Lawyer passed over for promotion because of flexible working

[RosieIrene]

I have been at my law firm for almost 9 years during which time i had two dd and took a total of 15 months off. When returned from having dd2 was granted request to work one day a week at home. Had a stellar review 4 weeks ago but was told because of political situation in the firm, there were limited advancement opportunities. Decided, after working 5 days a week since dd born 4 years ago that I might as well finally put in application to work 4 days a week. I just now found out that male associate with less experience than me has just been offered the position I was told 4 weeks ago is not available because of "politics". Grapevine suggests firm thinks I lack commitment because I have kids. Any suggestions about how to approach this?

I have worked in city law firms for 15 years and have seen that while they have been prepared to allow more flexibility in the working practices of assistants and other staff in that time, there is no flexibility offered to partners. The business model within the city appears to require them to be availble 24 hours a day and 7 days a week and above all to put the interests of the firm first in all circumstance. This offers no room for part-time employees who by virtue of the very fact they are part-time, usually have things which are more important to them than work.

This is an unpleasant glass ceiling to hit, but I suspect you will find it in many firms as long as you want to work part-time.

I once faced this dilemma myself and chose to remain part-time and accept that that would be the end of partnership. I now spend a fair amount of time doing other more accademic and more rewarding work. I think that you too may have to make this decision (although I accept that in an ideal world you would not).

RI - think I might know you based on this thread - not sure what the etiquette is - think best if I stay off it / don't read any further posts, but if you want to chat, CAT me - if you are who I think we started at your firm on the same day, I am from overseas, left just over a year ago and am now in house (that should narrow it down). Have name changed for this and the new name says it all!

Ah, husband works at same firm? Well then how could any one except advancement. Your or your husband should leave. Usually the senior one stays which is not always the man in my experience either and in one case was two lesbians.....

(On the personality thing Anna I think they were just bored at senior level with some dull people. Most of the people who join with my daughter won't stay anyway long term anyway because that's how it works in those types of places so I think having a good few fun people in one year group won't matter too much long term and could be fun in the mean time.)

Very important issues on the thread though - if someone is really good you don't let them go and you accommodate them whether that's time off to deal with their father dying of cancer or a baby. People like that are happy to take business calls at night because the work is the thing, it's what gets you out of bed in the morning, it's what makes you tick almost if you're going to be successful at most things and of course you can have a lovely family too but you do need some enthusiasm about it and desire to d it even if means as for one stage it did with me, getting up at 5am on Saturday mornigns to work for 2 hours having done a nigh feed of twins at 3am so you can work until they wake at 7. Now I did that because I wanted to and because I work for myself so it was nothing to do with wicked capitalist male bosses.

Lawyer, maternity and discrimination. This is an old one, and like the cobbler, the laywer is always the worst postioned as there isn't much you can do without ruining your career (suing them wouldn't exactly make for a good reference would it?).

My firm got rid of me when I was pregnant with DD mentioning "adverse economic situation etc" (don't want to give too many facts as don't want to be identified). I too had stellar review etc.. The day I left with my cardbox, the partners opened the champaign as it was the firm's second best year since its creation.

I always knew they would made a mistake and would call me back. The only reason they got rid of me was to make an example of me. I was right, two years afterwards, they begged me to come back, I could name my price and they even agreed to me working from home once or twice a week. Obviously I turned them down.

When I was looking for a new position after that with law firms, I always ended up in the last two candidates or at least would pass the first round of interviews brilliantly. Typically at some point someone would discover the existence of my DD (gap in my CV kind of gave it away) and the excuses would start flying: I wasn't experience enough, or this or that when the feedback I had had so far was completely the opposite.

It took a lot of hard word, time and persistence to manage to "climb back the ladder".

I am not saying that to get some sympathy, but it is a fact of life that, as a lawyer with children, you will most of the time be discriminated against, even if you work full time as at any time you could commit the supreme crime of deciding to have another DC

goosey - you sound alarmingly like me (including the 15-year bit). Except that I haven't found the alternative work ideas yet - perhaps brain-picking is in order??

My picture: I do have a flexible arrangement (not 4-days-a-week, but an annual 85%ish year - ie, fully full-time when I'm there, but when the market goes quiet over the summer I can be away for the whole school holidays), and it has indeed meant career stasis (if you compare it to the conventional progression route), and yes - as re-tested very recently - the headhunters melt away when I mention it.

