Blog #31: Work/Family Balance

In almost every family you will find one or two parent households who are trying to juggling work, kids, school, and extra-curricular activities. The legal profession is no different. In the legal profession lawyers also have to worry about how they are perceived by colleagues and partners. The major problem that lawyers face in the work/family balance is their dedication. Their dedication is constantly under scrutiny and it also leads to feelings of resentment. There is a different feeling among men and women these days. This feeling is that money is not everything. If we were to go back a few decades then we would see a time when women were at home with the kids and the men were absent fathers whose only concern was to provide for his family. Now a day, fathers’ want to be a part of their children’s lives. They do not want to wake up one day to grown children who resent that their fathers were never around.

As a lawyer there is an expectation that you must be in the office 80 hours a week working on cases and racking up “billable hours” for the firm. When lawyers decide to deviate from this expectation and shorten their hours so they can be a part of their children’s lives, then they work more stable hours. One of the solutions proposed for lawyers who want to be involved with their families is to work part time. The problem with this is that when a lawyer goes down to part-time, they are not seen as “real” lawyers (English, 2003). They lose clients and their status in the firm. Another solution to the work/family balance problem was to allow flexible hours. This also leads to problems of dedication and work ethic. Most colleagues see a lawyer working scattered hours and they do not think that they are capable of getting the work done and being proficient. Even telecommuting was looked down upon because the partners or senior associates could not be standing over your should and see exactly what you are doing. It does not even seem to matter that faxes, emails, and phone calls are coming in regularly to show that work is being done even though the lawyer is working from home.