Washington Women Lawyers' annual leadership symposium and CLE features a lunch speaker who is a nationally known expert in work-life issues. WWL says Professor Joan C. Williams of UC Hastings is "a prize-winning author and nationally recognized expert on work/family issues. Professor Williams founded and directs the Center for WorkLife Law and the Project for Attorney Retention. According to a recent New York Times article, she enjoys 'something approaching rock-star status' among lawyers and scholars who work on legal issues relating to employees with family responsibilities." (See links to blogs for both those projects at left on palsblog.)
Hastings is scheduled to talk about something called "balanced hours," which seems to involve putting more value on non-billable hours, though I can't exactly tell.
Hastings will speak at lunch on Sept. 28 at the Bell Harbor Conference Center, which is at Pier 66 in downtown Seattle. Admission to the lunch is $50 for non-members. There are other sessions during the day that sound interesting -- price for the full day is $75 for students.
For more information and registration forms, check http://www.wwl.org/index.php?/weblog/more/2007_leadership_symposium_and_annual_dinner/ and click on the forms. If you want to try to contact WWL to ask if you can volunteer to help (and get out of the $75 cost), links to WWL leaders are on that site.
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Just a quick note on what "balanced hours" are -- Joan Williams and I co-direct an initiative of WLL called the Project for Attorney Retention that studies work/life issues for lawyers. (more info at www.pardc.org) In one of our early studies, we found that few attorneys used part-time programs at law firms because they are so stigmatized. So we created the concept of balanced hours:
"Balanced hours" programs, unlike traditional part-time programs, allow attorneys to work individually-tailored, reduced schedules that are designed to meet the firm's business needs while maintaining the attorney's ability to work and to develop professionally without stigma. Balanced hours programs involve active management of workloads in proportion to reduced hours, emphasize client service, and promote the values of the firm.
Our website provides information about what it is really like to work part-time at various large law firms, including whether the firm offers balanced hours and whether associates find that reducing their hours hurts them professionally. You can find the information at www.pardc.org/TheScoop/.
--Cynthia Calvert
Thanks, Cynthia! I checked out the site and it's great.
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