Cooperstown: Who's on First?

I'm in Cooperstown for two weeks with my baseball playing 12-year old, participating in a summer ritual familiar to serious baseball parents throughout the country. Every summer, Cooperstown Dreamspark runs weekly tournaments at a facility so stunningly perfect in baseball terms that it lives up to its own advertising as the Little Major Leagues.

In most respects, my baseball adventure is identical to that of the 15,000 other baseball families who come here each year. We will win impossible games on walk off home runs by the small kid who has never hit one before, or we will be mercied, maybe even by teams we should have beaten. We will learn about baseball, and we will learn about character. We will take photographs and buy T-shirts. But in one way, my experience is different.

You see, my 12-year old ball player is a girl. And even at Cooperstown Dreamspark, where "dreams come true," they don't sell a little brother's T-shirt that says, "I have no life, my SISTER plays baseball."

At Cooperstown last week, there were 1400 boys competing, and 6 girls. In America, girls don't play baseball. Some of this is by choice; some of it is because they are refused the opportunity by schools which still prohibit girls from participating in America's pasttime.

In my particular corner of the law, I am still often the only woman. I am accustomed to walking into large conference rooms or courtrooms, and finding I am alone in a group of 40 men. I have never been uncomfortable. In truth, I rather like it. But I'm not 12 and still growing into my adult self, and while I may meet the occasional old-timer who is a little confused by me, no one, absolutely no one, ever tells me I can't do what I'm doing.

My daughter's world is tougher than mine, perhaps more like the women entering the legal world in the '60's and '70's, but the rules are the same. And they are, I think, a good reminder that while it may be easier now for women in law than it was thirty years ago, and while we may bend these rules more now than ever before, they still apply and we break them at our peril.

Here are some things my daughter--let's call her Ursa--has already had to learn.

To succeed as a girl in a boy's game:

• It is not enough to be good. You have to be better. You may have to be the best.

Ursa is a very good player, but she is not the best. She is good enough to make every team she tries out for, but she is not so good that they HAVE to have her. Often, that alone makes all the difference. They will not change rules for her (e.g., at a school that does not allow girls to play), and she depends on having "enlightened" coaches who see only a ballplayer, not a ballplayer with a ponytail.

• Walk like a boy. Talk like a boy.

As a female in a male world, it's important to fit in and not call attention to one's femaleness. In my world, that requires a certain comfort level with off-color jokes and sports banter.

For Ursa, it is the same. She loves her Cooperstown team because they accept her completely. The proof? They don't stop being crude 12-year old boys when she enters a room. And when Ursa takes the field (and no where else), she lopes along in the same rangy saunter of her team mates, shoulders slouched, head bobbing. If it weren't for the ponytail, you'd never know she is a girl.

I have met many girl ballplayers in the last few years. Off the field, some are girly, some are not, like any collection of adolescent girls. But on the field, they are all the same. They all walk like boys. Very young, they realized this was their ticket to admission into the clubhouse.

• No short shorts.

Ursa is lucky enough to play very occasionally on a national all-girls exhibition team as well as her usual, local boys' teams. The girls' team competes against boys at big tournaments (including Cooperstown), and at such tournaments, her coach has only one piece of advice that Ursa never gets from her other coaches:

"No short shorts. We want to be remembered for our play on the field; not how we dressed off the field."

Women lawyers have much more freedom in dress now than when I entered the profession, but the fact remains. If you want to be sure you are taken seriously, be remembered for your play on the field, not the cut of your blouse.

____________

Each fall, I take Ursa to tryouts for her spring and summer teams. Some of those teams are highly competitive, and the tryouts are huge. Ursa is always the only girl. I cannot describe the feeling of 200 pairs of male eyes simultaneously pretending not to notice my girl. But I can relay the whispered comments: "Get a load of that pony tail!" "Oh, this is going to be rich."

Some how, Ursa finds the courage to close her ears, time and again, and she saunters to the practice mound, seemingly oblivious.

She looks in. She sets. She deals.

And the snickers are no more: "Hey, that girl can throw!"

That 12-year old is my hero. After all, you can learn a lot from a kid.

For girls' baseball opportunities and to learn more about girls' baseball, visit http://www.baseballforall.com/ and http://www.girlsplaybaseball.org/.

Poem: Tuesdays on Slate

With my apologies to the Atlanta Review,

which is the true source for the best new poetry

(imho), but which, sadly, does not publish on line . . . .

