Help: FT lawyer having a horrible time (long...)

[lemur]

All advice on how to sort my working world out would be gratefully received... here is the thing:

I have a 9.5 month DD, in FT nursery care, a job in the City as a FT lawyer in private practice and two male partner bosses who just don't seem to realise the pressure that the above combination creates. It is Saturday night and I have just had huge row with monster of boss because I have to be in meetings tomorrow (Sunday, yes, I know it is the weekend) and I physically cannot be there as have to look after DD. DP cannot look after DD as he has football match to play(and does not want to be dictated to by my bosses) I have no handy relatives nearby who can look after DD and cannot leave DD with a friend as the meeting could go on indefinitely (i.e until Monday...).

And why am I even worrying about that level of detail, when the point is that the monster boss has, beyond saying "well you are the breadwinner so DP should sacrifice what he is doing" is also making me contact all my childless colleagues in a grovelling fashion to ask them to go to the meetings tomorrow, to punish me.

I am a lawyer and I know that somewhere in all of the S**T that is currently part of my working world, there is something breaching some of my employment rights, but I am not an employment lawyer. DP is away all next weekend and I am supposed to be working then too. I feel like just not bothering to go into work ever again.

DD had Chicken Pox just before Christmas, I had to be home with her for 7 working days and the matter ended up being referred to HR and me having to take unpaid leave because I came into work one day while DP looked after DD and so lost my right to any more emergency leave for the rest of the time DD was contagious (as was not an emergency as I knew she had CP!!!). This gives you a flavour of the way it works at the firm I work at.

I have only been back at work since the end of September 2006 and the gruelling routine of half an hour each way walk to nursery and then to work plus the working on work from 8pm until midnight plus the manipulative bosses (who had/have wives at home to look after kids) being totally unreasonable plus the fact my mum died a month before DD was born and I miss her all the time = I am somewhat losing the plot. That is a bit of an understatement.

So I guess the question is, do I just accept that you cannot do it all and find new, normal, job doing something that will never mean I have to work after 5.30 or weekends, or try and win against forces of chauvinism in the City of chauvinists?

Ideas welcome. Thank you.

Unfortunately in these situations, something has to give. Of course your priority is going to be your child. Faced with the choice of picking up your baby or attending a meeting, do your employers seriously think you would leave the baby sitting there? The thing is they are men and it probably needs to be spelled out to them that you cannot work in the same way now you have a baby.

I am a lawyer and have had to agree with work that my office hours are limited to contractual hours (9-5), but I will of course work probably at least 4 or 5 hours at home in the evening a number of times a week. I have almost certainly given up my chances of partnership while I am working in this way, but then I am at a competitive firm where my chances were always pretty low. I had assumed that I would need to leave to get partnership anyway. I work on deals a lot, but I fail to see how I can't dial in to meetings and wait for marked up documents at home. I hope it will help to have been upfront about this (back to work in 3 weeks...).

You could try putting in a flexible working request to see if you could agree something similar. If you suggest a trial period, that makes it harder for them to turn down.

Hard as it may be to accept, I also think you should consider seeing what you can get out of your current employer, in terms of flexibility, parental leave and a reference and then, when your baby is a little older or your situation gets easier, move firms and get a proper run at partnership.
Also, you say your DP does not want to be dictated to by your bosses. If you are the breadwinner, then surely he can back you up a bit more? My DH is away with work a lot, so I don't have those options and need to be home in the evenings, but if he could look after the baby then I would expect him to. If the roles were reversed, wouldn't you look after the baby on the weekend so your partner could go to work?

I don't think Lemur's partner is a SAHD - if he were, why would she need to do the nursery run?

I get the impression that he works, but that perhaps her income is greater than his. That doesn't necessarily make her the breadwinner, requiring her dp to tailor his life to her work. If he works all week too, why should he have to give up a commitment to some leisure activity because her employers decide to be unreasonable? Of course, seeing the difficult situation Lemur finds herself in, he could have chosen to help out.

What does her dp do? Why is the nursery run always her responsibility? Can it not be shared so that, some days, Lemur can put in the extra hours which seem to be necessary to her job, but, on others, she leaves at a set time to do the nursery run?

It does strike me that Lemur is getting a bum deal here, both from her employers and her dp. Her employers are, to a degree, discriminating against her because, although they may demand the same of male colleagues who have children, it is well known that the bulk of childcare falls on the mother whether she is working or not and Lemur's male colleagues will not have to jump through the hoops that she will in order to make weekend meetings, etc. Her dp seems to be landing her with all the childcare, whilst he does leisure activities.

