Legal News

On Working Mothers at Big Firms: A Blistering Critique

By Ashby Jones

Over the years, we’ve read a lot of critiques of the ways big law firms handle the issue of part-time work for mothers (and fathers) of young children.

Many of these, it seems, end on this slight up-note: That the state of things on this front are getting better. Firms are becoming more lenient with part-time parents, more understanding of the needs of their female associates and partners. This is a problem we’re working hard to fix, the firms seem to say.

Enter Kim Tasso. Writing for the UK-based publication The Lawyer, Tasso, the founder of a consulting firm that caters to professional-services outfits, lambastes law firms for their lack of progress on the issue. Granted, she’s setting her sites on UK firms, but readers on this side of the pond will likely, we imagine, find themselves nodding along with Tasso’s remarks.

She describes the situation faced by many working parents like this:

Most working parents realise that a four-day week means pay is cut by 20 per cent to manage the same workload, as well as 'that little bit extra' to make up for a perceived lack of commitment. . . .

The 'protect the billable hours' practice of scheduling meetings either at dawn or dusk means lives are filled with ­unproductive negotiations with grumpy childcarers or indignant spouses. . . .

Working with kids is no tea party. Every day is tense as you know what must be done before cut-off time, when you must leave to prevent your childcarer entering meltdown. You race from the office, grabbing files to read overnight and exchanging ­messages on the phone and Outlook.

The rail services maintain your high blood pressure as the inevitable delays mean you reach home within a gnat's hair of nanny-leaving time. Then you slap on a smile as you read bedtime stories for the little darlings before you can prepare for tomorrow's meeting. Just as their eyes finally shut, your colleague phones to ­discuss a key point and you start over. When you finally fall exhausted into bed at 3am you are awoken by bad dreams (the child's, not yours). Morning starts with guilt generated by tearful faces as you abandon them to skip out of the house the moment nanny pulls onto the drive.

Interestingly, Tasso places some of the blame for the situation on other women — either women who haven’t had children or on those whose children have grown. She writes:

Sisterly solidarity? I don't think so. Many senior women remember the tough time they had battling through the glass ceiling and see no reason to make it easier for today's mums. It's "character building", they say. Even Generation X roll their eyes and moan about the "extra cover" they must do while the mums leave to collect their children.

But women aren’t entirely to blame, according to Tasso.

There's gender bias too. When a female leaves the office to collect her child there are sideways glances - she puts her kids before her career and, more importantly, the firm. When a male does the same, people smile - how sweet. And how modern.

The answer? For Tasso, the answer isn’t to stay at a law firm. It’s to get out, take a job at a “listed company.” She makes the case this way:

At a listed company a female board member never arrives before 10am and always leaves at 5.30pm - and she works four days a week. Her bonus is protected in view of the high cost of a full-time nanny. She has a dedicated PA (others share) to pick up the pieces of her time-constrained life. Board meetings during the school ­holidays are avoided. The view of the chairman is that this is acceptable if quality women directors are to be encouraged in the industry. Now that's flexible working.

LBers, any thoughts?

Photo: iStockPhoto

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on February 16, 2010 (boomark / email).