A Career in the Courtroom: A Different Model for the Success ... - DRI

While the law may indeed be a jealous mistress, there is a life outside the law. Enjoyment
of interpersonal relationships is a significant key to a happy and healthy life.
This report is not intended to delve into the medical domain, but it is common
knowledge that high levels of stress endured over extended time periods can be severely
detrimental to one’s health. Lawyers with lower stress levels are likely to perform more
efficiently. Therefore, provisions by law firms for personal lifestyle accommodations
are likely to have a very positive effect on the firm’s work product and the health and
well-being of its lawyers. Law firms should actively attempt to provide a work place
that is conducive to the outside needs of its lawyers, regardless of their gender. In so
doing, the culture within the firm and the firm’s outside reputation as a quality
employer will gradually evolve to support the environment desired.
Part-time arrangements, discussed in detail in the next section, certainly provide
one alternative for a mother aspiring to be a defense trial lawyer. On the other hand,
the firm’s willingness to allow her to work different, rather than shorter, hours may
provide the time management tools needed to survive this period in her life. Unlike
part-time, this is a full-time alternative, but with many of those hours spent at home or
otherwise away from the office, and with the expectation that the lawyer will accomplish
as much as other full-time lawyers. With the ready availability of technological
assistance such as computers, fax machines, Internet connections, electronic mail, and
cell phones, there is no reason that a mother cannot work as efficiently at home as she
does in her office. Indeed, with the reduction of outside interruptions, she may work
more efficiently at home than at the office. Firms must abandon the notion that if a
lawyer is not in the office, in court, or in a deposition, she must not be working. Many
of the women interviewed by the Task Force recognized that it was difficult to work a
formal part-time schedule and manage a successful litigation practice. So, they preferred
that a firm offer flexibility in their full-time work schedule in order to maintain
their practice while devoting time to raising their family. This will also benefit
the firm’s clients that have made an investment in the women attorneys who are
handling their work, and who they would like to see the firm accommodate such
that they do not leave.
Child care issues often create severe difficulties for parents of young children. Parents
in general, and mothers in particular, feel a bond with and responsibility toward their
children that is virtually impossible for anyone who has not experienced parenthood
to understand. When work obligations conflict with a parent’s obligation to his or her
children, the resulting stress level is astronomical. On those occasions when something
goes awry at the last minute with a child care agency or a nanny, only a mother who
has experienced such a situation can appreciate the stress level. While it may not be
practical for all law firms to do so, some firms provide daycare for the children of their
lawyers and staff members. In some instances, firms have worked together with other
firms to form a daycare cooperative in a particular building. Providing an atmosphere
in which a mother can take her child to work with her, leave the child in the
on-site daycare facility and retrieve the child at the end of the day, is an enormous
benefit. When she is in the office, such a facility may even allow a parent to enjoy
32 A Career in the Courtroom: A Different Model for the Success of Women Who Try Cases