issue out into the forefront and make things easier for the mommies!

How many hours constitutes “full time” now?

The Blawgshere is abuzz with comments on this American Lawyer article “On Life Support.”

Here is the passage that caught my eye:

“In the 1970s, my dad, who was a partner at a respected California firm, made sure that our family spent most of each August river rafting, and that we took some fishing trips during the rest of the year. In 1963, the ABA considered 1,300 billable hours full-time.”

What?!?  1,300 hrs?!? 

As I tell myself all the time, if I really hated my hours, I can always quit.  There are no physical handcuffs keeping me at my job.  I hope that anyone who is unsatified with their legal job recognizes that truth.

Women lawyers and their “dating quotient”

I’m reading a piece about a food editor/columnist who is being analyzed by “The Truth About Dating” columnist and author Steve Penner to determine her “dating quotient.”  They talk about her age, her relationship history, blah blah blah, and then Penner gets to career:

Profession-wise women lawyers are the worst. Writing professions are good, creative professions are good if you want an intelligent man…

Whoa!!!  What is that supposed to mean, “the worst”?  I love my women friends who are lawyers.  I hope that the single men out there give them a chance and don’t become intimidated by my girls.  They make good money and provide for their families and friends. They are thoughtful and considerate.  Give them a chance!

Young women finding work-life balance early in their careers

Law.com has an article this week about female lawyers making decisions to have the work-life balance they want earlier in their careers rather than forcing themselves to compete with the workaholics at large firms. 

I must say, working at 10 pm at night is way more enjoyable than being at work at 11 am.  At home, I’m in comfy clothes and I don’t have to shuffle through everyone else’s print jobs every time I print.  Working from home is great if you have the discipline! 

Lawyers and Maternity Leave

Very interesting article about maternity leave at the Financial Post website today. 

I completely understand the difficulty in deciding when to have children.  Most of the lawyers in my age group are waiting rather than having kids early in their careers.  For me personally though, I’m at a good law firm that “walks the talk.” Even so, I very highly doubt that I would ever take the full year off.  Who can afford to? 

I like the idea of having dad take time off.  I hope my husband will.  But before we get to that topic, I need to get to the point where he’s ok with us trying to have kids first!

How far have we come since Carrie Morrison, the first female solicitor, was admitted?

I was struck again by the progress that women lawyers have made in the short time that we have been permitted to practice after reading this article describing recent celebrations of the 85th anniversary of the admission of Carrie Morrison, the first female solicitor (in England/Wales).  Despite the progress, there are, of course, still worrying themes like the retention ratios.  Perhaps by the 100th anniversary all things will be equal… women will want to stay in the practice and more men will find that being a stay at home dad is their true calling…

Programs helping lawyers return to work

New York Times has a helpful article about a few programs that help women and men who take time off from the law to return to the workplace. The article mentions a few programs, such as the one at Pace University Law School in White Plains:

The program, which cost $4,500, is a week of classes from 9 to 5; part-time classes for 10 weeks; and a 150-hour unpaid internship. There were 12 women and one man.

The ABA and Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco also run courses for returning lawyers. I think this sounds great. I would also hope that law firms will develop open door policies that allow former employees to return after a hiatus. That too will help both the men and women with small children as well as the hiring/retention costs of the law firm. Win-win situations, right?

Do you have difficulty managing work/life balance?

Another day, another study:

A survey conducted on the issue by Catalyst, a legal services consulting firm based in Toronto, found that roughly 50 per cent of lawyers reported work/life conflict and more than 60 per cent said they had difficulty managing the demands of work and family life. “This is more than double the rate at which the average Canadian worker reports the demands faced at work make it difficult to satisfy non-work responsibilities,” the report stated.

More than double the rate? Our profession attracts type-A personalities. Perhaps that’s part of the explanation for why we have trouble juggling: we want it all. The article goes on with more stats about women leaving the profession, but let’s not get into it today. I don’t want to feel depressed!

Sandra Day O’Connor: Once Unwanted

For those unemployed law school graduates out there, fear not, even esteemed lawyers have trouble finding a job sometimes.  Some lucky Montrealers were treated to a lunch hour session with 3 Canadian and 3 American Supreme Court justices speaking according to this Montreal Gazette article.

“Beverley McLachlin, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, and her colleague Marie Deschamps nodded as Sandra Day O’Connor, who in 1981 became the first woman appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, recalled her frustrating attempts to break into the field after graduating from Stanford University law school in the early 1950s.

Although she had completed her studies in two years instead of the usual three, finishing third in a class of 102, no one wanted to hire her.

“I couldn’t get a job, I couldn’t get an interview. It was very difficult,” she recalled.”

Bet those employers regretted their decisions as she rose through the ranks!