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?

"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!

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.

Definition of "Supportive Spouse"

I recently had lunch with a young woman, just entering the profession, who wanted my advice on being-a-woman-in-the-law. I told some war stories, and we talked about clothes, and women judging women, and I gave her my usual, it-is-hard-but-it-is-possible-and-the-key-is-to-have-a-supportive-spouse (or partner or whatever) advice, and then suddenly, for the first time in the many years I have been giving this spiel, I suddenly realized what a "supportive spouse" is. Eureka!

A supportive spouse is NOT someone who thinks: "Of course, you like your job and you went to law school all those years and it's just as impotant as what I do." Nor is being a supportive spouse about the money (who doesn't need two salaries these days?). A supportive spouse is someone who simply cannot imagine you being or doing anything else: someone for whom your being a lawyer is so bound up in who and what you are, that for him (or her, I suppose, but this feels like a him conversation), just as for you, there aren't any options and you haven't made a "choice" to do this, it just is, and because it is, we have to work together to make it work.

Time

I'm paid - and to a significant extent, evaluated - by the minute. Or to be more precise, by the six-minute increment. At work, I account for my time in tenths of hours. Typically, people who do the type of work I do are expected to write up and "bill" at least 1850-2000 hours per year. Considerably more to rank near the top in billings. On the surface, that doesn't sound like so much. Over fifty weeks (allowing two weeks vacation), 2000 hours equates to forty hours per week, or eight hours per business day.

In practice, however, it's far more. Billable hours are the time submitted on a bill to a client, and it is a rare day when eight hours in the office nets even seven hours of billable time. Ethical lawyers don't bill for lunch, chit-chatting with their secretary, trips to the rest room, talking with their daughter's school on the phone, sending out the bills and paying vendors, writing articles for publication, managing the office, training younger lawyers, business development, or being diversity coordinator. Yet most of these activities must take place for the business to function, and all of them have to take place for life to function. In short, to bill eight hours takes at least ten in the office, maybe eleven or twelve.

Viewed from that perspective, working into the night and many weekends is the norm for most lawyers.

Ironically, the hardest time to bill is often the most harried. There are blocks of time--writing a lengthy court submission, trying a case--that easily translate to long hours. But those are the fun times for a lawyer. The hard days are the days when five different cases each have small crises. There are umpteen phone calls to clients and 238 separate emails to read and delete in between harried hallway conferences about the best strategy for responding to the newest demand.

You look up and it is eight o-clock. You've been glued to the phone and computer screen for twelve hours, and without realizing it, you skipped lunch. You'll be late home for dinner; your spouse will be angry and the children too exhausted to tell you about their days. But when you sit down to account for those hard-worked, hard-earned hours, they just don't add up.

Six minutes for this email exchange; twelve minutes for that call; half an hour here. Six maybe seven hours all told if you search that harried memory. You moved so fast and did so much the only thing you had no time to do was count the time. Where ever did it go?

Today was one of those days.

"No One Would Want Your Life" - About my blog

I am a mother. I am also a senior partner in a national litigation law firm.

Several years ago, the law firm asked me to become its Diversity Coordinator. I had often spoken my mind about the scarcity of women in my world (at the time, 2 of our approximately 40 partners were female), but still, it was not a position I coveted. Diversity Coordinator is an important job, and a hard one, and the skills required to do it well are not necessarily the same skills that make an effective litigator.

Before accepting the post, I asked a lot of questions, and I did some hand-wringing, and I asked my closest confidants for advice. Most were in favor. But the deciding vote was my husband's. He was adamant that I should not do it, and he offered his two most persuasive arguments:

(1) "It's pointless: you will never be able to change anything."

(2) "And anyway, NO ONE WOULD WANT YOUR LIFE."

Well, I still think I can do anything if I just try hard enough. And it so happens that I like my life. It has its moments, of course, and there are days - lots of them - when I think, "I just can't do this any more!!!," - but most of the time, it's pretty good. My work is engaging and exciting; my children are marvelous (most of the time), and too, there are diversions. I love my chickens, and growing food, reading, writing poetry and skiing. I watch my children play baseball; I play my guitar; I bake bread; I waste countless hours on the internet. Occasionally, I even talk to my friends.

So, I had to become Diversity Coordinator, because it may be hectic, but if I can do it, anyone can. I haven't changed the world yet, but we're making progress. And somehow, the rest of life goes on.

This blog, about the ups and downs of one not-so-bad, cobbled together existence, is for everyone who is trying to "have it all," and if not quite getting "all," is managing to find a way to stitch a decent quilt from the pieces of all.

2012 - Please note, everything in this blog is "true," but not all of it is dead accurate. Meaning, sometimes, I homogenize experience for the sake of anonymity and story line. Questions? Post a comment and I'll respond.