Work-life follow up

Hi team,
After some reflection, I'd like to put Monday's Maybe Baby panel (see post and comments here) in a bit of a context. Sarah and Carson both work full time -- more than full time -- but that isn't the only option that parents have. In fact, for the last several years PALS has put on a "work-life balance" panel each spring, in which we ask three or four attorney-parents (both men and women) to describe how they manage to balance their work and life. Their solutions to work/life balance often are to work part time, or to job share. We often get complaints after those panels, too, because people want to know how to work full time and still have a happy personal life. (We'll have that panel again this spring, and try to have a variety of viewpoints.)

The best solution would be institutional change. That IS happening, slowly -- we just can't always get those people as speakers here. For example, see the link at left to the Project for Attorney Retention, a group that's working on ways to make work-life balance more possible. As another example, next month KC-WWL is hosting a CLE on work-life balance and stress management -- I'm trying to get those speakers to come here to the UW, by the way.

In more specific examples, I think if you inquire at just about any firm in town you'll find people who work less than full time, and still make a family wage. I know several government attorneys who went to a part-time schedule after a few years. I was able to negotiate lower billable hours in the job I'll start next fall -- in part because, unbeknownst to me, the partners at my firm had recently discussed that they want to be more family friendly.

The institutional change isn't here, but it's coming. Sarah and Carson probably still are the norm. And the norm (if you follow the link at the left to the New York Times article on work-life balance) is that lawyers often burn out or get disgusted after a few years and find ways to make life more manageable. Clearly that's a model that's doomed to failure. I think as new grads, we ought to -- carefully -- try to be part of the change.

p.s. Another sign of change? Both Career Services and Academic Support came to the panel to get ideas for how better to support student-parents. Yay them.