r/LawMoms

Hello! I am going to be going back to work in January and am wondering if there are any specific things people recommend for the transition from maternity leave to practicing again. What did you do/buy that was a lifesaver, what do you wish you had done differently, how did you survive?

I've seen questions like this on other major mom forums but I find a lot of it (like wearing comfy clothes like leggings) not super applicable to my career.

Edited to mention that I don't pump or nurse

With the latest news of the passing of Hayden Panetierre and Lindsay Clancy trial a hot topic among social media and the news -

Just wanted to let you know - we are here for you - to listen, not to judge.

and support you however we can …

this is the purpose of LawMoms.

Hi all! I just discovered this sub—I am a very part time lawyer and SAHM. My firm is a small white collar and civil boutique in fly-over country. I am planning to full step back from practice for the foreseeable future because I haven’t been able to strike the right balance between working and being with my baby. I have no childcare and do not want to send my baby to daycare, and my husband works a very demanding job. The part time work is providing great stress with little financial benefit, and I really don’t even like it anymore. I also want several more children and hope to homeschool, but my daughter is only 6 months right now. My question is how much information to give when resigning and whether to do it in person? I really love my firm and my bosses—I have recruited clients and will continue to send work to them because I really believe they are some of the best (if not the best) lawyers in my state. I also enjoy my colleagues as people, but I worry about my ability to communicate this in person without being overly emotional and making it uncomfortable for everyone (my bosses are men and not emotional at all). I am truly grateful for the opportunity and it is a big change to give up practicing law, but one I’m ready for and excited about. I have a whole letter typed up, but I dont want to burn any bridges by sending it, and I worry I am over explaining. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

TLDR: resigning to become full time SAHM—how should I do it?

Looking for recommendations for processes/systems/order of operations of things you moms do to keep track of your life, mostly work but everything included lol.

I’ve got ADHD which makes it a little bit of a double whammy but 6 years into practice and I still really struggle with keeping track of deadlines and entering time. I mainly use Outlook for work and iPhone for personal life which doesn’t integrate seamlessly so maybe I need to start keeping everything on Outlook calendar? But even separately I’m just curious to known how other moms do it. I try to keep a digital task list for work and a separate daily paper to do list but I feel like it quickly goes to hell once the day starts. I’d be open to software or other apps or even just ideas of things to try.

Hello all! I (28F) just graduated from law school in May and I have a 9 month old baby. I currently have two job offers on the table and I would love some feedback from other law moms. I had a baby while in school so that my husband and I could start our family without me needing to take maternity leave within the first year or two of practicing. That being said, I am not afraid of hard work, but I also would still like to see my husband and child and not be a total slave to the grind. We also would like to have another kid or two within the next few years.

First option:
-non-profit, worked there during law school, about 10 attorneys
-40 hour work week, no billable hours
-I have experience in the field (from working there and elsewhere)
-litigation focus
-$105k salary, no annual bonus, but expected pay bump because of bilingual abilities (I’ve already confirmed with them)
-8 weeks unpaid time off for maternity leave

Second option:
-mid size, very reputable local firm
-1850 billable requirement
-would be in one particular practice group, but I would have the possibility to branch out if I wanted
-a very good amount of women with children at the firm, a lot in this particular group
-$125k starting, and bonus possibility
-some litigation work, some transactional work
-everyone I talked to said they have great work-life balance and that people come to the firm specifically for that compared to other similarly ranked firms; many people have been there for decades
-3mo paid maternity leave
-potential for modified reduced billing schedule eventually

I am conflicted because the 40 hour work week seems so nice, but I worry that I would be shooting myself in the foot by starting at a non-profit when I have the chance to go to a good firm. I should also say that I do not have law school loans so I am not necessarily looking just to make the most money.

I would love to know if anyone has any experience with a similar situation or could give me any insight into what life is actually like in either scenario!

I’m a mom and a government attorney. I’m working in a role that substantively is my absolute dream job, plus it’s very flexible with PTO/great benefits such as health insurance/no billables so I feel very lucky to have it. However, the location of the office is becoming an issue now that I have little ones. I work remotely from my team from an satellite office three days a week, two from home. It takes me 1.5 hours to get into the office the days that I am in, and the travel is costly (eats up a quarter of my take home pay per month, being as it is government, I don’t make much to begin with and live in a vhcol area). The office I work from has very few people around to strike up a conversation with and overall zero culture. There have been whole days where I haven’t seen anyone else in the office at all.

It seems crazy to consider leaving. I worked so hard to get the role I have, I love what I do and it will be difficult, probably impossible, to find a job I like as much. However, all the extra hours away from my children to be spent in traveling to and sitting in what is essentially an empty, windowless office are weighing on my mind. I feel very torn between being so proud of where I have gotten but also feeing like the overall stress of the commute/the office culture isn’t worth staying. Help me law moms!

