Maybe Baby (cont.)

Thank you to everyone who came and participated in the Maybe Baby panel and made it such a success. A PALS alumna, Laura Arras, was able to poke her head in for a few minutes, but due to time constraints, we weren't able to hear from her. Laura has a very valuable perspective on the Maybe Baby issue and she very kindly gave me permission to post a portion of an email explaining her choices here:
(From Laura)
If I were paneling, I would say this [if there is a gap to fill, feel free to read it]:

Everyone's circumstances are different, obviously. The only judges of your "work-life balance" are yourself and the ones with whom you share the "life" part.

I had a baby at the end of my 1L, and juggled her through classes for my
2L year.

I wanted to work after school/ the Bar, but I don't want my daughter in day-care more than five-or-six hours a day until she starts kindergarten. That means I can work for 25 hours a week, unless I work in the evenings from home or for a few hours on the weekends-- which I frequently do. Call it 30 hours a week. This is not partner-track, obviously. But I drop her off at 8:50 and pick her up at 2:20, right after her nap. I have time to get some good work done in the meantime.

I am fortunate in being able to afford to work part-time and I am insured through my spouse. Again, everyone's situation is different. Money is not a driving factor for me. After I pay for daycare & my student loans, I probably make minimum wage. But I have been contracting for a little firm for the last six months, logging real-world professional experience as a litigator.

When my daughter starts school, I'll have experience and references that will help me land a full-time position. Alternatively, I can hang up a shingle without the stigma of being an inexperienced new grad.

I also work part-time for the Rigos Bar Prep company-- it isn't glamorous; it isn't a "law" job. But I'm using my school/bar experience to help people, and I'm helping to expand the program & materials to the rest of the US. Most days I work in my jammies—always a plus. I may start sitting at the table once in awhile-- maybe I'll bring Allegra for old time's sake.

Best wishes,
Laura

UWeek article on the Remote Learning Room

Photo by Kathy Sauber, University Week

The campus e-magazine UWeek has a nice article on the Remote Learning Room. Check it out here:
http://uwnews.org/uweek/article.aspx?visitsource=uwkmail&id=45183
The main page of the e-magazine is here:
http://uwnews.org/uweek/index.aspx

Very cute picture of the Harwoods! What do y'all think of the article?

(Also, as long as you're here, please leave a comment on the onesie post below...)

New Onesies, Let your voice be heard!

Hi, SBA will be ordering new onesies and Rike has asked for our input! Please take the time to look at the options and post your comments.

1) What kind of onesie-type clothing should we order?


http://www.latsportswear.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=149

http://www.latsportswear.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=116

http://www.latsportswear.com/scripts/prodView.asp?idproduct=65 (Lilac is
closest to purple for this one)

2) What color?

3) Which of the attached designs to you like, if any?  What other kind of
design might you like?

Graduation photos

Hey PALS, graduation photos, finally! I don't have many pix from graduation but the few I have are posted below. If anyone has more please feel free to add them or email them to me and I'll post them.

Ray thought to bring her camera on stage, clever woman, and snapped these of her, me, Louis and Laura just as we were about to cross the stage:

Karen and Nathan after the ceremony: (I stole this off Facebook)

Laura and Allegra:

These are the professional photographer's pix of me with my daughters getting their pretend diplomas, and Louis posing on stage with his son:

The ceremony itself was great (for me, anyway -- my 3-year-old was trying my husband's patience, but I knew nothing of that, blissfully partying on stage with my buddies). At times the speeches seemed to run a tad long, but actually the ceremony ended right on time. Dean Hicks was a great emcee, I really liked him and thought, dang, I should've taken a class from that guy.

Tips for next year's 3Ls: Dress as light as you can because those robes get HOT under the lights. Carry a little passport wallet with your camera (and a snack! I would've passed out if not for Ray's Luna bar). If you're going to have your kids walk with you, when you are lining up back stage, finagle your way to the front so you can walk across early, so your kids don't have to wait around until the end of the ceremony. Mine walked the stage with me, then my husband took them straight out to the lobby to play until the ceremony was over.

And, by the way, note of appreciation for our administration -- I have a friend at Gonzaga, and there, kids aren't ALLOWED on stage at graduation. Man!

