Dear Oversight: Thanks for pointing out how we could improve on our response to Trying to Change.  I’d like to address it now. A child at home is certainly not the only pressure women lawyers face and one of my personal pet peeves is the mother/non-mother divide. Women, mothers or not, face unique challenges in the legal profession.  Many women today have children later in their careers or not at all.  Many of these women (disproportionate to their male counterparts, in my view) end up taking care of elderly parents and relatives.  Many are actively involved in their communities through volunteer work and board positions.  Some coach, tutor, write.

As the Life in Law team has shifted into working from home in an effort to maintain social distancing, we thought it would be useful to share the best advice we’ve been given or learned along the way as we begin to settle into our new version of normal. With everything changing at such a rapid pace, the best we can do now is conduct business as usual, or our best version of it. This can be hard to do with kids, pets, significant others or even household duties distracting us from maintaining a regular workday. We get it. See our advice below, and please send us a message through any of our channels if you have a helpful strategy to add to the list.  

Dear Just Curious: So many days in my practice of life and law I wonder how I can manage to make it through the day. Each day is a new day of challenges and feelings of general incompetence. We all know that feeling but more recently it seemed to overwhelm me. I would leave the house in the morning wondering how I will fail to meet my expectations of myself in my personal life and my commitment to my husband and daughter only to be met with a whole new series of challenges and ‘to dos’ at my office. This feeling went on for about six weeks before I realized it was taking its toll.

Dear Just Beginning: Thanks for sending in your question – I think it is a great question. I truly believe that the answer to your question is dependent on the culture at the firm you will be working for.  Having said that, if the culture is not quite there yet, that is not to say it cannot or will not change.

Dear Trying to Change: I am married with twins but I struggle with the same issue. I planned to start this blog response at 8 am this morning when I got to the office.  It is now 10:23 pm and I am writing this from home in my pj’s.