Having It All: Perspectives from A New Mother

Happy International Women’s Day! I have a new perspective as I write this while at home on my first maternity leave. As a 50/50 owner of a business, it has been a scary time both as a new parent and stepping away from my other “baby”, my law firm.  

When I partnered with Bob Carter, Q.C., to open Carter Simpson in 2019 I was singularly focused on building the firm. For my entire career as a lawyer which began in 2010, I was single-mindedly focused on one thing--making partner. I had always wanted a family, but I was convinced I should put that off until I had attained my career goals, or they were at least within reach. And therein lies the issue—a career in law vs raising a family--is it an “either/or” proposition or can it be “both/and”?

The problem of women leaving the practice of law is not new. Coming up as a young associate I heard about the exodus of women from private practice, the “leaky pipeline” as it has been referenced[1]. When I graduated from Dalhousie Law School, women comprised more than 50% of graduating class as well as the number of associates entering firms. At that time equal numbers of women and men started as associates in private practice but achieving partnership in big law was anything but equal. This is particularly true when it comes to the number of women who become equity partners in firms.

My journey to law school began while I was still completing my undergraduate degree. I was considering a career in law but thought it would be useful to get some experience working in a law firm before making a six-figure investment in a law degree. I began working as a legal assistant at a large law firm during the summers of my last years of my undergrad degree and then decided to take a year off school and work at a firm full-time before going to law school.

In 2005 I switched firms and began working as a legal assistant at a mid-sized firm in HRM before enrolling at Dalhousie University to begin law school. I returned to the firm during the summer and worked as a paralegal, then a second-year law student, and an articled clerk.

By the time I joined the firm as an associate I had worked there in some capacity for 5 years. I was determined to make partner at that firm and put everything I had into my job. I hit financial and billing targets year after year, once even winning the award for being the most productive associate at the firm. Despite excelling in the associate role, partnership never came. I continued toiling, thinking my turn would come, but grew more and more dissatisfied.

When I began to raise the issue of partnership in earnest, I was managing a multi-million-dollar practice. Imagine my reaction when I was told there were concerns that I was not “rowing in the same direction” as the firm. When I think about those words today my blood still boils. In my view, I was giving everything I had to the firm. I worked long hours, weekends, holidays, I took on all non-billable tasks asked of me, I had excellent client reviews, no client complaints, I got along with my fellow associates, the partners in my department and all staff. I began to wonder what I was doing wrong, and my confidence took a huge hit. That is when I began to explore other options. I interviewed with a couple of other personal injury firms. I almost joined one of them, however they had no maternity leave policy, which was a deal breaker for me. For all my dissatisfaction in my current position, they did have an excellent maternity leave policy, although I had heard fellow female associates bemoan the difficult transition back to work. They were expected to come back to the office full time and hit all targets while juggling their new role as mother with an infant to care for at home.

Again, these issues are far from new. Traditionally lawyers work long hours and have intense billing and financial targets. This conflicts directly with family planning and childcare responsibilities which traditionally fall disproportionately to mothers. First there are the physical and emotional realities of pregnancy, the possibility of pregnancy loss, labour, postpartum recovery, and breastfeeding. Even as a child grows more independent, daycare and school drop-offs, providing care during the standard—and not so standard--childhood illnesses, planning birthday parties, organizing after-school care, lessons, and schedules all tend to be tasks that generally fall to mothers. Although I knew this theoretically, I am now becoming aware of its truth from an experiential learning perspective as I am just over two months into my motherhood journey. I am almost 100% physically recovered from giving birth but very much in the newborn stage where I can never be too far from my son as I am his primary food source!

I am planning to return to my practice when my son is still very young, 3-4 months old. Having mapped this out in my head, the only way it works is with flexible scheduling and significant time working from home. Working the past two years through the COVID 19 pandemic has resulted in a positive paradigm shift in the sense that the world now sees how much work can be done remotely. Technology has allowed much work to be done from anywhere and has highlighted that there is no magic to being in an office for 10 hours a day. In addition to this shift, I am extremely lucky to have a very supportive business partner. I am confident he will be understanding with my schedule as I transition to the role of ‘working mom’.

I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the privilege that informs my current position and point of view. I am financially stable. I live in a home with a large, dedicated home office. I have an extremely ‘hands on’ husband who takes on whatever childcare he can. My son has 5 grandparents and step grandparents living locally who all clamour to relieve us and spend time with their grandson. I will be the first to acknowledge that all my return-to-work plans fall apart if I were a single parent or operating without the proverbial village of support. Which brings me back to my original question—can I be both a mother and a lawyer or must I choose one and let the other go? I do not envision a day anytime soon when the work involved with raising a family will be evenly split between partners despite the recent gains we have made on this front. That leaves us with the other half of the equation as a focus for change. Successful, equitable, “just” law firms of the future will need to have flexible work schedules designed to accommodate the various permutations of family life that shape women’s and men’s daily responsibilities at home.

[1] See for example: https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/publications/youraba/2019/december-2019/new-report-details-how-law-firms-can-keep-experienced-women-from/