Anonymous wrote:I was a SAHM for many years - it was hard when the kids were little, but DH always made time even if it was one night getting home at 7 for dinner and one full day on the weekend. He always made it to weekend sporting events and school events, looking back, it wasn't always easy, but now he is an equity partner and college is paid for, our house is paid for, private school for two kids is paid for easily and he left the big firm a few years ago and started his own firm with a few of his partners - couldnt believe it, but he doubled his salary the first year and now works on his own terms. Last year he worked a lot to get the firm going and made a ton - so he can coast a little this year. He works from home a few days a week now and picks the kids up from school - does all the food shopping too which I love - we are a close family and our kids (tween/early teens) have a good work ethic which we are proud of (they are go-getters because it makes them feel good - they babysit, volunteer, walk dogs, cut grass, involved at school etc. - like the $$ but that's not the only reason - they grew up with me volunteering constantly and loving it and that was a positive I suppose. We travel a good deal now and it is fantastic family time - but our house and lifestyle is othwise pretty modest. I guess what Im trying to say is that we are in our 40s and the security feels good (we are debt free and saved all the years we could only travel 1 week in the summer). We both grew up middle class and can help out our parents now. Im proud of DH and I'd say it was worth it - but there's a hard climb before you can coast.

Anonymous wrote:I suspect many of them are cheating.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole discussion is giving me real pause. I have a great opportunity to get back full time plus into the work force after working part-time for the last two years. It is a dream job, but DH is a big law partner and works long hours, and I am nervous about what this will do to our lives and our kids lives (have a baby and older kid).

From what I have observed (granted, it's a limited sample size), the biglaw partners married to wives with careers tend to have much more balanced lives than biglaw partners whose wives are SAH. I would speculate that there are several reasons for this: 1) their wives have work events that are non-negotiable, so DH has to step up to the childcare homeplate more often than their counterparts with SAH wives; 2) their marriages are more equitable, so DHs end up doing more childcare/home duties than their counterparts with SAH wives.

So long as your FT position allows you reasonable predictability and hours, I would try it.

Anonymous wrote:Regarding the notion that biglaw partners have autonomy, I can only say, "yeah, you'd think so." Here's two real life examples: I became a biglaw partner due to my expertise in a tiny and very important area of law. So when big shot partner's big time corporate client had this particular issue, they'd call me. I was fully occupied and well-paid with great work and brought none of it in on my own. While I had the ability to work around my kids' schedules a fair amount, I was not autonomous. DH, on the other hand became partner and soon had 100% his own bigtime corporate clients. He's been fully busy and extremely well compensated for 10 years answering to no one but the clients. Technically, he's autonomous because he has his own clients but really the clients can call 24/7 from anywhere in the world and DH doesn't control the court's calendar, of course. The far far more common scenario in biglaw is that an associate comes up through the ranks working for one or two bigtime partners working on their one or two bigtime clients. When associate becomes partner, his responsibilities with the clients and in the courtroom hopefully and presumably increase, not decrease. So, you can say you're "more autonomous" because you have one less lawyer layer above you or an extra lawyer layer below you but it doesn't hold much meaning in practice. It's still lots and lots of work. And if you don't somehow secure a bigtime client of your own by the time you're 45 or so, you're job isn't even secure.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Former big law associate here. Now, fed attorney. I saw a lot of partners who took long lunches, long dinners, read the paper at their desk. They seemed to enjoy office time more than actual personal time. This led to other people working longer hours because if the boss takes a long late lunch, meetings start late, last longer.... Boss doesn't review work until after finishes long dinner and read the paper.... It seemed to me, the desire to stY at work or be in he office was stronger than going home. It wasn't that they wre always working but delaying which caused others to delay going home too.

YES YES YES. This is absolutely what I've experienced in BigLaw the past four years. I think that a big part of it is people wanting to be there late to show how "committed" they are to the firm. There's also the perception that the later you're there, the harder you work. It's disappointing that there's this perception, because it makes it much harder to get out of work at a decent hour, especially when people stay late when it's not necessary, and keep other people there late as well. I've noticed that certain people just do not want to go home and stretch their days out, although obviously this is not the case for everyone.