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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Having worked in BigLaw and outside it one thing that happens is that when you are at a firm you tend to compare yourself exculsively to peers at the firm or at peer firms.

So what a BigLaw attorney considers a "very involved" parent can be pretty different than what a government attorney or someone who isn't a lawyer at all will consider very involved.

I do think the people who make it work best tend to have a pretty robust support network (usually involving both paid and family help) so I don't think their kids suffer for having a parent with a very demanding job. Like it's not really that big of a deal if you only eat dinner with your dad twice a week if you have a mom and a grandma and a nanny who are there daily and making you feel cared for and loved. Spending the afternoon with a great nanny before eating dinner with mom and grandma and then your dad is home for bedtime is totally great from the kid's perspective.

I know from experience though that if you do not have that network it sucks for all involved. A BigLaw parent plus another parent with a demanding job plus no family help and maybe you struggle to find great hired help is a recipe for disaster and it's situations like this that lead to people bailing on BigLaw. You need help and it usually has to come from multiple sources -- spouse and grandparents and hired help. The BigLaw salary makes it easier to have a SAHP but cannot help someone want to be a SAHP and while the salary can make it easier to pay more for help there is also some luck and other logistics involved (so much easier to find a great nanny if the non-BigLaw parent wants to and is good at hiring and managing that person). And invovled family is just the luck of the draw.

If you are a BigLawa attorney making it work and feel like your family is functioning great that's wonderful but you do need to understand that there is some luck and special circumstances in terms of your partner and extended family that makes that work.[/quote]

Folks, so much of this is just what you want to do.  I know BigLaw partners that make every kid’s sporting event because they enjoy watching sports.  They just put it on their schedules and then probably do some work later that night.

Those same partners are somehow too busy to take kids to doctor appointments or parent teacher conferences or all the other shit they don’t want to do.

If you don’t want to eat dinner with your family most nights, it’s a choice you make…sorry it’s not because you have 5 alarm fires requiring you to be in the office 3 days per week.

Stop blaming the job for not being present at the things you just don’t want to do.[/quote]

Except they wouldn’t have the time to do it all, as you well know. Biglaw requires a minimum of 55 hrs/week and generally working most weekends upwards of 60-70 hrs regularly. Yes you can make time for the weekly Little League game, but you cannot parent in any meaningful way. Particularly once these dudes move out to Potomac or Westchester and have longer commutes. [/quote]

Again…it’s 2024.  Everyone has a hybrid work schedule.  If you don’t, then you aren’t a partner or for some reason you are a partner that everyone shits on (but  I doubt that).

Also, it’s not a linear job…if you want to make time for things (maybe not all but you can make time for more than just a LL game…BTW these are HS games 3x per week from 3:30-5:30), you make time and then work 8pm-11pm at home.[/quote]

Just stop. Kids and household management are not “hybrid.” “Making time for” random parenting tasks as if it’s a hobby is FAR from equal domestic partnership. But yeah I’m sure it’s nice for BigLaw dads to decree that all their weekly parenting is done from 3:30-5:30 sitting on their butts at a sports game … then pat themselves on the back about what “involved fathersl” they are.

Sure WFH a few days a week may add 2-3 hours of saved commute time that can be used for parenting and domestic stuff, but the overall number of hours required has not changed. [/quote]

You seem miserable. Are you jealous? Do you also attack physicians and bankers and consultants? All have worse schedules and less flexibility. [/quote]

Bankers and consultants - yes, exactly the same. Doctors - they are actually doing something useful for the world, so no issue. That’s the truly toxic thing about Biglaw, consulting and banking: mostly adding zero value to the world, just greedy money. [/quote]

OP - I agree with the doctors doing something useful for the world.  I say that to my DH all the time - if you miss a deadline did someone die?  No? Then its fine.

However I will say that DH's work does involve a lot of big companies that if the work he is doing is not done then large factories, companies, etc will close and lots of people will lose their jobs.  So I guess it is important to those people who will be without work should the contract that supports their work dries up.  Not life or death certainly. [/quote]

It sounds like you don't respect your DH or his work. You acknowledge that the work is important for those impacted, yet in the same paragraph you try to minimize it. [/quote]

DP. There is in fact nothing to respect about Biglaw (or consulting or banking) careers. People trading their lives for money and expecting everyone else in their lives to pick up the slack (generally the women in their lives). [/quote]

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