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

yer who receives the assignments. Conscientious associates are quite reluctant to
refuse assignments from partners, as well they should be. But when partners making
assignments are unaware of other assignments made to a particular associate, the potential
exists to overburden the associate when the firm has otherwise committed to
the associate a part-time schedule.
Schedule creep is almost always caused by the failure to adjust the parttimer’s
case load to match the shorter work hours. There is often an unspoken
expectation on the part of the firm that the attorney will continue
to do the same amount of work, and a corresponding desire on the part of
the attorney to prove that he or she is still a valuable team member who
can pull his or her own weight. 36
A number of respondents in the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts study
who worked on part-time schedules feared that certain partners avoided working with
them. They further indicated that their availability was regularly tested by some partners
and that their part-time arrangement was completely ignored by others. Certain
respondents in the Massachusetts study complained that they were continually on
call during their non-scheduled hours even though they were not paid for doing so.
In its 2000 study on attrition, retention incentives and departure destinations,
NALP noted that the traditional law firm cultures equated “face time
with commitment, use commitment as a measure of future potential, and
expect employees to sacrifice personal life for work.” The PAR Study further
noted that lawyers working reduced hours are perceived as “not sufficiently
committed”; moreover, it cautions that a firm culture that defines commitment
as being available “24/7” does not engender family-friendly policies
and further disadvantages women, who are left with the choice of staying
home with their children (since most women do not have “stay-at-home
husbands”) or letting their children be raised in paid care. 37
The Project for Attorney Retention (PAR Study) concluded that schedule creep was
a primary reason some attorneys left their firms rather than attempting to develop a
more satisfactory part-time arrangement. 38 In order to avoid the schedule creep problem,
each part-time attorney should be assigned a partner whose responsibility it is
to monitor the part-time lawyer’s work load. A commitment by the firm to a parttime
arrangement must be honored by the firm. Without appropriate monitoring
safeguards in place, the firm may be unable to determine that a part-time lawyer is
overloaded until the lawyer’s dissatisfaction with the part-time arrangement results
in his or her departure from the firm.
36 It’s About Time, supra note 31, at 28 (citing PAR Study, supra note 35, at 36).
37 It’s About Time, supra note 31, at 31 (quoting Paula A. Patton, Beyond the Bidding Wars:
A Survey of Associate Attrition, Departure Destinations, and Workplace Incentives, 62 (National
Association of Law Placement Foundation for Education and Research, 2000));
PAR Study, supra note 35, at 46–47.
38 PAR Study, supra note 35, at 18; see also It’s About Time, supra note 31, at 28.
36 A Career in the Courtroom: A Different Model for the Success of Women Who Try Cases