MAMAs meeting and a courthouse tour

A couple of items of interest from the KC - WWL newsletter:


Join MAMAS members for their monthly brown bag meeting on Wednesday, June 18th from 12-1:00 p.m. at K&L Gates (925 4th Avenue, Suite 2900). This month’s meeting features a panel discussion: Life AS Corporate Counsel. Panel members will address the ins and outs of working as in-house counsel, and the meeting will be an excellent opportunity to meet fellow MAMAS members. RSVP through BigTent if you are a MAMAS member, or by email Jami Grounds at jgrounds@susmangodfrey.com.

King County Superior Court invites clerks and young lawyers to observe the operations of the downtown Seattle King County Courthouse and the Regional Justice Center in Kent on Wednesday, June 25th from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. For further information on this great opportunity, please call Bailiff Lee Walters (downtown) at 206.296.9096 or Sandy Ogilvie (Kent) at 206.205.2588.

3L class gift: We rock

Randomly and oddly, my 1L small group, Group 6, has eight student-parents in it. Plus, we've had more students drop out or transfer than anyone else (though none of those were student-parents). We're down to 23 members -- and yes, more than a third of them are parents. There are, of course, parents in other sections, but ours seems to be particularly weighted.

Want to know how having a lot of family types in your group affects things? I don't know if there's a straight-line correlation, of course, but check out the placard in the hallway showing how groups have contributed to the 3L graduation gift to the LRAP. Or follow this link: http://www.law.washington.edu/Students/3LGift/ Yeah, that's right. We're the big dog.

If there are any 3Ls reading this, here are some things you should know:
* You only have to give $1 to increase the percentage of students giving, which is helpful for the school's rank.
* Pledges count toward the total raised by your group.
* The state will match any gifts received by the end of June. Double your dollars for the LRAP.
* PILA will match both gifts and pledges up to $10,000. Double your dollars again.

You can contribute by credit card by following the link above, or take cash to Yoshiko on the third floor. Pledge forms are available at the link above, plus there are some in the mail room.

Kids at commencement

By my count there could be as many as 25 -- or more! -- children of students at commencement this year. Dean Madrid's office is planning to have certificates for each child. They are non-personalized, so don't worry about getting the Dean your children's names.

In case you haven't gotten the word, the instructions are thus:
If you plan to have your child/children walk the stage with you when you receive your diploma, make a plan with a responsible adult (RA). The child/ren should sit in the audience until the speeches are through and the degrees are about to be handed out. Then RA brings the child/ren to the front and hand them, carefully, to the student on the stage.
*This is very important: student on stage keeps a firm grip on child/ren during the walk across the stage. The orchestra pit is open and unfenced. And verrry deep.
RA needs to walk across to the other side of the stage and take child/ren back after the walk.

By the way check out the new banner across the top of this blog: http://lagliv.blogspot.com/ Warning: it'll probably make you queasy. Sorry about that.

At right: Karen Alexander Horowitz's son finds out what's going to be eating mommy alive the next couple of months.

PALS group photo

Last week Shari Ireton took a group photo of PALS to commemorate our being student organization of the year. Not everyone could make it, but we got a pretty good turnout. We took one picture of the group holding photos of our children, and one just standard photo. You can tell which one I like best because I'm posting it first:



Charles and Kevin are cracking me up. And check out Tami -- so adorable.



Our kids can beat up your kids. rrgh!

What do you think? Also, let me know if you want a copy -- I have both high- and low-res versions.

MAMAS family event Saturday

MAMAS is Mother Attorneys Mentoring Association of Seattle, a great group of lawyers trying to share ideas and network with an emphasis on work-life balance issues. The group has brown bag sessions and that sort of thing, but also gathers monthly with the kids to play and network. (Unfortunately, yes, it's for moms, not dads. Apparently. I could be wrong.) The next one is this coming Saturday:

MAMAS Moms and Kids Networking Event
When: Sat, May 3, 9am – 12pm
Where: The Children's Center at Burke Gilman Gardens, 5251 Sand Point Way NE, Building 5, Seattle, WA
Description: We invite you to attend MAMAS' next monthly mother attorney networking event. Mothers, children, and partners/helpers welcome. Admission is free, and food and beverages will be provided, thanks to our sponsor Williams Kastner.

Go play! If anyone decides to go, let me know how it went.

Legislative update

Well, Gov. Gregoire cut the increased funding for student-parents that we were so excited about. Thanks again to Dave, Laura and Michael who worked so hard on it. 2Ls and 1Ls, think about testifying in Olympia next year and the year after in support of increased funding for children of students!