Location: Houston, Tx
Hi!

I work as an RN in Houston, TX area. I have been subpoenaed to testify for my part in taking care of a patient who is having their case brought to trial. It is a criminal case I have been communicating with the DAs in terms of schedule and this trial has been reset multiple times over the past couple years and I really do feel for my previous patient. However, the most recent date which they’re really trying to go for is only two weeks after my due date. I usually,for my previous pregnancies, have not left the house for at least one month after delivering because of recovery needs (I know everyone has differing opinions on this, but my doctor usually recommends me to stay at home for one month at least). Also, my newborn wouldn’t be vaccinated yet and I don’t really want to expose the newborn to anything I would be exposed to outside of the house so I did share that with my DA and they basically are saying “oh well. we’ll see where you’re at. We’re not gonna change the date. Thanks for your cooperation.”

It seems like I don’t have a choice in this and I just want to understand if this is normal? Like I do want to do my job for this patient but I also don’t want to necessarily exposed my newborn to anything and I hate to leave left than 1 month postpartum. But I guess and individual’s preferences has no bearing in the court of law??

I am coming up on my 12th year practicing law and currently pregnant with my third child. I’ve been very blessed, have had a great career and landed a somewhat cush in-house position after my first was born. But lately, my job has changed to now include much more travel and a forced “promotion” with no pay increase (federal government for you). I have been struggling with being away so much from my kids and jealous that my husband works from home and my kids spend most of their waking hours with the Nanny. Meanwhile, I commute an hour to and from work every day to a job i don’t really care about. My husband isn’t supportive of me staying home without earning an income (couldn’t tell you why since he is high earner himself) . So I find myself trying to come up with a plan that will allow me to work from home a few days a week and still earn some money to contribute. I thought maybe a virtual solo practice maybe doing something like estate planning or something else that doesn’t require court appearances. Has anyone been able to achieve this? please share your ways!

Any tips for burnout fix? I’m a civil litigation attorney and lately, I am paralyzed by *something* most days and struggling to bill anything, much less near my minimum. I just sit on my phone doomscrolling, without even realizing it. My baby is 18 months and he must be going through a sleep regression. My house is chaos because the baby goes to sleep at 8:30/9 and by then, my husband and I are too exhausted to do anything. I’m now worried about getting fired all the time, since my hours are so low.

Back story - I’m a former PD with at least 6 years of experience. I left that job after my kid was born because it was unmanageable to meet the caseload demands and no WLB with a toddler. Took a few months off and then applied around/networked for my next role. I had no trouble getting at least 5 offers in less than 6 months and ultimately chose a transactional role at a firm because it had the best pay and promised to be family friendly. Long story short, I got pregnant with my second and when I asked to take my full mat leave + an extra week of PTO the partner I work for started treating me differently. He had a long uncomfortable conversation with me about my request and it got to the point I had to go to HR and HR took my side. They apologized profusely for the things he said and told me that partner won’t be allowed to talk to me about my mat leave again.

Cut to I’m back at work and miserable. The partner treats me like his legal assistant (despite having two legal assistants). He makes me print his documents, schedule his calls, “jokes” about why I haven’t organized his office and emails for him etc etc. I have two girls now and I look at them and feel ashamed I put up with that kind of demeaning treatment that I’d tell them never to accept. I’ve been a lawyer for 9 years. I used to handle 200+ cases and do murder trials. But now today on my first day off in 4 months I get urgent marked emails from him asking me to help arrange an associate lunch for his law clerk today? It’s the first day I have off to spend with my girls in a long time and that email just put me over the edge. Am I totally overreacting? How bad would it be to take a few months off again and find a new role? I’ve done it before and I have confidence in myself I can do it again. I just know if I try to find a job while working with him I’ll end up desperation leaving to something I haven’t fully vetted just to get away. Our finances can stand me floating for a bit looking for something so I feel ok there.

A few months ago I asked this thread if it was a good idea to bring my 18 month old with me on my bar trip with my three close friends from law school. Three close friends who were insistent that they wanted my daughter to join.

I went against the advice of others in this thread, took my daughter, and it was a disaster. We made it 4 full days and then went home after the first leg of the trip. I wasted $4300.

To make matters worse, on the way home on our $1500 last minute flight, we got stuck at our layover destination for two nights. Two nights alone in a foreign country.

The biggest thing for me, and the biggest reason I am so disappointed in myself, is that it just felt so dangerous in a way that is tough to even explain.

Wondering the streets of a foreign country alone as a late 20s female is not always safe in the best of circumstances. Much less with a dashing 18 month old. You can't use google maps to navigate as your daughter kicks and squirms. So, my recourse was to just sit in the AirBNB while the other friends were out at casual dinners, having drinks.

