My Shingle : MyShingle : Solo and Small Law Firm Management and Marketing

Like every parent on the planet, I've told my daughters more times than I can remember some variation of the following:

Yes, you can eat chocolate for dinner or stay up until three am or leave orange peels on the floor or [fill in the blank] when you have your own place and pay your own bills.  But so long as you're living in this house under my roof, I make the rules.

It's surprising, then how quickly we parents who practice forget our own advice.  We take a job at a law firm, and suddenly find ourselves resentful that the boss wants us to work 60 hours a week or finish a project for a client over the weekend.  And so, like my daughters (and most kids, I imagine) we grouse or complain or beg for exceptions instead of growing up and creating a job where we can be the boss and make our own rules.

I was reminded of the benefits of being in charge after reading in the New York Times (2/12/10) about how President Obama gives priority to certain inviolable family events, like his daughters' band recitals, sports games, parent-teacher conferences and family meals.  From the article:

[Obama] knocks off work at 6 p.m. each evening to have dinner with his family, and has given his schedulers strict instructions that, if he must have night-time activities, they are to take place after 8 p.m. That includes matters of war; in November, as the commander in chief wrestled with sending more troops to Afghanistan, he called an 8 p.m. meeting of his national security team, in deference to his role as father in chief.

If the President of the United States can set aside national issues to make time for his kids, there's no reason why you can't set your own priorities as well.  That is, if you're willing to grow up and be the boss.

If you're not in a position to leave your day job just yet, learn more about the part time practice option at my upcoming teleseminar this Thursday February 18, 2010 with Julie Tower-Pierce.  Register here.  I'm also speaking on the nuts and bolts of starting a practice at American University, Washington College of Law, on Tuesday February 16, 2010 at noon.

  

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Julie Tower-Pierce and I are happy to announce that we've finally completed our 50 page ebook, The Part Time Shingle:  Why Starting a Part Time Practice Can Be Done and How to Make It Work.  Here's some of the topics that the e-book covers:

-Is starting a part time shingle really feasible? [p. 2-3]

-Will people take me seriously if I'm only working part time? [p. 5-6]

-I'm working in a coffee shop to make ends meet as I get my practice off the ground. How do I handle this situation? [p. 6-7]

-I'm a contract lawyer buried in document review 10 hours a day.  Is starting a part time practice workable for someone in my position? [p. 8]

-What practice areas work best for part time? [p. 9-11]

-Can I buy part time malpractice insurance? [p.13]

-Can I moonlight at my day job at a law firm while I work at my practice at night? [p.14-15]

-What are some time management ideas for running a practice while I raise kids or work at another job?  [p.16-18]

-What are some low cost, time efficient ways to market my part time practice? [p. 19-22]

-What kinds of tech works best for part time?  I'll only have a part-time salary, so I don't want to make a full time tech investment. [p. 23-25]

-I'm returning to the work force by starting a firm and my tech skills are out of date?  Can I still make this work? [p.25]

-How much can I earn working part time? [p.26-27]

-Can I hire help even as a part timer working from home? [p. 29-31]

-At what point should I quit my day job and fly solo full time? [p.32]

In addition to these topics, you'll find a Part Time Shingle Check List, Sample Schedule and 15 minute a day social media strategy.

In addition to the ebook, you can also purchase the 75 minute recorded teleseminar.  The products are available at Pink Slips & Detours or by ordering directly below:

 

EBook Only ($22.95)
  View Cart:

Recording Only ($22.95) Recording Codes: Add to Cart:  

 

Bundled (both ebook & recording)($35.95)
Add to Cart:     View Cart:  

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As I've written here previously, I'm an ardent admirer of Michelle Obama, particularly her ability to make the seamless life seem so easy.   This upcoming book on the Obamas by Chris Anderson, which is intended to portray Mrs. Obama as an insolent, money-hungry shrew of a wife, makes me like her even more.