Slate

It is Tuesday

and so even

before checking

my stock or

opening my email

to see what has

gone awry while

I was sleeping

or if there is

something newly

funny circum-

navigating

the worldwide web,

I go straight to

Slate to read the

weekly poem

because as

everyone

who attends to

poetry knows

Slate offers the best

new poetry,

except, of course,

for The New Yorker,

which also

publishes old

poetry if

the poet has

recently died

or there is a

new translation

from the Polish,

and I suddenly

wonder: when did

the minutiae

of everyday life

articulated

in triple-barreled

words become

the stuff of

poetry and

whatever happened

to love and loss

and when was it

exactly that

we decreed

that Truth should be

quotidian?

Thank you, Hillary

I happen to love Hillary. Not so much her politics (though I frequently agree with them), but her endurance. I look at her, and I think: "Everything they said and did to you, Hillary, they would have said and done to me." Something about that independence, and lawyerliness (a certain sassy, witchy strength), combined in a not too, too unattractive package just seems to enrage some people, like a red flag to a bull. (Paradoxically, I almost like Sarah P., because she has escaped this fate, and is very beautiful and powerful, and that suggests to me that we are coming closer to the day when smart and hot are not mutually exclusive concepts - yes, I know the smart is in question, and that's where I say almost, because if she were definitely smart, I would like her even when I don't, if that makes sense to anyone other than me. Run on sentence, deep breath!)

But politics is not the point of my blog, and what I want to thank Hillary for is something we can all agree on. Thank you, Hillary, for the expression, "It takes a village." Those words crystallized something many of us knew intuitively, but had not yet organized intellectually in quite so clear a way.

I have a village. I have written about my "supportive spouse," and he lives in the village, but it has many other residents: a nanny, a house cleaner, a launderer, an errand doer, and a gardener. There are people who accept packages; people who deliver things (clothes, groceries, birthday presents); and people who teach things (flute, baseball). They are all part time (don't assume I have the staff of an English country house), but without them, we . . .
no . . . I, could not do what I do. Without them, I would not have the freedom to travel and try cases and work weekends.

I am grateful for that freedom, even as I recognize the inherent circularity of all: working so hard to make the money to pay the people who make it possible for me to work so hard.

Recently, I was speaking with the (female) general counsel of a Fortune 200 company, and she told me a story about the company's CEO, also a woman. The CEO has children about the same age as mine (who are 10 and 13), and the story is that Ms. CEO has authorized her staff to accept calls from her children, when she is in meetings and on conference calls, and the staff are charged with enforcing the rules: "No, Tommy, thirty minutes is the limit for Nintendo on a school night! You have to finish your math flash cards."

Listening to the story, I was shocked -- I have always rigidly maintained the professional/personal line with my (always female) secretaries -- but also, somehow, thrilled. Is that difference between me and a CEO? She knows how to ask for the help she needs to coordinate all her responsibilities? Or has she crossed an inexcusable line?

The former, I think. And yet, how could I ever ask my secretary to do that? Or expect my children to accept it?

What do you think? Is part of your village at the office?

(Way Too) Close to You

Has anyone else noticed that, when sitting three-by-three in airline steerage, men are alotted both armrests, and women are alotted no more than one and often none? Or more specifically, men take both armrests as a right, and women do not take any, unless they are seated next to other women, in which case, each politely takes one?

"Bad Mommy!"

Due to a confluence of circumstances, it recently fell on me to pick my children up from school--not the late "after care" pick-up, which I often do, but the mid-afternoon, when-classes-end pick-up normally reserved for nannies and mothers (mostly) who do not work full time. Planning my day in the morning, I realized I might have to drop off my afternoon conference call if it ran long, but I didn't think much more about it.

Inevitably, though, the conference call began to drag, and I started bargaining with myself over the drop-dead drop-off moment. How long could I manage to stay on the call and still not be late? Let's see, if it takes twenty-five minutes to get to school, no, say twenty (I'll drive fast), then I have to leave at, at, at . . .

When? Oh my god! I don't know. When do I have to be there?

I couldn't make that calculation because . . .

I don't know when my children get out of school!

My Fair Lady

I was in London on business a few weeks ago. The first day was pre-planned "jet lag day": arrive early, sleep it off, work a little, and walk around in the noon day sun. Early to bed, and tomorrow, you're good as new. (Because I love London so much, I won't complain about the billable day lost in the process).

