Has anyone else seen the incredible possibility here? A dozen or more qualified, motivated, experienced lawyers with the only requirement that they have a bit of flexibility to arrange their work schedules ? sounds like the beginning of a new firm. Frankly, the biggest obstacle in current private practice to ?having it all? is the partnership track expectations and financial billable hour structures in established firms which make it nearly impossible to do anything but work a 50-60-70+ hours week. Anything which falls outside of that is hard to accommodate.
Outside of starting a mom-friendly firm (and heck, let?s be honest, I bet there are more than a few lawyer dads out there who might be interested), though, I have more unsolicited advice to add to the incredibly interesting debate on this thread.
From the outset, I would say that, while I applaud your instincts to ?give it a go?, I am very pessimistic about your chances to succeed in balancing a full time, partnership track litigation practice with a level of childcare which you would be happy with and with the demands on your husband?s time in the next year (and beyond). I think you are doomed to failure, and not only will that failure take the better part of a year, or longer, but you will then have to cope with that sense of failure (no matter how justified) for a lot longer than that. Let?s face it, most of us are high achievers, and failure is not an acceptable facet of our characters.
What I would do in your shoes (and I?ve been there in one way or another) is this: think long and hard about what would be perfect for you. Since the law is a profession and not a ?job?, I doubt that ?perfect? would include chucking it in altogether. If ?perfect? includes staying more or less in your current firm and field, then put together a really well-conceived plan of how you might manage a version of your job which satisfies your professional needs while accommodating your personal situation. This will certainly, in a perfect world, involve some sort of part-time or flexi-time arrangement. Then, approach the firm (not just your boss, who doesn?t sound very accommodating) with a proposal. Approach them not only with your specific proposal, but also with the argument that law firms are generally behind the trend to provide better emphasis on accommodating and benefiting from diversity in the workplace. At some point, it?s going to catch up with firms the same way it?s caught up to companies, and some companies are making real efforts not only to attract but also to keep top talent. Argue that you are a big value added and that you have a plan that can work for everyone. Acknowledge that the firm runs on its billables and its client services, and explain how you can accommodate that. It?s a big amount of preparation and argument, but as a litigator, you?re already ahead of most of us in the skills required to organize and present a compelling argument.
At the end of the day, though I also advise you to be prepared to walk if they cannot or will not accommodate you. There are many opportunities to be a working mom, and some of the other posters have given great advice on options and opportunities. Not to mention, the new firm I only half-jokingly started out with?
All the very best, no matter what your decision. I?ve made my own set of decisions, together with my husband, in the past few years since our daughter was born, and I?m pretty well convinced there?s no real perfect solution out there, but a series of compromises gets you pretty close to where you might want to be.