PS I'm a transaction lawyer, not a PSL, which is of course relevant. Flexible working is much less of an issue in the PSL universe. But I like clients, so PSL just doesn't appeal.

Hi Bink - bet its not quite the way you intended to end up is it. Fortunately I'm not really in a trasaction based feild (don't want to say what on here as its quite specialist) so maybe a little more flexibility. Must say I have lately reached the point where I'm not sure I can see the rest of my life in this kind of stasis. Looking at alternatives, but invariably the money issue comes a long and where I am suddenly looks great.

What about in-house stuff would that be better (never sure myself whether it is or not)?

Just to add - QC is thumpingly right about the instinct for strategy being the crux for partnership.

(And, expanding woollily & without any substantiable basis from that, I wonder whether that instinct is in some visceral way antithetical to part-time-working appealing at all ... ie, this flexible-working=stasis bind is somehow self-selecting. Perhaps someone with a Strategic Instinct [you know who you are] will comment.)

Sorry, Goosey - cross-post. Yes, I am most definitely trying to look around and rethink it all. My field's a bit specialist too & in-house would need to be somewhere very big. (Actually I must chase the recruiter person who was going to tell me whether I have any options there at the moment.)

Completely agree about its coming back to the money (final salary pension ...) - also I like my workplace, genuinely, it suits me, so there's more than just convenience. But as I was saying to someone recently, I feel sort of silted-up.

You do sound remarkably like me Bink. I too really like my firm and colleagues. But at the moment, I am really just bored and the lack of oppotunity doesn't help. I know other very senior assistants who feel the same way. Firms seem to deal with it by creating ever more elaborate job titles to give people the illusion of promotion without actually changing anything.

I'm not sure I agree that i fyou have a baby you are discriminated against. I was hired with 2 under 4 and 5 months pregnant. It's what impact those children will have on your working life that is rightly relevant. If they don't have an impact as with me and many other women then there's no problem - the parent whether male or female does good work. if instead it's the sort of person who wants to slope off at 3pm is always off sick when the child is off sick and really has lost interest in her career then of course he or she should not quite be so well regarded.

LOL Bink.

I do think you may be right about the instinct for strategy being a huge driver for partnership. When we are looking at making up partners, their actual technical ability is not one of the main things looked at - it is assumed as a given, but the question is what can people do in addition to that to grow the business.

It is quite hard to say to good, competent senior associates that partnership is not a reward for past hard work. Because it isn't - it is something completely different - it is looking at the abilities and qualities of a lawyer and seeing how they would project forward for 20 years in many different ways.

Going back to the OP's position, I would definitely not listen to office gossip - it is one of the things that exasperates me beyond measure as it is often completely off beam. We often have to make complicated decisions based on a huge number of factors many of which are not in the "public" domain and then have to suffer everyone saying "you did X to Y because they are good at sucking up to partners". For the record, I don't think many - if any - partners are blind to being sucked up to and it is not a career advancing trait in its own right!

Must go as I have to rescue my DCs as our nanny is unwell (Xenia will be delighted to know that my DH has dropped everything to go back immediately while I finish things at a more "leisurely" pace and will relieve him later to allow him to go to an evening function!)

I agree Xenia - it is the affect that the children have on your life that usually counts not the fact that you have them. If you indicate that you are more committed to your family than the job, in the law firms I have been in, that can be a problem.

If you have a good relationship with them Rosie, can you discuss this openly or just ask what edge your collegue has that you lack so you can work on it in the future.

I thought Bink's point was really interesting, and Anchovy confirmed it. Being made up to partner is not about being good at your job. It's about the instinct for strategy to really network and add something to the firm over and above being great at your current job.

I do wonder how that possibly combines with a person who wants to work part time and, by definition, has other priorities in life. I don't even think it's about the day a week (say) where the associate is not working. It's about the need to try and shoot out the door at 6 to relieve the nanny (or whatever) and the general perception that work is being pushed into a box which is not big enough contain both performance of the duties and going that extra mile to make partner.

I do think that, if you want to be (or, more accurately, make) partner in a City firm, it is a totally subsuming job. Not in a "this is my work life and this is my home life. I am committed at work" kind of way. In a "I will take this mobile telephone call at my DD's birthday party and I will go to that tedious drinks reception and network even though I would rather be doing bath time" kind of way. That applies to men too. It's just that how many male city partners or ambitious associates do you know who have any qualms about missing bath time?