Legislative success

Thanks to Laura Arras and Michael Sterner who helped out with the lobbying effort in Olympia this year, and especially Dave Brown, 3L and GPSS president. They got us more money! Here's Dave's description:

GPSS Wins Major Victory for Student Parents; Securing One Million Dollars for Childcare
GPSS and the Washington Student Lobby secured a one million dollar increase in childcare grants for student parents statewide, and the passage of legislation to make the allocation of those grants more predictable and equitable. Grants will now be allocated on a basis proportionate to the contribution made by student governments at each of Washington’s four-year schools. Because over $800,000 of our student dollars are dedicated to childcare grants annually, this increase means that next year over one million dollars will go to UW student parents. This increased funding will allow graduate and professional student parents greater access to quality childcare and ensures that childcare is and remains affordable to our student community.

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.

Maybe Baby recap

Thanks to the folks that came out for the Maybe Baby session today. There were 30 people there, quite a turnout. I heard from some people who thought it was a great discussion, and some who were pretty depressed. What did you think? I'd love to get some comments. You can post anonymously on this blog.

My recap:
Regarding whether to have your baby during school, Carson (who had a baby in school, and another as a second-year associate) said school is the way to go. There, if your baby needs extra attention and you have to neglect your work, the only one who is affected is you, and all that will happen is you'll get a lower grade. Plus the Remote Learning Room is such a great resource. Whereas now that she's working, if there's a problem with the baby, potentially a client could suffer (though that's never happened to her). Sarah, on the other hand, chose not to have a baby during school because she needed to keep her grades up -- scholarships at her school were based on grades. Plus she was going to be coming across the country to find a job, so grades (and law review, and federal clerkship) were crucial.

A couple of people asked what if you want/need to take the summer off with your baby, and I asked, what if you need to take a quarter off and graduate late. Both speakers thought that if you had a hole in your resume you could explain, it shouldn't bother employers, though it's a good idea to look for something that takes minimal time away from your baby, like doing research for a professor.

Sarah works full time at a big Seattle firm (I'm leaving out identifying details because this blog can be googled). She enjoys it, and finds that she rarely has to work nights and weekends to make her hours. She gets about an hour a night to purely devote to playing with her 17-month-old son. This was one of the things that some of the audience members found depressing: one hour a day. Sarah also said she makes a point at work of never "playing the mommy card" -- never blaming her son for having to leave or for having difficulty making a deadline. Sarah was kind of the hard-core example of how to work full time with a baby.

Carson's work is more flexible, with paid maternity leave, and partners and associates who work less than full time. She works full time. She said she's absolutely focused when she's at work, and eats at her desk, but rarely does work at night or on weekends.

So, the discussion strayed from the "Maybe Baby" topic and wandered more into the "work-life balance" area. For those who were looking for more answers about what it's like to have a baby in school and how people made the decision to do that, PALS members are more than happy to talk about it. In particular, Laura Arras, 3L, had a baby her 1L summer and brought her to school most of her 2L year. You can email her at arras@... Vanessa Hernandez also is willing to share her thought process and experience. You'll see her around -- she's the one that looks like she must have been due two weeks ago (but she still has a couple of weeks to go).

What did you think of the panel? Any suggestions for follow-up discussions?

Childhaven drive this week

This week is the Childhaven drive! Please bring in new or gently used toys, clothes and books, plus diapers and nonperishable food items. You’ll see the PALS table in the hallway at lunch this week. If you’d like to staff the table, just come on by, sit down, and keep folks company.

Everyone please give many thanks to Christine Porter for organizing the Childhaven Drive this year. Christine has put it together almost single-handedly. Be sure to give her a pat on the back. Thanks also to Laura Arras, who made the poster, and Ray for posting them, and everyone who's staffing the table and making the delivery on Friday. We'll have the table in the hallway at lunch all week.

Childhaven is a Seattle childcare and research center that works to break the cycle of abuse and neglect by helping families in crisis. The center focuses on children birth to 5 years old and their families. Our annual Childhaven drive was started by last year's co-presidents, Merisa Heu-Weller and Greg Wong, who believed that as law students we're awfully lucky, and we want to share some of our good fortune with others. For more information on Childhaven, check childhaven.org -- or tell Christine that you'd like to come along on Friday to drop off the goodies. Visitors will get a tour of the facility. Christine's email is porterc@...

Advocating for parents

* Thanks to PALS board member Laura Arras who testified in Olympia this week for a bill that would increase funding for child care for student-parents. If you see Dave Brown in the halls this quarter, tell him thanks for working so hard to support this bill (Dave is president of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate this quarter). Dave said Laura did a phenomenal job testifying. Laura said it was a "no-brainer" -- aid for child care enabled her to put her son in a decent center so she could focus on her education during the day. (Laura's externing with the AG's office this quarter.)

