A Lawyer In Full

My December Dicta column is up: A Lawyer in Full. It looks at how expectations and reality are prone to diverge when it comes to part-time/reduced hours schedules.

You can access my earlier Dicta columns, On Life Support, and Death by Committee, and Rare Birds, at those links.

Why Part-Time Is Big Time

(Image by Gerard Bierens, CC by-nc-nd)

Cynthia Thomas Calvert over at the Project for Attorney Retention (PAR) blog has a response to my recent Dicta column (Rare Birds). She explains why men and part-time schedules are an important indicator:

Why the big emphasis on the number of male part-time lawyers? Two reasons: first, PAR has identified the number of males working part-time as a key indicator of the health of a firm's part-time program. If males at your firm are afraid to reduce their hours, then your firm's part-time program is too stigmatized to be an effective recruiting and retention tool for any lawyers. Second, it is very important for males to be able to have work/life balance, as PAR has been advising for years through its principle of "universal application" for part-time programs. It is important for their mental health, for their families' lives, and for eventual gender equality.

On the last point, please see Monica Bay, Bob Abrogi, Chere Estrin, and this August U.S. Census report (PDF) on the 51% across-the-board gender pay gap in the legal profession. I don't know how you address this until the male part-time stigma goes away and work-life balance begins to mean the same thing regardless of gender. (E.g., having a ready book stash under your desk to occupy little ones during a quick morning blog post...)

Cynthia links to PAR's chart tracking (among other things) the number of part-time men and women at various firms, which is interesting to scroll through. There are zero to a small percentage of part-time men at most firms, though at Alston and Fullbright for example it's a dead heat, and at Arent Fox part-time men outnumber women. As Cynthia points out, "perhaps not all [of these part-time men] are dads, and perhaps some are working part-time as they near retirement, but their numbers both show and contribute to a change in law firm culture." She says PAR is "in the midst of a study of part-time partners, and the part-time dad partners are lining up to be interviewed," so we can look forward to that. In the meantime, thanks to all the male lawyers who've emailed to say they're looking forward to the de-stigmatization of part-time work for men, and/or that they've abandoned BigLaw to chart their own, more participatory course.

Rare Birds

My September Dicta column is up: Rare Birds. In addition to all the great input I received from readers here, my inspirations included:

• Women now have choices. They can be married, not married, have a job, not have a job, be married with children, unmarried with children. Men have the same choices we've always had: work or prison. ~Tim Allen


• If it can't be fixed by duct tape or WD-40, it's a female problem. ~Jason Love


• Man who drive like hell, bound to get there. ~pseudo-Confucian proverb

You can access my earlier Dicta columns, On Life Support, and Death by Committee, at those links.

Lawyer Dads: There Or Square?

Lawyer
Originally uploaded by marcokalmann

My colleague Vivia Chen at The American Lawyer wrote this month that more male lawyers are taking paid paternity leave when their kids are born. Undeniably good news.

But what happens when their 2 or 4 or 6 weeks of leave is up? As they put it at building a better legal profession,

many attorneys, particularly but not only female attorneys, internalize the billable hour standards of the workplace, sometimes letting it become the standard by which they live their personal lives. but lawyers that view children's birthday parties, a social dinner, and other personal events as 'costing' them two or three hours away from work risk alienation and isolation from friends, family, and the community. the constant pressure to think, "i could be billing" is deeply troubling to lawyers seeking a fulfilling personal life.

Is the legal work place really changing, or are law firms putting a high-profile band-aid on a chain saw wound? Why are lifestyle issues inevitably "women's issues?" Do men care about work life balance? Are they achieving it? Is the paternity leave stigma really gone? What about men availing themselves of part-time schedules for family reasons? What is the long-term career impact of such a choice?

I'm working on a column along these lines and would appreciate hearing any thoughts you may have, in the comments or by email. Further discussion spaces in Facebook.

Death By Committee

My June Dicta column is up: Death by Committee. In a nutshell: until law firm women's initiatives decide to spend more time kicking ass than kissing it, the most meaningful effect they're likely to have on your life is an unscheduled afternoon nap.