Anderson's book describes that in the early years of her marriage, Mrs. Obama -- who herself was working full time -- had the audacity to demand that her husband, a rising political star in the Illinois state senate, assume his fair share of responsibility for house cleaning and child-rearing.   Not only that, but Mrs. Obama stands accused of being overly materialistic:  she derided her husband for staying in the state senate instead of taking a job at a major law firm where he could earn "real money" at a time when the couple had just had their first child and they were "poor as church mice."

On the surface, it's not unreasonable to criticize Mrs. Obama.  After all, didn't she act selfishly by trying to hold her husband back from a promising career just to accommodate her more ordinary one?  As the partner in her marriage with less potential, shouldn't Mrs. Obama have kept her mouth shut, stepped aside and subordinated her career to that of her husband?

Continue Reading...

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In dating, it's known as "the big reveal" - the point in an emerging relationship where both participants put everything out on the table, from old flames to skeletons in the closet to religious preferences and desire for marriage and children.  Deciding when to make the big reveal is tricky.  Disclose too soon and you run the risk of committing a TMI (too much information) or reeking of desperation.  Withhold too long and you may be accused of dishonesty.

We parents who practice grapple with our own version of the big reveal: when (if ever) to tell clients about our children or to use a child related-excuse for non-availability.  Nearly thirteen years ago, as a baby-lawyer and new mom, I rarely mentioned my new baby at all in a professional context.  If I knew that my daughter was likely to be awake during  a proposed phone call time, I'd simply suggest an alternative without giving a reason for my lack of availability.   As I grew more experienced and gained confidence, I experimented with sharing my personal side, for example, sending a holiday card with a family photo to those clients and colleagues with whom I had a close connection.  Even so, one colleague chided me for sending it, saying it was unprofessional. 

Over at the White House website, I see that Michelle Obama's formal bio describes her as a mom first.  I wonder whether Mrs. Obama ever used that same description as a biglaw attorney or corporate counsel.  Does she have the luxury of making the big reveal because she's now First Lady - or have times changed such that mentioning family in a professional context is more accepted.

With my daughters almost 10 and 13, in some ways the big reveal isn't as important.  My girls are self sufficient.  I no longer need to rush home by 4 pm to greet the bus or find a babysitter for my girls if I have a meeting or stay home if I can't. - which cuts down on the need to make child-care related excuses.  But I'm also sufficiently established, and no longer fear that I won't be taken seriously if I mention my kids.

Now, it's your turn.  Use the comments below to reveal when - or if- you make the big reveal, as well as your reaction to those lawyers who do.

 

 

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My dad was what you'd call a company man; he worked as a chemist for a major pharmaceutical company for 35 years until he retired in 1997, avid to spend time with his first grandchild and the six others who would later follow.   My dad's job didn't offer much flexibility in terms of dress code or hours, except in the summer when employees could take advantage of casual dress and flex time.  So when summer rolled around, my dad rose an hour early to get to the office by six in order to leave every Friday at noon.  When we were young, my parents would often pack my three sisters and me into the car and we'd drive two hours to the beach, just in time to hit the ocean and eat a picnic dinner on the cooling sand while the sun set.  Some Fridays, my dad spent in his vegetable garden, which by mid-summer overflowed with cucumbers and corn and tomatoes that my sisters and I would sell from a blue wheelbarrow on the curb in front of the house.  As we grew older, my mom started a business - a daycare center - and my dad spent his Friday afternoons there, watching the little kids on the playground (or rather, letting them crawl all over him since so few had dads at home) or sweeping the floors or washing the toys to help my mom. 

My dad isn't particularly cutting edge (in fact, he and my mom still have a hard time wrapping their head around the fact that people, including their own daughter can work productively from home) and he would never have insisted that his employer provide flex time benefits.  But neither did he turn them down when offered, notwithstanding that he could have hewed to his regular schedule and slept an hour late or spent those Friday afternoons leisurely finishing up a week's work instead of cramming it into a tighter schedule.