* Keep an eye out for the meetings with the Dean candidates this week. If you're so inclined, don't hesitate to ask about the candidate's opinions about student-parents, or whatever else strikes you.

Money for child care

Student lobbyists are working in Olympia this session to promote a bill that would help student-parents. Please contact Lisa or Stasiu, or GPSS VP Sarah Reyneveld (see below) if you are interested in writing a letter in support of the bill, or going to Olympia to speak at a hearing or meet with a legislator. I spoke at a hearing last year and it was a good experience.

Here's GPSS president Dave Brown (3L)'s explanation of the bill:

Improving the affordability and access to quality childcare services for
student parents has long been a GPSS priority. Working with ASUW and the
Washington Student Lobby, we are aggressively pushing HB 1856. Prime
sponsored by Rep. Roberts, HB 1856 will award child care grants to state
institutions of higher education in an amount matching the amount that the
institution's student government association contributes for child care.
HB 1856 is an important first step in increasing state support for student
parents and ensuring that childcare is accessible and affordable.

We need your help to ensure success in Olympia.We need your voice and ideas
as we work to make a difference for graduate and professional students. If
you’re interested in supporting our legislative efforts in Olympia, testifying
on behalf of HB 1856, or supporting an increase in mental health providers on
campus, please don’t hesitate to contact Vice President Sarah Reyneveld.
Sarah is our lobbyist in Olympia this quarter and is leading our
legislative efforts. Her email is: gpssvp (at)
u.washington.edu.

Santa photos

Here's a great opportunity to get family photos with Santa without the lines or extortionate prices at the mall.

The Latina/o Law Students Association has recruited Prof. Schnapper to play Santa Claus for photos next Wednesday. Apparently he’ll be all dressed up as the jolly old elf, complete with a festive, Latino-inspired backdrop. LLSA will take your photo with a digital camera and email it to you, and/or you can bring your own camera. LLSA will email you the photo they take. LLSA is asking for a $3 donation, but apparently everyone actually gives $5.

Money raised will benefits LLSA’s outreach programming for disadvantaged students.

Here’s the info:

Wednesday, December 5, 2007
2:30 to 4 p.m. in Gates Hall, Room TBA
UWLS Main Hallway
Email Rosario Daza, rdaza@... for more information.

Managing stress

Here's a nice event held by Non-Traditional Law Students (NLS is generally for older, second-career-type students, or anyone who considers themselves different from the traditional path). Last year NLS held a couple of events with Andy Benjamin, and they were well-received. I'll be going to this one -- please rsvp to Lisa G at lgoldoft@ ... if you are planning to go.


Stress & Uncertainty: Andy Benjamin on Balance During Law School.
As the end of the quarter fast approaches, many of us find ourselves getting caught up in the stresses of preparing for exams, doing job searches, and dealing with other life demands. Join us for a lunchtime talk with Andy Benjamin about dealing with law school stressors and gaining better perspective and balance. The event will take place on Wednesday, November 28, 2007, from 12:30 to 1:20, in Room 118. Lunch will be provided.
Please RSVP if you are planning to attend so we can order enough lunches for everyone. We also welcome specific questions for Andy, which will be presented anonymously. Please send RSVPs and any questions to: lgoldoft@...

Fall Festival photos!

Thanks for everyone who put in so much work to make the Fall Festival a success, and to everyone who came! If you have feedback on how to make the party better next year, please leave a comment or email kremerl@....
More pictures to come later!

Fall Festival this Friday

The Fall Festival is Friday! It will be 3:30-6 p.m. in the lobby, main hallway and courtyard. Come bring the kids, in costume. There will be games and booths from just about every student organization, including face painting, pumpkin decorating, and more. We’ll have a giant bounce house in the courtyard. SBA will be grilling food for meat-eaters and vegetarians alike, and for the first time they’re also providing beer and wine as well as pop and juice.

Nowell has made a special effort to invite faculty, and several faculty members have told him they’re coming and looking forward to it. Come see your profs and their kids!

Please also invite your classmates who don’t have kids. This event is open to all and is a great chance for our kids to meet our buddies and vice-versa.

See you there!

Lisa and Stasiu

p.s. if you’d like to help decorate, I’ll be in the lobby and main hallway after 1:30 on Friday, stringing up ghosts and spreading cobwebs.