Big Law for moms: a survey

[Anonymous]

Wondering about Big Law partners who also happen to be moms of small children. In my experience (2 firms), there are zero. In my limited experience, female partners seem to fall into one or more of the following descriptions:
1. Single or divorced, no kids
2. Married, no kids
3. Married, with kids, and with a stay-home spouse (or spouse who has a very light professional schedule)
4. Women who have been partners for many, many years, and whose children are grown (but while they were young, she probably fit into one of the above categories)


I can't think of a single female partner who is happily married (or neutrally-married) to a spouse with a full time career with children under age 10. Or under age 15 for that matter. Looking for some anecdotes of other moms with young kids who have made this work.

- 6th year mom of 2 small kids, married to professional with 50 hour/week job, noticing all of the similarly-situated women around me exiting big law in droves

[Anonymous]

I work in a law firm and the physically closest female partner who sits near me actually MADE partner while on maternity leave. Now her kids are like ... 5 and 8? Her husband is also a partner, but at a different firm.

My best work friend has a mentor who is a partner and she has three kids. Her husband is a CPA partner at a big accounting firm. They have three or four kids, and the oldest is 12.

[Anonymous]

If both parents are working 60-80 hours a week, who is caring for the kids? Basically you need a SAHP or part-time or have a nanny or even two nannies to make it work. Most women I know want to parent their kids and its not possible with those jobs.

[Anonymous]

Not very likely to happen but that may not be a completely bad thing. Kids need their parents! Biglaw needs their lawyers ready to bill, to market, to train others etc.

When I was in Biglaw, I didn't see many male partners either that had kids and a spouse that worked in a demanding job- so it's not just a female thing.

I spent my Biglaw years making contacts, billing hours, learning a lot, learning marketing, developing my own client base. I also paid off my student loans and lived modestly.

When I wanted to have kids (as a single parent), I dropped out of Biglaw for a small firm and took a huge pay cut but worked a lot less hours and developed more skills.

It took about 5 years to develop my own solid practice and go back to making the real money.

Now I have two teenagers, make good money, still work for a small firm, live in a cheaper area and have a lot of control over my schedule. It's not Biglaw but I have interesting, great clients, good colleagues and a good work-life balance.

[Anonymous]

Well, looks like there at least 3 of us

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I work in a law firm and the physically closest female partner who sits near me actually MADE partner while on maternity leave. Now her kids are like ... 5 and 8? Her husband is also a partner, but at a different firm.

My best work friend has a mentor who is a partner and she has three kids. Her husband is a CPA partner at a big accounting firm. They have three or four kids, and the oldest is 12.

My company promoted a few superstars while they were on maternity leave. I think they were afraid they would look for other jobs while out.

[Anonymous]

Your generalizations are the norm but of course there are outliers as some PPs have pointed out. Just you do you and see where the road leads. I have anecdotally seen the two ends of the spectrum:
1.) A husband and wife who are both biglaw partners (and interestingly two of the better recognized names in the same exact field) with college-aged kids;
2.) A wife who is a biglaw partner with the DH being the primary parent and with two adolescent kids, and they are now divorced with DH having custody. From an outsider perspective, the wife looked emotionally abusive (or at least insensitive) towards the kids and never looked like she wanted to play the role of the parent.

[Anonymous]

Having worked in Big Law (and now in-house at a corporation), I can say that I am so grateful that I was able to switch right when my kids were born. I saw female partners with kids at my old firm, but they got so little time with their kids. Not worth it, in my opinion.

[Anonymous]

At my wife's firm she made partner with two kids under 4 years old. I work full time also 40+ hours a week, but I travel rarely and my schedule is more regular so I do daycare pickup and drop off every day.

In her practice group there are 3 other partners that I can think of in similar situations, that made partner with small children and have husbands that work full time as well, but mostly in more regular tech/government/consulting type jobs.

Most of the senior female associates and counsel have children as well. The typical pattern that I see is:

1) Graduate law school
2) work at a firm for a few years, and get married
3) Have kids when you are a 5-7 year and established in your practice area.
4) Make counsel
5) A few years later make partner

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At my wife's firm she made partner with two kids under 4 years old. I work full time also 40+ hours a week, but I travel rarely and my schedule is more regular so I do daycare pickup and drop off every day.