I don't mean any of the above to suggest that I think women can't be partners, or indeed that they should feel guilty if they choose not to be. I just think it's mighty difficult to put in all those hours to build the client and partner momentum to make partner if you have other priorities. The scandal is that you can't sit where you are for a few years and then push forward. The 'now or never' attitude irritates the hell out of me.

i've always thought that trying to describe partnership - what it requires and what it feels like - is a bit like describing parenthood. When you experience it it's obvious but explaining to someone from the outside is quite hard because whilst you can explain individual tasks there are lots of non-task specific aspects that are part of partnership but hard to pin down. it's more than just networking - it really is about being part of something.

but, again like parenthood, i think you know if it's right for you - right situation, right time etc and if you're questioning whether you want to make the effort required then maybe that says something.

like parenthood it's demanding of your time - but in the same way that i never really minded being woken in the night by my children - and still don't if they need me - i don't really mind what some people might see as an imposition into non-work hours.

Interestingly, RibenaBerry, I think the "now or never" attitude is changing. My firm has a consultant/of counsel grade which is both a stopping point and a transition to partnership route. It is perfectly possible to become a partner having spent several years almost "treading water" on that level (that is a bad metaphor as it has negative connotations, but I can't think of anything more sensible).

I keep saying this, but while it remains difficult to be made partner, in some ways it has never been easier. Technology is a huge help. There is also a huge search to find and retain talent among the top City law firms and to look at flexible and diverse working methods to help with this. In many ways I think a highly talented and motivated female lawyer with children but who is focussed and flexible has an easier time of it now than 15 years ago.

It's the same old story with law firms and career progression and Xenia is right - promotion has more to do with drive and political nous, which is not just about kissing a**. Trouble is that the female mentality is that if we are all very clever and work very hard, we'll get a great review and automatically advance, but in fact being that consumate office politician, with visability and drive matter more than as good, honest work.

Working 1 day a week from home reduces visability and means you are out of the loop for networking. Do you work from home on a Friday, because that is the worst - even though you can be slogging away at home, people do assume because you are not at your desk, that you have your feet up in from of Jeremy Kyle.

Erm...if your DH is a partner at your firm, can't he shed some light on all this?

Ribena is correct. I can say quite happily and without any guilt that I have often chosen to work than rush home for bathtime because the work was more enthusing than the child and that sometimes it was nice to get home when all the children were asleep. This morning I was asked to write something urgently about Northern Rock. That was much much more fun than packing the schools bags last night, definitely. In any job it's the people who have that kind of interest and devotion almost to it who would probably carry on doing it even if they won the lottery (as I think I would) who usually do reasonably well. Obviously all men and women however enthusiastic they are about their work from time to time are conflicted over work. I have something on the day I've just learned I would otherwise accompany a child's music exam which is annoying and then you have to take a decision and balance things out and I certainly loved breastfeeding and having all those children or I wouldn't have had five of them but even so I prefer a lot of the time at work to time with them although a few hours a day with them is always great.

Xenia, I partly do and partly don't agree with you. From my experience and that of my friends, all of those who have had a baby have been in some way been discriminated against. I agree this might be a generalisation. Personally I had everything in place so that it would not have affected my working life and I was planning on working full time (which I am by the way). I have not taken a sick day in a year and have only left the office in a rush when my doctor had to be taken to A&E. I have a supportive DH who shares the load (a man after your own heart dare I say who works flexibly!). I didn't have a chance to prove that I was still committed, they made the decision for me.

I still think that pregnant lawyers are usually treated badly, but then in general lawyers are treated badly compared to the rest of the work force.

To those wondering about working in house. I am now. I don't necessarily work less than other lawyers (although if you are working in a magic circle firm I probably do). The advantage is I have no target, my only constraint is that I have to get the work done. No one minds if I do it from home, no one minds if I do it after the kids bedtime, or at the weekend. I do not have to be seen in the office, just for the sake of it. I might be lucky, but this makes all the difference as I can be committed both to my family and to my work.

Well that's not my experience and I know women with even as large families as I have, some of whom are quite senior (I'm in my 40s) who have not experienced that either. It would be very shortsighted of any company or firm to exclude people who are brilliant for arbitrary reasons and as markets tend to work reasonably well I don't think there is even an economic case for discrimination against workers who do the job well whether they're one legged, black, pregnant or whatever.

