To think that a career in law is incompatible with family life?

[musingsofawannabemumpreneur]

Back story...

I'm in my late 20s, and have a 9 year old son. Currently 3 years out of 4 through a part time law degree. The deadline for applying for training contracts when I'd need one is fast approaching.

The more I look into it, the more I can't fathom how both undertaking a training contract and a subsequent career in law will be possible with family life. From what I can gather, it's all very long hours, with chances of flexible working only available to established lawyers already working for firms, late nights par for the course, and chances of promotion extremely slim for part time workers. AIBU?

I don't want to head further down this path to realise it's not compatible with having a family at all, but also don't want my degree to be wasted.

Another piece of information which might be pertinent is that I have recently had ovarian reserve tests done, which show that I have a very, very diminished ovarian reserve for my age, and so if I want more babies (which I think I do!), then I'll definitely need to start thinking about that sooner rather than later.

I'm feeling totally overwhelmed and bereft about this today. Currently sat in a shopping centre car park trying not to cry as just feel so lost with my options. Very unsure about what I want to actually do with my life!

Would anyone in the legal field be able to offer their honest advice or opinions please?

I'm a solicitor with a young family. I was qualified for two years before I had my first child. I worked for a national law firm in a city (not London) and had good work/life balance but salary was only £48k. I then moved in-house in same city and instantly doubled my salary and all working late expectations diminished. Please don't give up, as everyone else says, it's a useful background to have. I have to admit, I think it would be simpler to do without children in the first couple of years, but not impossible.

harriet I'm in house managing the ex-USA region for an MNC.

I enjoy the variety and the challenge, I manage my own diary and there are very few non-negotiables for me. Of course work is not limited to 40 hours a week and it's rare to feel I've switched off but I'm mid way through a three week break over Christmas do figficult to complain

The DC sometimes get frustrated that I take calls out of "office hours" but I very rarely miss a production/recital/key sports match and the fact I have the earning capacity I do means that we get great quality time together.

I'm a criminal barrister with two small children. It's not an easy combination but it is possible. It's not the best career choice money wise though.

I'm in house and love it. DH works part time so easier but even if not it would be ok I think. I work 8-4.30 so I'm home for dinner.

I've said before on these threads and will say it a million times again: in my experience part time work for senior women is damaging to your career and home life.

The years I worked part time I was certainly considered to be less committed, I worked at least FT hours whilst repeatedly making myself available on my day off and picked up the lions share of the domestic work st home simply by virtue of not being in the office, all whilst getting paid less.

Best decision of my life was to go FT, take the additional salary and use a proportion of it on good domestic help which allowed me to come home to a clean house, packed lunches for the DC and dinner prepared enabling me to spend quality time with the DC.

In the first three years of working FT I received three promotions and increased my earnings three fold.

What area of law is the best paid though for ft for women?

The same as for men

By "FT for women" do you mean 9-5 so you can do it with "normal" 8am - 6pm childcare?

Because obviously women can do the 8-8 days with occasional 20 hour shifts that are needed to make a career in the Magic Circle and get the big bucks. They just need a partner with a job that enables them to pick up all the slack, or a live in nanny (or two) or to simply not have children.

Jesus christ- nit pickers are alive searching for anything remotely sjw worthy

I am clearly asking what areas of law are best in terms of earnings men or women then if we pretend there is no difference

However there clearly is just by posts on this thread so anyone who could answer pls do as it would be appreciated

Those who wet themselves over women being mentioned - pls ignore

@whisperingloudly I think you might see where I am coming from and seem to know what you are talking about so would appreciate what you would suggest

But child-free women can and do earn as much as men in many areas ucant. It's entirely reasonable to check whether you are asking about pure sex discrimination or childcare issues.

But if you just mean which areas of law women can earn most money in then Roses is right, it's the same a size the men, the Magic Circle or setting up your own very specialist private practice like Xenia. There are many female partners earning millions.

But that keeps 'areas' very generic

Ignore men v women before derailment occurs...