When we speak of work-life balance, or the seamless life as I've taken to calling it, it's dads who get short-shrift.  Yet in many ways, they have it harder.  For not only must men advocate for more flexibility which calls into question commitment to work (a dilemma that women also encounter), but in doing so, they must also buck the traditional social image of the man as the driven, work-centric provider.   Yet until more men start shouldering their portion of the work-life balance conundrum, it will remain, by default a women's issue, thus diminishing the chance for real change.

Many of the men I know who've gone solo have done so to spend time with family, to make sure that they don't miss the ballgames and school plays; to imprint those memories of beach trips and vegetable gardens.  Others have left successful careers at other legal positions for the flexibility of solo practice so that their wives have more flexibility to pursue their careers careers.  Yet in all these cases, like my dad, these men have taken a different path purposely, but also silently and without fanfare - but believe me, those efforts haven't been overlooked.  Happy Fathers' Day to all of you!

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Yesterday, while driving home from the mall with my daughters, they began fantasizing about the day that my older daughter would get her license (still four years off) so that they could go shopping together, sans mom.   My daughters then asked if I'd let them take the car to the mall or other destinations when they get their licenses.  I responded that it would depend on various factors, but that at a minimum, they'd have to spend a decent amount of time practice driving under supervision of their dad or me, they'd have to stay off interstates and not drive during rush hour and avoid distractions, like a carload of chatty friends or talking on the cell phone.  To which my daughters retorted in unison - but mommy, you talk on the cell phone in the car.  You're a hypocrite!

My daughters are right, at least insofar as the cell phone goes.  Though I try to avoid talking when they're in the back seat, sometimes, because of my crazy schedule and compressed days, it can't be helped.  Most frequently, fear of outbursts from the girls limits my cell phone calls to either status calls with close colleagues or my publisher who don't judge me negatively for background noise, or to conference calls where I can participate with the mute button on most of the time. 

My daughters' questions got me to thinking whether working and living a  seamless life inherently breeds hypocrisy.  I recall of all of the times that I've left dishes on the table or in the sink so that I could race back to the computer to finish up a brief, or after a hellish day, tossed my suit jackets and dress shoes on the couch or the floor where they linger for days because I can't find the energy to pick them up.  Does work - especially when it's work that gives me more time to spend with my daughters - justify cutting corners?  And how do I explain away my deficiencies that to my daughters when I want them to pick up after themselves?  After all, their school day is equally tiring.

For cell phones and driving at least, my answer comes more easily.  I explain that I always use a headset, I limit cell phone use to familiar roads and that my quarter of century of driving experience (with only 2 tickets) gives me more latitude with regard to a cell phone than a newbie 16 year old deserves.  For other questions, I'm not so sure except to try harder to set an example and hope for the best.

What's your answer?

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Many of you may know what it's like to stand up when the jury verdict's about to be read.  Your heart pounds, your palms sweat and you get weak in the knees.   The seconds seem like an eternity as you wait to learn the result.

Before I became a mom, I could think of nothing more stressful than awaiting a jury verdict, followed by the same heart-pounding nervousness of opening an appellate decision.  But nerve-wracking as those situations are, nothing compares to the stress of watching the clock in a courtroom, trying to figure out whether you can race back home to meet your kids at the bus or pick them up from daycare.  Or sitting on a morning train out of town, wondering if your two daughters caught the bus to school.  Or getting ready to say something on the conference call, silently praying that there won't be screams of children tormenting each other or cursing loudly in the background.

Anyway, it's been one of those kinds of weeks for me and I'm looking forward to a somewhat relaxing long weekend.  I've got one more assignment to polish off and then I'm off to celebrate my niece's graduation.  Enjoy the weekend and I'll see you all back here on the other side.  