My hotel was near both Saville Row and the business district, so I took the opportunity of my stroll to look for London business women. I was hoping to confirm that the clothes I had packed would not be too far off base.

Here's what I found:

1)   There are no London business women!

I wandered through bustling London streets, for two hours on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon, and I simply could not find any exemplars. At first I thought I was in the wrong place, or it was the wrong time, but there were businessmen everywhere in classic London business dress: chalk stripes, colorful shirts, cufflinks and flashy ties. Where were the women?

I cannot explain this, except possibly, as pure law of numbers. Are there still so many fewer women in the business world in London than in the United States?

Finally, I found a few. And I do mean a few, two maybe, in that whole long walk. I saw a small handful of others in meetings the next day, and I learned something else:

2)   On my (admittedly small) sample size, London business women dress like U.S. business women dressed twenty years ago.

The women I saw and met were all wearing skirts or dresses. ALL of them! And (with the exception of some extraordinary shoes--we didn't wear those in the early '90s!), the skirts were the same stodgy, man-like skirt suits we abandoned in 1999.


Now, I have nothing against skirts and dresses. I often wear them, but increasingly, when I'm at my most lawyerly -- in court or for a pitch to a prospective client for a hundred million dollar case -- I wear trousers. Elegant, shapely, female trousers, but trousers, nonetheless. (I'm especially partial to Elie Tahari.)

Trousers are an evolution. When I started practicing law, they were not permitted. With the exception of a few (old and now deceased) judges who made clear their views on the abomination of women in trousers, the rule was unwritten. But it was universally followed. There were slightly more elegant versions and considerably less elegant versions, but the norm was skirt suits with nude stockings and a low square heel. Designers had not yet learned how to design suits that were female without being frilly, so they put women in male suits plus boxy skirt.

What was wrong with trousers? I don't know, really. There's no answer to that, except that there was something vaguely frightening about it, and not just to men. Somewhere, subconsciously, we were all afraid--men and women alike--that if the women did everything just like the men--if the women were not only lawyers but, gasp, even wore trousers--we would all lose our way.

London can be a confusing city. But the maps are excellent and omnipresent. If you keep your head, you can't get too terribly lost. I'm pretty sure in a few years, the women in trousers will be everywhere.

(But, please, keep the shoes). Ooo, la, la.

All the Young Men

An email from one of my male colleagues made me smile the other day. He's a senior associate I work with a lot, and rely on even more. I had sent him some last minute revisions to a motion we were filing, and he emailed back: "Ok 2 call u later? @ the dr w/ R for his 2 year old check up."

Now, it wasn't the "u," or the poor grammar that made me smile (I'm just old enuf 2 think u should always use ur best English 4 ur boss). It was something much more enlightened that I am finding to be almost as common among his peers as text-speak: specifically, male forthrightness about family commitments.

Twenty years ago, when I was a young lawyer (how awful that sounds!), men didn't take their 2-year olds to well-baby visits, and women pretended they were going somewhere else: "Unfortunately, I'm out of the office at that time on another engagement." That state of affairs wasn't good for any of us. The men I know are all good fathers, and they would have liked to be at that appointment (and at the school plays and birthday parties and recitals), and the mothers didn't like going to those appointments alone. Even worse was the sense we shared that we had to hide what we were doing, like it was somehow shameful to be a parent.

Twenty years ago, we knew how to write a proper note to our boss.

Twenty years ago, we understood that the workplace is a formal setting.

But if excessive informality is the price we have to pay to let fathers be fathers and mothers be honest, I'll take it.

Reply to colleague?

"Ok. It can w8. Talk 2 u l8r."

Praying for Ash (a/k/a Travel Hell)

Dateline: 30,000 ft over Charlotte (Thursday, April 22 – 11:45 p.m.)

Though I originally meant it tongue in cheek, today is one of those days embedded in one of those weeks in one of those months when, truly, no one would want my life.

It’s nearly midnight, and I’m trying to get home from Richmond, on my third plane after one cancellation, two re-routings, and additional avian indignities (including being ejected from a flight I got on standby after the true seat owner showed up). By the time I get home, I will have been up for 22 hours for a client who won’t let me bill travel time.

I could have stayed in Richmond, of course, but this way, I will wake up in my own bed and send my children off to school tomorrow. And that, my friends, makes all the difference.

