Reply to How does maternity leave work for a law firm partner? No FMLA?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]SHAME ON YOU INTOLERANT NAME CALLERS!  It is emphatically NOT OP's fault for investigating maternity leave before accepting partnership--not one bit of this is fault oriented.  It is not her fault for being one of the first women to succeed in her industry and have a family, if the facts are as she says.  This can't be how you talk to your friends, children or strangers, could it?  If so, you're disgusting.[/quote]

I don't get this post at all...wouldn't it have made more sense for OP to have [i][b]understood the policies in place at her job [/b][/i]before deciding to get pregnant and then [i][b]freaking out [/b][/i]that she might not get paid?  Or is it better for women to remain purposfully ignorant until they find themselves between a rock and a hard place and then deal with it by lashing out at strangers on the Internet?[/quote]

Well said. I love you![/quote]

There [i][b]was no policy in place[/b][/i] at her job re: maternity leave for partners ... that's exactly what she is saying, and why she is asking for feedback from other female partners who have faced this issue (me being one of them, I am one of the PPs who has been in the same circumstance).  She didn't "[i][b]freak out[/b][/i]", she asked the following:

"Could you tell me if you've taken a maternity leave while a law firm partner? Now that I'm no longer an employee, I'm told I'm not eligible for FMLA or other benefits, and that the firm could decide to cut my draw (pay). What was your experience? Any guidance on how to raise this with the firm?"

I hardly call that a freak out.  Sure, she indicates she is the primary breadwinner and thus trying to suss this out best she can, but that doesn't mean she/they can't cope w/ a period of unpaid leave if it comes to that.  When one is offered partnership, you don't have the opportunity to renegotiate the firm's partnership agreement, conveniently drafting in a new provision regarding maternity leave benefits for partners -- and if you tried, you can bet you will be starting off on the wrong foot with many in the male dominated partnership.  [u]That's just NOT how it works in real (law firm) life[/u].  Perhaps it does in other corporate environments, but frankly, I doubt it.  Can she work to implement a policy that is more favorable to women, and the inclusion of an express policy, to start, now that she is in a greater position of power?  Absolutely.  By gathering examples of how other firms (and female partners who've BTDT) address this issue, and planning to use that in her conversations/negotiations with HR and the partners, she is doing just that.  She was seeking feedback/experience from others in like circumstances, and working within the constraints of the field in which she functions.

All that said, I agree that her post trying to keep the conversation on point came across poorly (and not in the spirit of how DCUM threads typically meander), and can understand how people took offense at that, but I don't think that doesn't mean she (and the valid questions and policy issues she raises) should be totally castigated or rejected and the baby thrown out with the bath water (probably a poor analogy for this conversation, but you get the drift).   (Sorry OP, I feel you).    [/quote]

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