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October 21, 1996 marks the day that I qualified to celebrate Mothers' Day with the birth of my first daughter, Elana.  Exactly a week to the day of my daughter's birth, I donned the one non-maternity work skirt that still fit me (albeit with the top button open), slipped a boxy red blazer over my swollen, leaky chest and left Elana in the care of her adoring grandparents so that I could head downtown to give a seminar on A Practitioner's Guide to Energy Resources on the World Wide Web.  I'd committed to the date months in advance, back when I believed that babies arrived promptly on their designated due dates instead of two full weeks late - and I'd never mentioned my pregnancy or my daughter's birth to the organizers.  I just wasn't sure of what to say and feared that they wouldn't take me seriously or might cancel the event if I let on that I'd just had a baby.  So I showed up on schedule, clad in my lawyer's uniform which concealed my identity as a new mom.

Today, my behavior seems silly, but for that era, compartmentalization of work life and home life; the professional and personal was common place for lawyer-moms.   Work meant business suits and talking shop, home meant babies and juggling play dates and park outings and other kinds of child-related activities.  Rarely, if ever did the twain meet. 

After a few weeks following my daughter's birth, I realized two things.  First, I simply wasn't going to be able to leave Elana in anyone's care full time.  Second, I wasn't ready to shutter my three year old law practice at a time when I was gaining momentum.   After a month at home, I realized a third - and seemingly obvious thing:  I could do both: stay home and practice law at the same time.  Sure, I'd have to wake up at 5 am to squeeze in an hour of work before my daughter roused, and learn how to one-hand type and to nurse while engaged in a conference call.  I'd have to tweek the nature of my practice to focus more heavily on appeals and regulatory work instead of the unpredictable criminal and litigation matters that demanded face time.   And I'd have to tolerate a messy house and late nights and working weekends while my husband watched our daughter and eventually her sister, but yes, it could be done.  And so I moved from a life of limits, compartmentalized between my lawyer's suit and my comfy mom sweats to a life without seams.

Twelve years later, the world has changed and for the better.  Where I spent many years wandering alone between the world of the stay-at-home-moms and the full-time moms, today, many more lawyer-moms straddle this now populated intersection.  How we've arrived here, I don't know - certainly, technology has facilitated the seamless life for lawyer-moms, but so too have changing attitudes among women and men about what matters and what's possible. 

Still, I didn't fully appreciate how much  realize that the world had changed until I ran across this photo of Michelle Obama a few months ago that distills the essence of many of today's lawyer-moms.  On the one hand, the picture depicts motherhood, with Mrs. Obama comforting her tired young daughter and - likely, silently praying that she doesn't have some kind of a melt down.  And while of course, Mrs. Obama looks great, she's also just a little bit dishevilled with her dress hiked up a little bit more than it probably should be.  But there's another side to Mrs. Obama in this picture as well.  She's sitting ramrod straight, and there's a look of intent concentration on her face - you know that if her husband missed a beat in his speech, that Mrs. Obama could leap up to the podium and recite it for him.  Just as the picture depicts Mrs. Obama as a mom, it shows her equally as the consummate professional.

How many times have you used your lawyer voice on the phone while making funny faces to keep your three year old quiet?  Or pecked out a winning brief on the keyboard, while feeding the baby with your other hand?  In those moments, we are, emphatically, lawyers, but we're just as emphatically moms.  We can't peel those pieces apart anymore than we can cut our hearts in two.  And what's best about today's world, is that perhaps, we no longer have to make that choice.

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What I learned from the blog postings on my book, Solo by Choice is that most reviewers apparently don't bother to actually read the entire book.  Now, this might have given me a bit of a complex except now I realize that I'm in good company.  Seems that many readers overlooked one of Richard Susskind's blockbuster predictions about the future of women lawyers that comes at the tail end (p. 283) of  The End of Lawyers.