Conveyancing > £ than criminal or corporate for example?

Removing magic circle and London as not everyone wants or can do that

ucant if you don't like nit picking, pedantry or being picked up over use of language and its interpretation, don't go into law.

IME niche corporate bar, with cross border transactions involved. DH works at least 60 hours a week for about 44 weeks a year - used to be more but he's winding down a bit. Think six zeros. I was part of the package, he was totally supported on the home front. And has spent years picking me up or debating use of language - the DC too .

I have to disagree that that is the case across the board whispering - perhaps more common in the private sector.

I'm certainly not seen as less committed where I work despite being part-time. My boss is a woman with young children she works a 4 day week. She repeatedly tells me not to log in on my days off or offer to come in for meetings on my working from home day. I feel valued. I work on the same challenging stuff as my FT colleagues. I'm not overlooked.

Would I be more senior by now if I hadn't gone part time after DC1? Maybe. But in my view it's about achieving what feels like a balance. That might be different for different people.

Your balance was to go FT and use the extra money to cover domestic stuff so you felt the time with your children was quality time.

Mine was to work 3 days. Less money. Perhaps a slower career progression. But I feel as if I'm able to spend more time with my children, with less stress while still really enjoying what I do. That's worth more than the extra money or seniority. For me. Right now. I may go FT in a few years. I appreciate I'm very lucky with where I work though and their approach to flexible working.

Anyway my point is there are different ways of achieving the right balance. It's possible to have a fulfilling legal career but also work part time.

worriedmum I worked PT in both GLS and private practice and although the experience was very different, I found the former to be quite depressing: a lot of paying lip service to equality but the reality was very much an old boy network attitude and an understanding that you're never going to excel if you're doing a 3 day week.

I agree it's ultimately about balance: but if a woman decides less pay and progression works for them that's fine but I'd argue both decisions are ultimately "damaging to [a woman's] career" : it's very difficult to recover from years of PT lower paid work.

Also a career in law is almost as broader spectrum as any. As I wrote earlier there are many ways to be a lawyer and what works is dependent on myriad factors.

I started at the bar and moved on after 4 years whilst pregnant. I've subsequently had three stages in my DC career:

Govt - low paid, shorter hours (so could drop DC off at childcare) but limited flexibility during those hours (couldn't nip out for school play without using formal leave/flexi process)

Private practice PT -considerably higher paid but poor work life balance. Felt crap parent & crap employee. Constant juggling at home and work and all for 20% less pay

In house MNC - FT this was a revelation. Having progressed in seniority I have full autonomy over 95% of my working life. If I need to be with kids I'm with kids. Obvs I don't do bulk of childcare but if I'm not traveling I'm home for breakfast and dinner.

My schedule is largely constructed around their key social/sporting events. I don't miss birthdays, first days of school terms or medical appointments and I don't miss important sports fixtures/competitions/recitals. And the pay allows me to outsource domestic stuff so weekends are spent playing/sporting/ hanging out and not cleaning bathroom and doing ironing. I do more hours than ever before but I've never felt so balanced.

ucant I understand what you're trying by to ask and I think it's unfair of others to suggest that childcare responsibilities are the only thing that impact on whether women can earn the same as men.

All things being equal women certainly should earn same as men but very often they don't and much of this is due to inherent prejudices around perceived strengths of women v men.

My advice would be find a niche - one of my old friends who is currently excelling developed an interest for data protection which initially was very much an add on to his bread and butter work. Now he is one of the best lawyers in the field and commands far more than many of his historically better remunerated peers in more traditionally high paying areas such as M&A/patent/Tax/life sciences etc

Fair enough whispering. I did several years in the GLS as well and it wasn't as family friendly as where I am now and certainly many of the very senior lawyers were women without children or men.

I really don't feel that my career is being "damaged" though. It depends on what your goals are. Mine have always been to have a career in the law where I feel engaged and challenged and (hopefully) contribute to the public good. The money aspect has genuinely been secondary to that. I took a quite big pay cut to move from the GLS to where I am now. I still think I'm paid quite well. I can afford to live comfortably in the South East which is fine for me.