Plus she is still coping with the loss of her mum, which must make everything so much harder.

It's not unreasonable, that's the point. IN those jobs for those incomes the arrangement is you are available, you often work weekends. You are very well rewarded for that. Everyone knows that is what these jobs are like. Students at university talk abot the life and lifestyle. It's not a secret. It is is how it is. If you don't like it you leave or modify it as some people on this thread have done but there's no point in resenting it. It's like being a full time stay at home parent - you are on 24/7 call and work usually should come first. Same as with a baby. Mothers in particular will understand this. Many cope well with it.

xenia - are you a lawyer?

Xenia, you talk as though every f-t lawyer in the City earns £1-2 million pa and therefore should be expected to sacrifice every other aspect of their lives as a result.

Not every lawyer earns that sort of money. There are thousands who earn reasonably good money (in fact, very good money compared with the provinces, but reaonsable for London rates) and would not expect to have to abandon everything they are doing whenever the job calls.

As I said before, this is not just about the hours, but the humiliating way Lemur is being treated, being referred to HR for taking time off with a sick child, etc.

I meant in the top 5 firms may be. Mid tier firms' drawings may be more like £300 - £600k but surely even for taht money you would expect to be called out at night when necessary. I suppose each person has to decide what is acceptable or not for them. If you're paid the minimum wage you probably don't think 24/7 call out if okay and your weekends should be your own. If you're a senior doctor you probably agree patients come first sometimes if it's really urgent. It's people with very long hours they hate who aren't paid much I feel have the worst deal. It's not just law either is it? Don't E&Y partners make £1m a year?

Some do earn that xenia - but the average is lower. Deloitte is at the top with an average of about £850k iirc. E&Y is about £600ish I think.

Another thing that Lemur could consider is revising her training and seeing if she could move to another area of law which doesn't have the hour commitment of this area. I suspect she works in commercial law which tends to be very much driven by the client's demands (which are often very unreasonable, tbh). If she could retrain, she might be able to switch to, say, probate, which is not so time sensitive.

But that's just the partners in the top 5 firms, and the chances of getting to that level are pretty slim (and increasingly so)at most of those firms. There is therefore less of an incentive for people to sell their souls to their employers by sacrificing their family life. That is why firms are starting to develop alternative career paths for people wanting to stay in private practice.

xenia, suprised and a little confused to read your post here at 14.39. you have posted with great feeling several times (on other threads) re your strong feelings that sahms are opting out / wasting their education / not contributing / leeching off men / not living in the real world etc... (i paraphrase rather than quote but i think you'll agree the gist is correct)..... why do you think that if a father and mother decide he should be sahd that is a "fair division of labour"??? am genuinely interested.

Lemur - I forgot to mention, I read somewhere that Linklaters now offers emergency childcare cover for just this type of situation. It doesn't help with the reduction in the amount of time you get to spend with your baby, but at least if you are working out of hours, the baby is taken care of. Perhaps if you are thinking of moving, this is something you could ask potential future employers about.

Hi Lemur (are you still here?). I don't know the answer - I left. Was at city centre firm (but not in London). Now work 3 days a week in local market town. Earn very little (by lawyers' standards) but DH is equity partner in city centre firm and something had to give. Work at home in evenings and on days off sometimes. Will never go back. No regrets!

That post if you read the one below it was just my reversal of what the one below had said. Personally I can't understand how anyone can bear the inanity and lack of challenge of staying at home which is tantamount to taking on domestic service not unless youj can contract out cleaning and all the other dire stuff and just keep the fun interaction with children part I suppose but I was trying not to get into that.

When I talked abotu the deal I meant whatever your age if you're on track for that sort of money they you know the price you pay. A bargain with the devil or God I suppose, a fair price, a good deal.... not that you earn that immediately, but it's what you expect if you're excellent and work hard and have luck in those places.

The partner I know at E&Y earns £1m a year. I have a good few friends on more than that but I accept that some people are working very hard with the hope only that one day they may get to say £70k and aren't prepared to sacrifice weekends and be on 24/7 call just for that money. We each decide what is acceptable in a free market economy including a free market economy in terms of choice of husband which not enough women exercise right - they go for these sexist husbands, not all. I can see on this thread husbands who obviously do as much as wives. The Delioittes partner in the Macfarlane divorce case was on £750k a year. His wife had been a a lyer at Freshfields and allegedly sacrificed the chance to make up to £1m a year.