Given Susskind's emphasis on the dominant role that technology will play in the practice of law,  you might assume that Susskind expects women lawyers to lose ground.  After all, many of us stereotypically associate technological aptitude and love-of-all-gizmos-and-gadgets with men rather than women.  But Susskind recognizes that the quality that we women bring to the table lies in our ability to empathize.  This in turn, enables us to recognize the value of technology not as an end in itself, but as a tool to serve clients more efficiently, effectively and creatively.   Here's what Susskind has to say about the types of people who will be our best lawyers in the future:

the legal world today is dominated by "left brain" thinkers who will not find it easy to empathize.  And of course, there is an interesting correlation between the "male brain" and the "female brain" [in that] the typical male brain systematizes while the female brain empathizes....if the twin forces of commoditization and IT do indeed combine to create a legal environment in which much legal work is standardized and computerized, then we can well imagine that those individuals who are in the future responsible for innovating, designing, marketing and selling a multi-sourced legal service will not be traditional left brain males but far more creative, innovative, artistic an often female lawyers.

Of course, solo female lawyers have always known this secret.  Many of us embrace technology to run contract law practices or virtual law offices or to help lawyers navigate the ins and outs of Web 2.0.  To be sure, these technology-driven practices afford flexibility to spend time with family.  But more importantly, these practices are a product of the "empathetic female brain" that Susskind references because they respond to previously unmet needs, whether it's a demand by clients for affordable legal services or a stressed out lawyer's need for assistance with overflow legal work.   

Sadly, though, (but most typical), women at biglaw continue to look back instead of ahead.  While the well-respected Susskind has essentially handed women lawyers the keys to the castle, they're too busy trying to resurrect the stale, top-down work life balance policies that never worked in the past to listen.

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I'm not much of a political junkie, but I made a point of watching Michelle Obama's speech to the Democrat National Convention.   Michelle (it's tough for me to refer to someone a few months older than me as "Mrs.")  intrigues me, largely because she's a contemporary with many superficialities in common:   we both graduated law school in 1988 (in fact, a high school friend of mine was in some of Obama's classes at Harvard); we both married in 1992 and we both have two daughters with lyrical names (Elana and Mira vs. Malia and Sasha) three years apart, though my girls are nearly 9 and 12 while the Obamas are 7 and 10.   And more recently, Michelle Obama put her career on hold for family, specifically, to help with her husband's campaign while trying to retain a presence in her daughters' lives.  That's the same reason that  I and most of my solo-mom (or solo dad) colleagues have eschewed more lucrative or prestigious opportunities in favor of running our own practices -- so that we have the flexibility to spend more time with our children. 

After Michelle's speech, her daughters trotted out on stage.  Perhaps I read too much into their appearance, but the daughters' confidence was palpable as was their easy familiarity their mom and hers with them.  It was a familiarity that reminded me of my relationship with my own girls (when we're not bickering, which of course, we do) - we share a certain comfortableness born of time spent together,  not really doing anything special but just hanging around.    I couldn't help thinking that even if Michelle Obama had worked at one of the fifty supposedly most family friendly law firms that she would have missed out on this type of experience.  Michelle would have spent her time with her girls in carefully metered segment, from 7 pm when she arrived home until 8:30 pm when they went to sleep.  And if Michelle Obama had brought her daughters to large firm meeting or conference (even on days when she was supposed to be working reduced hours), I'm sure she'd have been met with glowering stares or snide comments rather than the sheer delight that spilled forth from the convention audience. 

Working on my own, I set my own rules for my firm and my family.    No, of course, I don't bring my daughters to every meeting with me, but there have been days where I had no alternatives so they accompanied me to a conference or sat quietly reading while I gave a presentation or attended a meeting.  Over time, my girls have learned how to shake hands firmly, make eye contact and keep themselves busy and (reasonably) well behaved at professional events. 

I know that my experience doesn't differ much from that of other moms who run their own firms.  Yet oddly, you won't find solo practice ever mentioned on the list of "family friendly firms" or even discussed as a family friendly option.  And yet, it's the one place where parents can practice law without constantly concealing our job as parents as well.   

