Anyone making a part-time Big Law career work with family life?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is your spouse willing to add to their plate to support you? If husband is in government, he should have sick/annual leave available to cover kid appointments and days off - will he take on those days/duties on to support your transition? Will he help manage the household help?

Your plan is doable, but only if your husband is actually willing to do substantially more household management - especially in the first 1-2 years as you re-build your skills and your reputation at the new firm.

+1. The key is that you need to split all the household stuff equally with him since you will be working equal hours (or, let's be honest, you may be working more hours than he is). Let go of the mindset that the household stuff is "yours." Figure out who will be "on call" for illness, and divide up the sports stuff, doctor appointments, etc between you. He can take formal leave for this stuff - let him. DH and I are both GS-15 government lawyers and this is how we have made it work. At least two days a week working from home helps tremendously too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:it can be pretty tough to get hired as an attorney after years as a SAHM. that alone makes me think you should seriously consider seizing the opportunity and trying it out. you can always look for smaller firm or government options later on.

+1 I honestly wouldn’t hesitate in your shoes, OP. You have a great sounding DH with a flexible job, the financial means to hire additional help, and family who can pitch in in a pinch. You have a great opportunity here, and you can reassess as you go along. And if your oldest is 16, he or she can get themselves to their own activities and help out occasionally with driving the younger ones too. We have a 10 year gap between our oldest and youngest and have both always worked full time, so we are familiar with this dynamic.

Go for it, and keep a keen eye out for government jobs in the meantime. Like many others on this forum, I’m a GS-15 non supervisor, which you likely would be too if you got a regulatory/program review job at a Federal agency. It’s a great set up with interesting work and good work/home balance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it can be pretty tough to get hired as an attorney after years as a SAHM. that alone makes me think you should seriously consider seizing the opportunity and trying it out. you can always look for smaller firm or government options later on.

+1 I honestly wouldn’t hesitate in your shoes, OP. You have a great sounding DH with a flexible job, the financial means to hire additional help, and family who can pitch in in a pinch. You have a great opportunity here, and you can reassess as you go along. And if your oldest is 16, he or she can get themselves to their own activities and help out occasionally with driving the younger ones too. We have a 10 year gap between our oldest and youngest and have both always worked full time, so we are familiar with this dynamic.

Go for it, and keep a keen eye out for government jobs in the meantime. Like many others on this forum, I’m a GS-15 non supervisor, which you likely would be too if you got a regulatory/program review job at a Federal agency. It’s a great set up with interesting work and good work/home balance.

Thank you! What is the pay for a GS-15 non-supervisor at a Fed agency with say 10 years experience?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I couldn’t make this work, I was at 75% for biglaw (this was the lowest you could go without losing benefits such as health insurance) and I was working full time hours nonstop. With remote working log ins and iPhones, you’re available 24/7 and basically will feel pressured to respond ASAP to most, if not all, requests. And the firm is going to make the requests. The boundaries will be blurred. So what do you do?

I was working more than full time hours for part time pay. It just wasn’t working. At all. This was 10 years ago and technology is so much better now, I imagine the pressure is even higher to be available. I was in project finance.

I left to SAH and figure out my next moves. Well 10 years go by, which is a big gap on my resume. And in 2021 I have been offered 3 jobs without looking, from people in my network that have needs and thought I would be good fits. I ended up accepting an offer to do contract work in house with a large wealth management/hedge fund group. I am trying this out for a year to see if it works for my schedule and family and 2 months in so far so good. I have 25 hours a week maximum, I set my own hours, it’s 100% remote. I heavily negotiated my hourly rate (it’s the perfect market for this, don’t be underpaid). I did a tremendous amount of research on the company and it has excellent reviews as a top place to work and I have found it to be very true. I regret in the past not doing more outreach on firm culture before accepting offers. It makes a big difference what the work environment is.

1) don’t be afraid to negotiate a higher salary (IMO $160,000 part time is too low, you’re working full time hours), 2) can you honestly set real boundaries, and 3) what is the firm culture like there (do you know anyone who does work there now and even more important someone who used to work there)

Good luck.

OP here. Thank you. How did you get up to speed on the most current technology the employer uses? I'm assuming things will have changed a lot in the last 8 years. I'm just thinking Lexis and Westlaw probably are different than they used to be, there are probably new ways employers use to store information and communicate, etc. And what about the fact that you probably had to do a lot of leg work to relearn or learn anew the applicable law in your practice areas? One of the appealing things here is that this is the same practice area I used to be in, and it seems to be understood that I will have a natural learning curve and that is okay with them. Was your new employer okay with that? To be honest, I'm intimidated at the idea of looking at anything in-house because in my practice area they tend to hire associates or partners with at least 7-8 years of recent experience which I just don't have right now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do something similar, but I don't make a fixed salary. They pay me by the hour. 400k this year, but anywhere from 100-350k in prior years. It's also remote and I can accept or reject projects. I wouldn't do the fixed salary arrangement -- even at a fraction. Too much stress to try to hit hours. I'd rather make less in lean years and more in other years.