Here’s a snapshot of the seventh circle of travel hell.

____________

Week One: Monday. Up at 4:30 am for the first flight out for two days in Chicago. No, not really Chicago, that would ok (sort of). What I mean by “Chicago,” is a strip mall/fast food/absolutely must-rent-a-car exurb of Chicago. Back Tuesday night, kids already in bed. Wednesday: office, no time for lunch. Thursday, marathon “day trip” to Richmond. Friday: kiss the kids, work from home.

Week Two: Monday, yes, your Honor, it would be my pleasure to spend the entire day travelling to and from Richmond (again!) for a five minute status conference. Tuesday, parent teacher conference (Teacher: “He would definitely benefit from more time with you. Do you think that could be arranged?”). Tuesday night, red eye to London. Arrive 6:45 a.m. GMT. Wednesday, quick shower, new clothes, try to look presentable despite night on plane and jet lag. Listen from somewhere deep inside exhaustion as my disembodied voice explains, “Yes, the Court is requiring you to produce those documents.” (Is that really me talking?) Client insists on long slow dinner. Drink too much and be too jolly. Thursday, Friday, London, London. Saturday, EU. More clients. More drinking. More jolly. Sunday, home.

Week Three: Monday, office. Tuesday, California. Wednesday, California. Thursday night, red eye to New York. Friday, may not get to shower. (Yikes!) Try-to-look presentable despite night on plane and continent lag. Listen to foggy disembodied voice. No time to drink. No time to be jolly. Please, US Air, please: home for dinner?

_____________

Every fall, there is a 2L who says to me, “You travel so much. That must be very exciting.” And you know, perhaps it is. After all, once you get to those places, there are such remarkable people there, and such interesting problems. But, oh my, the journey . . .

Working at Home

These are the days I like best. Early spring, cool in the morning with a mist that clings to daffodils. Before settling down to work, with my papers and computer, sprawled across the bed, I always walk through the garden, admiring each new plant and the promise of harvests to come. I visit my chickens, and take a few minutes to savor them as they peck and fuss and hunt for food.

In an hour, I will be on a conference call with opposing counsel in a multi-hundred million dollar case. He's a New York lawyer in every sense--the good and the bad--and he cannot imagine the setting in which his call finds me. It makes me smile, the contrast between the obstructionist arrogance that is my life, and this bucolic setting that is also my life.

Working at home is one of the reasons I can do what I do. When I am not traveling, I work at home several days a week. Working at home saves me two hours in a car each day; it lets me pick my daughter up from baseball; it means I can help my son with his multiplication tables. Forget "part time," alternate work schedules and technology that allow remote work are critical to the long-term success of big firm lawyers who are also mothers. But how many firms allow it?

In our case, when I was diversity coordinator, we implemented an "alternative work policy," that allows many types of non-traditional work structures, including working from home. So far, though, most of the lawyers who really work from home--consistently, successfully and no questions asked--are like me, so senior, that we don't need policies, we just do it. I suppose that's the way it will always be: first, you have to prove yourself. And I suppose, too, that even the option and the capability are progress. After all, most of the lawyers in my firm who work from home are male, and having a "policy" that the men use too, well, that's the quickest route I know to long-term acceptance.

Casual Friday

Ok, I am just going to say it: "I hate casual Fridays."

It is 8:54. It takes me an hour to drive to work. And here I still am in the closet, ankle deep in discarded outfits. What to wear, what to wear?

Casual Sunday is easy. I wear what I want. Those marvelous jeans I've loved so long that the belt loops are tearing off. A tight sexy skirt and boots. (No, wait, that's casual Saturday). PJs?

Those same jeans used to be the casual Friday standby. Dressed up with a black cashmere sweater and boots. Something expensive in my ears. Neat, comfortable, but together. Attractive, but not too sexy. It all said, she's comfortable enough to be really comfortable, but wow, I'll bet she's scary in court.

But now what?

Khakis? Too dowdy.

Short skirt and sweater? Umm, that's a little too short.

Jeans with ripped belt loops? What does she think this is - a rock concert?

The other jeans? Why was it again that I never wear them? Oh, yeah, right. Mom jeans!

Vintage Marimekko mini-dress? Well, maybe. Wait, no. That might reveal my personality. We NEVER do that at the office.

Can't I please just wear my lawyer costume?

Please . . .