July 21, 2006
The Work/Life Balance Issue Continues to Damage the Legal Profession
Denise Howell’s firing by Reed Smith was a shot heard around the legal blog world. See Dennis Kennedy’s post or read Howell’s post breaking the firing news. As Dennis points out, none of us knows why Reed Smith made what appears to be such a dumb decision. The reaction to the firing illustrates that much of the balanced life controversy in law firms is really “code” for the new mother issue as illustrated by Carolyn Elefant’s comments: “If you're a talented woman planning on having kids, why in the world would you EVER choose to work there?”
We need to discuss the new mother issues as the “new mother issues” and not under the politically correct cover of “the balanced life issue.” By cloaking the discussion under the wider net of the work/life balance moniker, we are being asked to condemn law firm work practices in total. If we would deal with child raising issues in an up-front way, more progress toward a woman-friendlier profession would occur. For the future of the profession, progress dealing with those issues must be made!
According to a study done by the American Bar Association in 2001, some 44 women held general counsel or chief counsel positions at Fortune 500 companies, 71 percent of women lawyers are in private practice, a majority of students entering law schools are female, about 18 percent of U.S. federal district and appellate judges are women, and two women have sat on the Supreme Court of the United States.
Women now equal or outnumber male law students. The profession can ill afford to make the pursuit of a private practice career unusually difficult for half of the lawyer population.
What is the answer? I do not have it, but history may hold a clue. Lawyers have gone to war and returned to become prominent members of their pre-war law firms. What law firms did and are doing for returning soldiers, they can and should do for returning mothers. Likewise, law firms provide flexibility to guard members to discharge their obligations; they can and should do the same for new mothers. The absences and special flexibility required for both extend over only a limited number of years. Those few years are insignificant in terms of one’s potential lifetime career contributions to a law firm. Another vexing issue to be resolved is health insurance. I will leave that to the experts.
But there is another side to this. Fair or unfair, there is a price to be paid by anyone returning after an extended absence or period of required special consideration and flexibility. While they may have the individual talent and will to catch up, they can’t initially return at the same place in line as their prior peers. That applies regardless of gender.
As it is at present, the “in” thing to do in media and among consultants, conference faculty, etc., is to portray the life of the attorney as an abandonment of family, friends, fun, and civic and religious obligations. At the same time, we note and report the importance that all those facets of life have played for the successful professional in relationship building and rainmaking.
The success of any “service” business or profession is measured by its service to others. Client interest comes before self-interest. That is why we call it a “service”. The legal profession recognizes the service aspect in spades, charging you with the professional obligation to honor, at your own expense if necessary, the paramount interest of the client.
Successful service professionals, business executives, doctors, and investment bankers all find a way to have family, friends, and fun while also participating in civic and religious affairs. Lawyering is no different from any of the above—lawyers do not carry a greater burden. Let’s stop pretending that they do.
Let’s turn this conversation around. On the one hand, let’s deal with the child raising years of lawyer-mothers; and on the other hand, let’s start celebrating the benefits of lawyering, including the satisfaction of service to others—of upholding “truth, justice and the American Way!”
PS: My above comments by no means excuse law firms of bad management, dumb decisions, poor internal communication, or a failure to value and develop its human capital. There are bad businesses as well as great businesses in every category. The business of law is no different.
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Filed under HR by Tom Collins