I completely accept everyone will have a different take on it but I worry about women (or men) feeling like working flexibly around a family will inevitably "damage" their career. It depends on what you view as a rewarding career and whether money and seniority are your ultimate goals. They may well be but not always.

Not trying to.pick a fight at all by the way. It's a really interesting discussion!

Perhaps I'm not ambitious enough for myself?

Thank you very much @dublinblowin & @whisperingloudly

Many keyboard warriors are so eager to pick up on one word and ignore the actual question whilst arguing a perceived slight or sjw agenda in order to direct it to a place where they pat their own backs with self-satisfaction at fighting another war on female inequality so well.

A doctor's wife does not make the wife a doctor, and differences between men and women can be acknowledged rather than grabbing a banner and patting thyself on the back for 'fighting oppression of women' by just saying 'same as men' for anyone who dares mention women on a forum, rather than actually targeting things like actual religious oppression or actual real heinous acts against women. No, much easier to play Billy Big Bollocks online.

After all, which is more effective? Pointing out in someone's online post that MEN AND WOMEN ARE THE SAME NO MATTER WHAT OK?.. OK?(repeat ad nauseam because then it makes it true), or challenging in the physical real world, those who seek to practise such things as FGM. Definitely making a difference by nit-picking words in an online post - here are the people to get the honours next year. Truly making a difference.

Thanks to those who actually answered what was asked :)

I thnk looking at the options (and pay salaries) you would be silly not to compete your degree.

It's you in the beginning. As a trainee and the NQ my life wasn't my own and I regularly worked weekends and through the night ( city practice working in corporate).

But at Four years P Q E went in house as a commercial lawyer and that's far more manageable. Work three days a week for a very good company with interesting work and good pay. I certainly work more than my contracted hours of course but still manage to have a separate home life. I have two children, 8 and 5.

A career in law is certainly not incompatible with family life. If you are 3 years into a 4 year degree then why wouldn't you finish it. In my legal career I've worked London private practice, commercial in house, local authority and now partner in a small specialist firm. There are so many options available, ft and pt, and if you want to make it work with a family you can. You just need to be focused on your job search and clear about where your priorities are.

For someone starting in the law I would certainly recommend local authorities. I spent 5 years there and jobs are well paid with good benefits, amazing pension and normal office hours. Everyone likes to moan about workload but from my experience in different employers, LA lawyers have a great set up. And don't forget the flexi time!

It all depends how you define family life tbh. Nearly all of the female solicitors I know are married with kids, and they manage full time jobs with parenting just fine with weekly cleaners and responsible partners who also do their fair share of parenting too. One of them has 9 month old twins. Going back part time wasn't even a consideration because apparently being a solicitor at a big name practice is a really family friendly job.

I work in a City (but not Magic Circle) firm in one of the areas mentioned upthread as offering a slightly better work-life balance and, like some other posters, am shortly due to return from maternity leave. To be honest, I am dreading going back and am only doing so as a stopgap before having another baby (one upside of big law firms is very generous maternity packages), after which I intend to look for a job outside of private practice. I have seen other women in my team come back part-time after having children and it seems to me that they are expected to do 90-95% of a full-time job on significantly less than 90% pay while being hugely grateful that they were "allowed" to go part-time in the first place.

I agree with other posters that to succeed in private practice you need to be able to put in the hours as a junior, which if you are a parent means having either a supportive partner who picks up a lot of the domestic slack or significant other help, paid (nanny/cleaner/gardener etc) or unpaid (grandparents). However, I have friends working in-house and for the GLS who have a much better work-life balance, so don't rule law out completely - you just need to work out what your priorities are (salary/career progression/flexibility/part-time opportunities etc) and go from there. Pps have made lots of other interesting suggestions about where a law degree could take you and I think it is very helpful to be reminded that there are other options beyond the traditional path of City training contracts. Good luck with your degree!