Dear What’s The Trick: Planning is the key to accomplishing this goal. At the end of each week I review the next week. I look at each appointment and try to determine if there are going to be any conflicts and how I might walk the fine line to meet all my obligations including; family obligations, my client meetings, marketing events, firm administration and of course gym time. All are important priorities but some weeks, before the week even begins, I know I am in trouble. So I plan!

Dear Mom to be: I took my maternity leave about four and a half years ago following the birth of my son. I was a senior associate at the time, on the partnership track. I will share here some of the things I think helped me navigate this time in my life. As I write this, I am acutely aware of the fact that there are few things in life more hotly debated than mothering – how we do it, how much of it we do, what we sacrifice in turn, and where our career fits into the picture.

Dear Stressed: Every day I listen to podcasts. I choose to listen to podcasts that help me understand the mechanisms of stress and the possible solutions. Of course not every person feels stress in the same way and not all solutions are cookie cutter but the most important thing I have learned to date is that we need people. We need to be able to talk to someone who will listen empathically to our issues that drive our stress. That is what we hope we can bring to Life in Law.

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.