Michelle Obama isn't a solo and probably never will be, so career path is where our commonality ends.  But we've both had the chance to experience the joy of taking our children to work and introducing our work to our children because we didn't hew to the biglaw path but instead, found a way to have it all, all at once.

 

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Nearly two years ago, I posted here about a panel addressing the issue of gender equality in the legal profession.  Strikingly absent from the panel, however, were solo female lawyers.  A month later, I wondered why we should care whether women reach the top at large firms, given that many voluntarily chose a better option - to start their own firms. 

Now, two years later, women are finally starting to "get it" - and the legal media is picking up on the trend as well.  This story from Washington Legal Times reports on Erica Leatham, a former associate at Holland and Knight who along with some colleagues, started the law firm,  Stark Meyers to gain more flexibility.  Yes, she still works biglaw hours but she has the flexibility to work those hours when she wants, not when her employer so demands.

In an age where female and male lawyers have the ability to leverage technology to work when and where we choose, why are women still clamoring for equality at law firms?  Seems to me that in a new economy,  begging for scraps like worklife balance and fewer billable hours is just  so yesterday.

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I knew that many law schools and bar associations were developing programs to help women who've left the law re-enter the profession. But have to admit that until I read this New York Times story (hat tip to Lisa Solomon), I had no idea how much these programs cost - as much as $9000. For that price, you could almost go back to law school - or start yourself a pretty nice shingle!

Do these pricy programs really provide women lawyers with the tools they need for re-entry. According to the Timesarticle, the program offers lectures on the law, advice on explaining resume gaps and computer training. And lawyers are also set up with an unpaid internship which can help them make contacts even if it doesn't result in a paying job. At the same time, I felt that at some level, this kind of program exploits women lawyers' fears that they'll never find a job in the law once they've left the profession - and charges extortionist rates to assist them.

As I've posted here for some time, today, there are plenty of options for women who want to work part tiem and keep a foot in the door, or for those who leave the law to raise a family. And you don't have to pay $9000 for them either. My upcoming book , Solo By Choice will have some materials on a part time practice. And you can also check out my past posts here at MyShingle on work life balance and on women lawyers, including Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor who found amazing success through alternative career paths. Finally, you can also check out my article on how young women lawyers can take charge of their careers.

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Since women lawyers pull their own weight in the genre of solo and small firm blogs (along with me, there are my colleagues and friends, Susan Cartier Liebel and Inspired Solo's Sheryl Schelin, I was surprised to learn that Few Women Choose to Practice Solo (NLJ 9/13/07). A recent study released by NALP revealed that women comprise only 34 percent of solo practitioners, while 77 percent of lawyers working for public interest groups are women.

Why don't more women choose solo practice? After all, you'd think that women looking for work life balance would find solo practice appealing, because when you work for yourself, you gain control over the hours you work and the hours you handle. My own belief is that women themselves are driving lawyers away from solo practice. As I posted here previously, when women demand equality in the profession, they're usually referring to equality at big law firms. Women who start and head their own practices, no matter how prominent, simply don't count. As a result, younger women don't view solo practice as an option.

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Conventional wisdom used to be that if you're going to succeed as a solo, you need to jump in with both feet. But the one rule of solo practice is that there are no rules, only millions of exceptions. And here's one of those exceptions: Danielle Colyer, a teacher by day, busy real estate attorney by night, as described in this article,
Her Homework: Law Practice. According to the article, Colyer went to law school after she'd burned out of teaching. But after getting her law degree, she also received a "dream job" offer teaching law to high school students. Still, as a single mom, her teaching salary didn't go far enough, so she started a real estate closing business on the side. According to the article, these days, she juggles 100 closings with the aid of a part time assistant and earns as much from her part time practice as from her full time teaching job.

So if you're thinking about solo practice, but too nervous about cutting off your salary entirely, see if you can arrange a part time gig and use it as support to get your practice growing...before making the leap entirely or, keeping a slash career.