Thank you! OP here. I actually did this type of arrangement briefly years ago. I love the idea of not worrying about billables again, but we went through a dry stretch and I was making almost nothing and it caused too much anxiety in terms of whether I could still cover childcare costs and other costs of working during slow periods. Also, and I know I didn't mention this before, our longer term family goal is for DH to be able to be a stay at home parent once I am fully reestablished and feel stable again in my career (maybe in 5 years?). He has a lot of retirement savings and the right to some pension benefits secured due to 25 years with his agency, and I will have the higher income potential once I am back on my feet (he is not an attorney). So in that case I would need all the benefits (although I won't need them initially).

[Anonymous]

How demanding is the practice area in general and how much client contact would you be expected to manage? I think PT just doesn’t work in some fields where there are legitimate emergencies that require dropping everything.

Also, 8-10 hours/day seems like a lot more than 1400 hours. Obviously you’re not going to bill every minute but that seems like a lot of lost time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:it can be pretty tough to get hired as an attorney after years as a SAHM. that alone makes me think you should seriously consider seizing the opportunity and trying it out. you can always look for smaller firm or government options later on.

+1 I honestly wouldn’t hesitate in your shoes, OP. You have a great sounding DH with a flexible job, the financial means to hire additional help, and family who can pitch in in a pinch. You have a great opportunity here, and you can reassess as you go along. And if your oldest is 16, he or she can get themselves to their own activities and help out occasionally with driving the younger ones too. We have a 10 year gap between our oldest and youngest and have both always worked full time, so we are familiar with this dynamic.

Go for it, and keep a keen eye out for government jobs in the meantime. Like many others on this forum, I’m a GS-15 non supervisor, which you likely would be too if you got a regulatory/program review job at a Federal agency. It’s a great set up with interesting work and good work/home balance.

Thank you! What is the pay for a GS-15 non-supervisor at a Fed agency with say 10 years experience?

Here’s the pay table for DC for regular, non-financial reg. agency jobs: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/21Tables/html/DCB.aspx

You’d have to negotiate when you got the offer, but I expect you’d go in as a mid 14 or low 15 and work your way up the steps over time. Every OGC office is a bit different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I couldn’t make this work, I was at 75% for biglaw (this was the lowest you could go without losing benefits such as health insurance) and I was working full time hours nonstop. With remote working log ins and iPhones, you’re available 24/7 and basically will feel pressured to respond ASAP to most, if not all, requests. And the firm is going to make the requests. The boundaries will be blurred. So what do you do?

I was working more than full time hours for part time pay. It just wasn’t working. At all. This was 10 years ago and technology is so much better now, I imagine the pressure is even higher to be available. I was in project finance.

I left to SAH and figure out my next moves. Well 10 years go by, which is a big gap on my resume. And in 2021 I have been offered 3 jobs without looking, from people in my network that have needs and thought I would be good fits. I ended up accepting an offer to do contract work in house with a large wealth management/hedge fund group. I am trying this out for a year to see if it works for my schedule and family and 2 months in so far so good. I have 25 hours a week maximum, I set my own hours, it’s 100% remote. I heavily negotiated my hourly rate (it’s the perfect market for this, don’t be underpaid). I did a tremendous amount of research on the company and it has excellent reviews as a top place to work and I have found it to be very true. I regret in the past not doing more outreach on firm culture before accepting offers. It makes a big difference what the work environment is.

1) don’t be afraid to negotiate a higher salary (IMO $160,000 part time is too low, you’re working full time hours), 2) can you honestly set real boundaries, and 3) what is the firm culture like there (do you know anyone who does work there now and even more important someone who used to work there)

Good luck.

OP here. Thank you. How did you get up to speed on the most current technology the employer uses? I'm assuming things will have changed a lot in the last 8 years. I'm just thinking Lexis and Westlaw probably are different than they used to be, there are probably new ways employers use to store information and communicate, etc. And what about the fact that you probably had to do a lot of leg work to relearn or learn anew the applicable law in your practice areas? One of the appealing things here is that this is the same practice area I used to be in, and it seems to be understood that I will have a natural learning curve and that is okay with them. Was your new employer okay with that? To be honest, I'm intimidated at the idea of looking at anything in-house because in my practice area they tend to hire associates or partners with at least 7-8 years of recent experience which I just don't have right now.

PP here who suggested in house. Don’t sell yourself short - people are desperate for hires and making all sorts of exceptions they wouldn’t typically right now. The main concern about in-house 8th year associates is companies think they are bringing home around $400K including COVID bonuses, etc. even if it’s a lower tier firm not paying market and wouldn’t take or keep the job. You may be more competitive than you think!