Freckle - I suspect you are right - I know of very few people who have stayed in commercial law post children. However the one or two that I do know have made a great success of it. Horses for courses and all that, I suspect

Generally though, compromise might be needed if you want to stay in practice and still see enough of your children to keep you sane. Time to look for a new deal, I suspect

currently going through same trauma trying to get flexible working approved - it is dreadful. I am already thinking I can't face going back and I still have a few weeks left. Spudbaloo who do you work for - it sounds great and nothing like a typical top 10 firm - is it Bakers? Also Xenia you seem to have this all out of kilt - in the last 3 years it has become virtually impossible to make partnership in the city firms - particularly if you are a woman - of my compatriots from the magic circle NO ONE has made it in the last 3 years - your quotes of £millions are very very rare. Most assistants earn up to £100K max - good money but not the own your soul we have had described here. I agree with what you have said about shared responsibiity but at the end of the day I just don't think you can have kids and work for a city firm unless it is one of the ones like Spudbaloo work's for - most top 10 firms could n't make it more difficult for working mothers if they tried - e.g. emergency cover ? unheard of!!!!

Working parents?

It's a tough call but this is why I won't be going back to my old job in a big City law firm. They paid me well over £100,000 a year and obviously I expected to do way more than 9.30 - 5.30; indeed, I worked more all nighters and weekends than I care to remember. Whilst I accept the whole thing stinks/is wrong/unfair etc , it will never ever change. Ever. People who get paid the big bucks usually have to make massive sacrifices and, on the whole, the ones in positions of power are men with wives at home to support them. They have absolutely no idea what it's like to be a mum, particularly one who is the main breadwinner.

Good luck with whatever you decide lemur.

meb, there are female equity partners in the City with large families. I know them. Some mothers are made up as equity partners every year and how many partners are made up just depends on economic conditions so there is an ebb and flow to it over the years. It is not an easy thing to achieve whether you're male or female but nor is success in most fields. Many parents think it's worth aiming for but not every does. Plenty of men can't be bothered to put in the hours, take the risk they won't make it etc either I just don't think it's a male/female issue. Whatever your sex the hours and long and orgainsing your childcare is an issue.

Those parents (male or female) do see their children and many have lovely families. You can combine the two but I think you need to love the work to do those hours whatever the work might be whether it's as a hospital consultant, investment banker or partner at E&Y or whatever. If you just do it for the money life is then a lot harder. It must be quite hard to get out of bed in the morning if you hate what you do whether it's your work or even minding children for the next 12 hours.

DW is a City lawyer, and thus on City money, thus I'm not clear why lemur doesn't have a nanny ?

Sadly I could make comments about magic circle firms but I'm under NDA for that....

My observation though is that there are more women at the top table in law than in pretty much anything else that makes decent money.

Female partners who combine family and work are the exception rather than the rule. At my firm I can only think of two off-hand, and at my last firm one female partner sat in my office and virtually cried one day about having missed the baby boat.

Unfortunately it does seem to be getting ever-harder to be made up. Hard work and excellence are not enough to guarantee partnership.

It is not the same in other high-flying careers. For example, I know a doctor who is also a mother, who has just become a consultant and who works part time. I can't think of many city firms willing to accomodate part time working without crossing that lawyer off their list of employees with partnership prospects.

Yes, but why do they want to work part time, is the question. and why are the children someone their responsibility, not their husband's? Is it because they don't get proper support from their other half at hoem or are conditioned by their mothers to want to give up work and if so many are going to give it up what on earth was the point of even doing A levels. You might as well have had fun when young so should we really be saying to our daughters, have fun, travel, do the Cordon Bleu cookery, spend your time in the beauty salon, gym, lying in bed, teaching them how to get rich men who can keep them if at the end of the day come 30 - 35 they're all going back to the shires to breed anyway? I can't see the purpose of the hard working 10 years before that if you're going to choose to give it up just when you might have started making the money. Sounds like worst of all worlds - put in the long hours whilst junior, just when you're about to get the gold you choose to go hoome to iron the husband's shirts and clean the bottoms of the babies. Cannot fathom all these women who love taking that choice. Obviously some like the men aren't good enough at the work anyway to get to where they might be whic is what makes career sacrifice divorce settlemenst so interesting - did she give up work because she was c rap and he carrie don because he was good or could she as easily have made the mega bucks he does now he's off with the women 20 years younger?

xenia - forgive me for saying this but you sound so blinkered I fail to see how you can be so successful

in addition to this lets not forget its not just the women who give up after training for many years and putting in bags of effort. My old boss (man) gave it up to be a holiday rep, another committed suicide, one became a lecturer and another went off to teach scuba diving. Thats just off the top of my head.

another became a woman! but to be fair I dont think he was partner