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At the Ms. JD conference that I attended last week, one woman responded to various remarks on the benefits of starting a firm (by some of us troublemakers in the picture) by saying something to the effect that "Starting a firm is all well and good, but if everyone flees biglaw life, firms will be left stranded as the last bastions of male dominated hierarchy." That comment has been bearing heavily in my mind since, making me wonder whether lawyers have an obligation to fix biglaw.

In fact, from what I gleaned from Ms. JD, part of its mission is to ensure that female lawyers are represented in the upper echelon, power branches of the legal profession, such as the judiciary and biglaw. In other words, at least part of Ms. JD's goals is to help women with fight, not flight. And as I posted here at Legal Blogwatch, another group, Students Building a Better Legal Profession just formed, with a mission of changing the modern law firm business model to make it more sustainable and profitable and also allow for a more balanced lifestyle. I support these students and wish them the best. I'm impressed that they're taking charge of their future and that they're optimistic enough to believe they can change it. That passion will serve them well whether they succeed or not. And in fact, back when I was a student, I would have done the same - and indeed, in some cases, I did. But now, I'd rather just practice law than fight or rescue a system that's comprised of lawyers who ought to be smart enough and savvy enough to save themselves if indeed the system is failing (and I'm not convinced we're at that point).

What's your view? Are these students on the right track in trying to change biglaw from within? Or if you don't like how biglaw works, should you choose another option?

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I can't add anything except a big "me too!" to Susan Cartier-Liebel's exhaustive summary of the recent Ms. JD conference held at Yale Law School yesterday.  The conference gave me a chance to finally meet Susan and reconnect with Lisa Solomon, Brandy Karl and, briefly, Cathy Kirkman whom I'd met previously.

[Update] Lisa Solomon has also posted some of her impressions from the conference here.

My thoughts on women in the legal profession are too complex to digest in a single post.  I agreed with one of the panelists who suggested that we can't expect much on the law firm front until family structures change and women no longer presumptively play the role of the primary caretaker for children.  I also disagree with the proposition voiced on a couple of panels that women can't "run from inequality" at large firms or the entire big law institution will be left as a bastion of outdated, old boys' clubs.  At a time when law firms are losing associates, both male and female, in droves  (associate retention numbers are absymal), why aren't unhappy male lawyers urged to stay on and turn law firms into cheerier, more supportive environments?

I don't have much more to say right now, but if you're a female attorney, visit the Ms. JD site where you can share your experiences, and read those of others in the profession. 

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My colleague and fellow solo blogger, Jill Pugh Employment Law Blog tipped me off to an interesting new resource, Ms-JD to address the growing number of women leaving the legal profession or failing to reach the upper echelons of the profession. The site seems promising, though thus far, there's little mention of the law firm start up as a way to empower women (a failing of other similar projects that I've critiqued previously here). Since Ms. JD is new, I'll give it some time....

Besides, I'm grateful to Ms. JD for introducing me to this outstanding essay by legal correspondent Dahlia Lithwick that speaks to the conflict that many struggling to balance work and life confront daily (myself included: whether we simply need to settle for doing less than our best, for getting the B+ rather than the A.

Continue Reading...

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We all know the song, Lawyers in Love, but did you ever wonder what happens to lawyers in love? With many of the dual lawyer couples whom I knew from the law school, once the couple had children, the woman either left the law or went on to an alternative career like teaching, while the man stayed in a high power job. That's certainly one work-life balance possibility, but as this article, Couples in Law Are A Case Study in Work Life Balance points out, a number of husband and wife lawyer couples have discovered that starting a firm provides a way to spend time together. The article notes that these kinds of partnerships aren't for everyone, but the lawyers profiled in the article do indeed seem happy together in life and law.

