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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have friends who I think are genuinely present dads who are in-house, but zero who are in big law. FWIW I am an SES government lawyer who is probably about 10 years older than you. I make over $200K now. I would choose my job over my old big law job 10 times out of 10. Even at my busiest work times, I will be at the thing I told my kids I’d be at; I will turn off my phone for a day if we have special plans. I could never have done that in big law. I had a partner track me down through my husband’s phone on a weekend when I didn’t answer my phone for a 10 minute period for a new “emergency” I had no reason to suspect was coming on a Sunday. No thanks.[/quote]

My husband is a big law lawyer who is very very involved as a parent — goes to all the sports games etc.  Thefe are two things that make it work — he is very disciplined.  If he gets to a kids game early, he is working while the team is warming up, during half time, etc.  He will park outside practices and work from the car.  He is up every morning at 6 working.  When we go on vacation, he works half days almost every day — used to be when kids napped but mow he will skip activities he doesn’t care for and work instead.  The second way it works is he has basically no social life.  I think he could have a bit of a social life if he stopped gojng to the gym or gave up our dog, since he probably spends 10-15 hours a week on those two things, but other than gym/dog, his life is 100% work and the kids.  
So I think there are definitely ways to be an involved dad at big law (especially once you are more senior and can set your own schedule)—but it definitely takes compromises not everyone is willing to make.[/quote]

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