In her practice group there are 3 other partners that I can think of in similar situations, that made partner with small children and have husbands that work full time as well, but mostly in more regular tech/government/consulting type jobs.

Most of the senior female associates and counsel have children as well. The typical pattern that I see is:

1) Graduate law school
2) work at a firm for a few years, and get married
3) Have kids when you are a 5-7 year and established in your practice area.
4) Make counsel
5) A few years later make partner

Clearly you have a very unrepresentative view of biglaw or your wife is at a smaller or boutique firm. Women still make up a small fraction of equity partners.

During my time in biglaw, I saw the following types of women partners with kids.

1. Women who had kids before law school and kids were older by time they got to firm (usually law second career);
2. Women who had another family member stay home with kids, usually a dad or grandparent.
3. Women whose dh also worked, Jad full time help and were always trying to be a reduced hours partner, while never actually working reduced hours.
4. Women who made partner before having kids and then left for government or in house when they had kids.

most of the women I knew with kids left before being promoted, and about half of the women who were promoted to partner never had kids.

[Anonymous]

I have a friend who is a partner at a firm in New York. She lives in the suburbs has two kids ages five and two and is pregnant with the third. She is the only young female partner I know of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

- 6th year mom of 2 small kids, married to professional with 50 hour/week job, noticing all of the similarly-situated women around me exiting big law in droves

Fact is that most associates male and female, with or without kids don't make partner. It is a tough job, having young children makes it tougher. You can't say that every mom with small kids who leaves big law is leaving because of their kids. Surely some are, but many would probably have left anyways.

[Anonymous]

At my old firm there were a few. One in particular notoriously built out a full home office so she could work from home while on maternity leave. There were some others who did it, and I remember one who made partner the year after she had kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my wife's firm she made partner with two kids under 4 years old. I work full time also 40+ hours a week, but I travel rarely and my schedule is more regular so I do daycare pickup and drop off every day.

In her practice group there are 3 other partners that I can think of in similar situations, that made partner with small children and have husbands that work full time as well, but mostly in more regular tech/government/consulting type jobs.

Most of the senior female associates and counsel have children as well. The typical pattern that I see is:

1) Graduate law school
2) work at a firm for a few years, and get married
3) Have kids when you are a 5-7 year and established in your practice area.
4) Make counsel
5) A few years later make partner

Clearly you have a very unrepresentative view of biglaw or your wife is at a smaller or boutique firm. Women still make up a small fraction of equity partners.

During my time in biglaw, I saw the following types of women partners with kids.

1. Women who had kids before law school and kids were older by time they got to firm (usually law second career);
2. Women who had another family member stay home with kids, usually a dad or grandparent.
3. Women whose dh also worked, Jad full time help and were always trying to be a reduced hours partner, while never actually working reduced hours.
4. Women who made partner before having kids and then left for government or in house when they had kids.

most of the women I knew with kids left before being promoted, and about half of the women who were promoted to partner never had kids.

I agree with the pp. The women partners I have known were 1 and 2. Types 3 and 4 usually left pretty soon after having kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At my wife's firm she made partner with two kids under 4 years old. I work full time also 40+ hours a week, but I travel rarely and my schedule is more regular so I do daycare pickup and drop off every day.

In her practice group there are 3 other partners that I can think of in similar situations, that made partner with small children and have husbands that work full time as well, but mostly in more regular tech/government/consulting type jobs.

Most of the senior female associates and counsel have children as well. The typical pattern that I see is:

1) Graduate law school
2) work at a firm for a few years, and get married
3) Have kids when you are a 5-7 year and established in your practice area.
4) Make counsel
5) A few years later make partner

Clearly you have a very unrepresentative view of biglaw or your wife is at a smaller or boutique firm. Women still make up a small fraction of equity partners.

During my time in biglaw, I saw the following types of women partners with kids.

1. Women who had kids before law school and kids were older by time they got to firm (usually law second career);
2. Women who had another family member stay home with kids, usually a dad or grandparent.
3. Women whose dh also worked, Jad full time help and were always trying to be a reduced hours partner, while never actually working reduced hours.
4. Women who made partner before having kids and then left for government or in house when they had kids.

most of the women I knew with kids left before being promoted, and about half of the women who were promoted to partner never had kids.

So now the goal posts have changed to equity partner? My wife is a partner at a top-40 firm.