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Just when I thought that I'd probably found the right formula to work-life balance, I discovered that I'm really nothing more than a neglectful mom.  I spent much of yesterday pushing to prepare a motion already a few days overdue to the client because of more pressing deadlines earlier in the week.  Since my daughters have an afterschool activity on Friday, I could work a little bit past my usual 4:15 stopping point before picking them up.  Even so, I still couldn't finish, so I stopped work and went tearing through rush hour traffic up to the school, about twenty minutes behind schedule.  When I arrived, the school's security guard greeted me at the door and asked "Is there something wrong?  I see these poor girls left here all the time."  As I opened my mouth to respond, all kinds of thoughts raced through my mind.  I thought of my messy house, the nights that I worked on my computer with my daughters working along side me, the school events that I couldn't chaperone because I only have 6-7 real work hours to finish everything.  And my heart sank, because I felt that despite my best efforts to run a law firm and be home for my daughters after school, that I was failing, badly.

Before I could open my mouth however, my ten year old daughter responded for me.  "My mom's not always late," she said.  "She was supposed to be late on Tuesday because she had work but she came on time.  She was only really late once before, a few weeks ago."  The parent part of me wanted to reprimand my daughter for speaking rudely to an adult (which I did, albeit gently), but inside, I felt so proud that my daughter had stood up for me.  And at that point I realized that maybe this work-life balance thing was working after all.

So this post is for all of you who are struggling to keep it together, for wondering whether what you're doing even matters or whether you're giving both work and your kids short shrift, for feeling embarrassed about a messy house or ten minute dinners.  Keep it up, it makes a difference. 

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Quite often, when I compliment when of my daughters on something she's done well, the other will chime in "But mommy, aren't I good at that too?"  My response, of course, is that praising one of my girls doesn't diminish how I feel about the other. 

More frequently these days, I find myself in this situation with my blog.  Often, my advocacy of solo practice is often regarded as a put down of large firms, a perception that is corroborated by my criticism of many large firm practices (such as bloated billing rates, elistist views and fast and loose conflict of interest standards to keep clients post-merger).  But in truth, I don't hold a grudge against large firms; I believe that they're a great career choice if that's where you can find your passion.  Unfortunately, many don't, but some do.

A few months ago, I read Mark Herrmann's The Curmudgeon's Guide to Practicing Law.  Herrmann is a partner and litigator at a large firm.  The book offers a biglaw partner's perspective on issues relevant to success at large firms and the legal profession in general, such as what associates should do to avoid failure, how lawyers should serve clients and some tips on marketing.  (also, the chapter, The Curmudgeon Argues is the best 10 pages I've ever read on preparing for an oral argument).  But what stands out about the book, in addition to the blunt tone (which is part of the curmudgeonly persona), is Herrmann's passion for what he does.  Consider this passage when Herrmann writes about why he loves his work:

I'll quote a movie.  Joe Gideon, the tightrope walker in "All That Jazz" was asked why he risked his life every day for his career.  He answered "To be on the wire is life.  The rest is waiting."

That's the life of a litigator too.  When I'm engrossed in the law, I'm alive.  I'm engaged; I'm attentive, I'm focused.  I can tell you now, decades later and with almost pathological recall, lines of questions that worked and others that didn't at my earliest trials.  I can tell you the one time an appellate judge asked me a question I hadn't anticipated.  I can tell you when, after wrestling with an insoluble issue for months, I finally saw the light.  Maybe those great events don't happen often enough, but when they do happen, they're unspeakably good.  To be on the wire is life; the rest is waiting.

My desire for all of us, myself included, is that we feel the same as Herrmann about what we do.  If like, Herrmann, you've found passion in biglaw, then stand proud.  But if you're still searching for meaning, for a "life on the wire," starting a law firm may be one place to look.  It's not the only place, or the best place - but it may be the place for you.

Editor's Note:  The LPM Committee of the DC Bar is sponsoring a session, Putting Practice Back into the Passion of Law, February 22, 2007, 12-1:30.  Visit DC Bar website at www.dcbar.org for more details (see events to register).

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