And needah I bet you don't draw a £1m a year so there are some trade offs if you go in house.....

MrsWobble - wise and temperate, as ever.

Anchovy - I suspect that even with your Consultant grade there is an expiry element? - so someone "pausing" there for say 10 years would, I imagine, be burning their boats - for reasons not just to do with apparent lack of personal momentum (subjective as that might be), but also with exactly that business model that says partnership = reliable projection of 20 (or even 30) years' sustained practice. Which projection model of course underlies the "now or never" urgency.

But I'm assuming that business model (which has become increasingly explicit here) applies to all firms. Anyone care to comment?

Bother, I forgot to ask the thing I meant, idle as it is - MrsW, if you can make analogies b/w partnership and parenting, do you think being a parent makes you a better partner?

Bink - I'm not sure - I think everything is changing re career tracks, which gives bright and motivated people the ability to find their own angle.

We did have someone who was made partner at the same time as me who was about 10 years older than me, so say early 40's at the time. She had had some time out having children, including a period of working part time I think. She then effectively said "OK, I would now like to get back on a partnership track" and did.

I have to say I simply do not recognise the "every woman I know with small children has had problems of discrimination" approach. I honestly cannot think of one woman in my immediate sphere who has been treated like that - and in fact I have seen some where we have probably bent over backwards to allow flexibility in working arrangements (entertaining metaphor!)

Xeenia yes, you are right I don't draw a milion. I never said in-house was for everyone, just wanted to answer previous posts wondering about in-house. But at the end of the day, it is not about the money for me, what I earn is enough for me, it is about the buzz of the job. It is quite different from PP, but it is more suited to my personality. Each to its own!

This said, you should remember that your experience might be different from that of other people and avoid denying that discrimination exists just because it hasn't happened to you (yet).

Your posts come accross as if you know it all, have seen it all and are quire acidic to people who make choices different to yours just because you choose to live your life a certain way doesn't mean it is the only way.

hi Bink - to answer your question - yes, I think it does but mainly because I think it changed the way I operate. I think I am better able to identify the things that it is important for me to deal with urgently (as opposed to dealing with at a later date or delegating to someone else). The key point about this skill is that it enables you to given the impression of far greater productivity (and the actuality of it as well if you're delegating properly) and the impression of being in control - which is equally important given the role of partner in most client interactions.

I learnt this lesson when my conflicts were bedtime vs report drafting but it's equally applicable to client meeting with A and report drafting for B. From my observation it's also a lesson many of our best staff need to learn and do learn - you cannot make partner just by working hard and relying on your own efforts. You really do need to build and manage a team which can be difficult when you don't have solid reporting lines and you therefore are relying on teamwork, leadership and goodwill. The most common mistake some otherwise excellent managers make, in my opinion, is micromanaging and making themselves indispensible. This does not work as it seriously limits your output and that is probably the greatest handicap to partnership in my firm - you need to demonstrate you can manage a large book of business and you simply can't do that if you need to personally dot every i and cross every t. It's clearly a risk to have to rely on others - and the extent to which you can do it depends on your assessment of their abilities and experience - but that judgement is what we are relying on partners for. So, when I have a brilliant team working on a job I can go home and read bedtime stories - I know they know what to do, including calling me if they need to. When I have less experienced staff I may stay in the office longer to keep an eye on them and help more proactively. Because, in both cases the end result is my responsibility so I need to manage as I see best.

clearly different people will operate in different ways but in my experience the worst micromanagers are the childless - they have never got used to being unable to control everything. this is why i think being a parent can make you (and has made me) a better partner.

sorry this has become rather an essay - well done for reading to the end!

And why indeed some of the characteristics women have make ideally placed to be good. I did find having children when I was 22 onwards was a plus point - I had things in common with people 10 years older than me and those I came into contact with during work. It gave me a kin d of age and seniority begin a young mother managing nannies and looking at nursery schools when I was only 24 or 25 that I would not have had if I'd spent my 20s at Mahiki or whatever.

Interesting division on the thread between those who think most women are discriminated against and those of us who genuinely and over a lot of years - 25 in my case have not really seen it happening. I am not saying it doesn't happen but there's a fine line between a woman not playing the game in the way anyone of any sex needs to play it and one who is genuinely discriminated against when she's as good as and puts in as much effort and gets on as well with others as any man.