The only way for me to have fun was for the other girls to revolve their entire trip around my daughter, which obviously was not fair to them. The afternoon in the kids museum was a blast, but that cannot happen more than once and was not fun enough to make up for all the other stress.

There are a lot of lessons learned for me. I wanted to just share this out of the hope that maybe I help someone else avoid making such a bad decision and wasting so much precious money.

Listen to fellow law moms, folks.

I am currently a summer law student with a 14 month old. By the time I get to the office, I am depleted and exhausted from the chaos of the morning - breakfast, drop off, and getting to the office. And, that is assuming baby had a good night’s sleep. With chores and managing dinners and the house - I am about to lose my mind)

My partner is very supportive and does a lot of the pick ups or drop offs but some days I have to do them alone. He also manages a lot of the night wakings when baby is awake at night.

But, we both are exhausted and it’s just been the summer!

I am going to join the same place next year as an articling student (I’m in Ontario), so I wanted to get ideas on what would be best to manage the morning and streamline it as much as possible.

Things we already do:

- prep all the morning things the night before: baby’s breakfast, daycare bag, work bags, etc.
- do a load of laundry as soon as there is one
- plan what we are having for dinner during the weekend

I’m an incoming 1L; I’m also a single mom to a 10 month old. He’ll be one year by the time class starts and will be attending a daycare close to campus.

Since this is his first time in daycare, I know he’s gonna get sick a lot. The assistant dean told me I can take him to class, as there’s a sub room above the lecture halls intended for people with disabilities or children. I don’t think anyone else will need to use this room.

So, my plan is to often bring him to class with me when he’s sick. But this won’t always be possible, so could I discuss with my professors the possibility of attending via zoom if he were to be very ill? I don’t have any family members in the city or any childcare alternatives.

I plan to introduce myself via email soon. Classes don’t start until the tail end of September. Would this be bothering them during summer break? Is attending via zoom occasionally/somewhat often realistic?

Please no rude comments. Thank you for any insight!

Additional edit: I sent a respectful email to the dean of students and he seems ready to chew me out, but I could be interpreting it wrong. Either way, the answer was pretty much no. Hopefully I can mask him and bring him to the isolated sub room above lecture hall. I just can’t see this going well. He’ll need to nap, he’ll be sick, inevitably start crying so much I have to leave. Am I making a massive mistake here? I don’t know what else to do and am in tears. I have worked SO hard for this. I took the LSAT 8 months pregnant then again at 9 months pregnant. My child’s father became abusive after I gave birth and I had to leave with my ten week old baby and live in my uncles basement. I wrote like 20 application essays while breastfeeding in the middle of the night. Is lack of accommodation for my kid getting sick going to delay or ruin my whole career?

ADDITIONAL EDIT: This just keeps getting worse. He has now told me that I can’t bring my son to class if he’s sick, even if masked and in the isolated room. Zoom is also not an option. I’ve been calling nanny agencies but no one offers last minute backup care for sick kids, as expected. Getting extremely stressed about this

I would love to get some advice from parents working in big law, especially those who manage without having a stay at home spouse. I have heard some big law firms offer parents the possibility to work an 80% schedule and pro rate bonus and compensation accordingly with the option to get paid more if you exceed the 80% target. Realistically, if I took that option would I still be considered for partner track if my work quality is good and if I am good with clients? Does anyone know of any partners that work on this model? And is it possible to be an equity partner and take a reduced share of equity in exchange for working a more reasonable schedule?

I would still be planning to work five days a week on the 80% model but would like to work from home on Fridays and leave early 1-2 days a week in order to do the school pick up then log on again in the evening.

I’m currently a local government attorney. I enjoy my job and my client, but my boss has made it very clear to our entire office that there’s limited potential for growth (going so much as to say no attorneys will be promoted under her). I’ve got a very sweet offer from a boutique law firm specializing in a very niche area of law (which I’m doing now as well). Almost double my current income, but 1800 billable hours. If I had this offer two years ago, I would have taken it. But I have a 5 month old baby at home and we plan to have a second child in the next two years. Moms that bill 1800 hours, can I still be a good and available mother to my baby? I’m really struggling with the decision and would appreciate any thoughts!

Update: I turned down the offer and they came back with 1600 hours but all pay and benefits remain the same. Considering it much more now.

I (female) am returning to the workforce after being home with kids for almost 4 years. I need basically a whole new work wardrobe but want to be intentional about it. I'll either be in house or at a smaller firm (still negotiating offers), in office, and live where we get all 4 seasons.

Where are your favorite places (and if you have specific items you love that's helpful) to shop for pants, skirts, tops, dresses, and shoes?