One Way to Know You Travel Too Much . . .

When the TSA Agent at one of the busiest airports on the East Coast asks gruffly, "How often do you come through here?"; you answer, "Waaaay too much,"; and he breaks into a big smile saying, "I knew I recognized you!"

Senior Partner AND Mother: 10 Years Gone

Ten years ago today, I spoke to the entire partnership of my firm, and I argued my case to become a senior partner.

The year before, I had asked my firm's executive committee to understand that as the mother of two young children I could not and would not bill at the highest levels. I had asked the firm to accept that my hours would be "low" (meaning "only" 1800 to 1900 billable hours per year, rather than consistently at or above 1950-2000) and to weigh that fact, when determining my compensation, against the many more subjective ways in which I believed my contributions would continue to excel. To the firm management's credit, they accepted my proposition unconditionally.

Senior partners can only be made by a two-thirds vote of existing senior partners. (Only one of the existing senior partners was then female, and she had become a mother only after becoming a senior partner.)

As I became eligible for senior partner consideration the following year, some existing senior partners questioned whether a "part time" partner such as me should ever become a senior partner. The issue wasn't the hours per se. Though I was on the low end, there were and always have been other senior partners with low(er) hours. Nor was I "part time" under any normal definition. I worked at least 9-10 hours a day, five days a week and more on weekends. As I see it, the issue was conceptual: it was about my open acknowledgement that the firm was not my only priority. My candidacy was in doubt despite my record of past and continuing contributions equalling those of other senior partners.

And so I asked to speak at our annual year-end partner meeting where such things are decided. No one had ever done such a thing before (or since). I did not argue the facts of my contributions, but rather the meaning of senior partnership in my firm's history and partnership documents. I sought to place "commitment" in a context that recognizes that billable hours, though seemingly "objective," are not a proxy for passion, integrity, skill and business contributions.

Litigators are a tough crowd. But I still think it was the finest argument I ever gave. Who says you can't be your own lawyer?