ABA Division for Bar Services: Bar Leader Magazine

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Part-time lawyers suffer overwork; are perceived as being less devoted

By Jennifer Martin

Sarah Orlov remembers vividly when she tried to resume work full-time at a law firm just after her daughter was born.

"I’d work on the train going into work, work all day, work on the train all the way home, have dinner, then work after dinner," the Boston lawyer says. "I’d get the baby in bed, then do more work and go to bed myself. Most weekends, I did five hours of billable work."

It got to the point, Orlov says, when her daycare providers were spending more time with her daughter than she was. Though her firm offered her a part-time schedule, Orlov left.

"I had heard stories about people who come back from maternity leave and go part-time," she offers. Inevitably, those co-workers ended up working full-time hours, but taking a pay cut.

That reality is not uncommon at law firms around the country. Despite the initial appeal of part-time schedules, lawyers who take them commonly become disillusioned and, in fact, may jeopardize their careers. That’s the finding of the Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts, which released a lengthy study on the issue in December.

According to the study, which focused on female lawyers at 100 of the largest law firms in Massachusetts, part-time schedules commonly usher in a tremendous number of difficulties. Usually client needs and competitive pressures force women to work full-time and even on weekends.

Also, even though they’re logging heavy work hours from their homes and cars, female lawyers who work part-time are perceived as less devoted to their work. According to the women’s bar, 70 percent of part-time respondents who have reached partner status nonetheless report that their full-time colleagues view them as "lacking commitment." Several even said there was a perception in their firms that part-time lawyers do not deserve a voice in firm management, or that part-timers are overpaid.

Part-time associates, too, reported feeling stigmatized. One said she was not considered for bonuses being given to other associates; another said she wasn’t being assigned cases for which she knew she was qualified; still another said she was often not asked to go to lunch with other associates or join other impromptu social events.

That kind of prejudice is painfully obvious to lawyers like Donnalyn Kahn, who left a Boston law firm to work in-house for a nearby municipality in 1997. Kahn, who had just had her second child, says she saw male partners roll their eyes when women would dash to the daycare center. "It’s two separate groups of people missing the plane of each other," she remarks.

That culture gap is at the root of many problems that part-time lawyers face, states Nancer Ballard, who helped shepherd the study as a member of the women’s bar Employment Issues Committee. With their increasing focus on profitability, law firms have inadvertently created a process of natural selection within themselves.

The mindset, Ballard says, favors "people who make work the end-all and be-all of their lives. It will funnel your demographics into--a few unmarried women, a few unmarried men and men with spouses who stay home."

Ballard, a Boston lawyer, acknowledges that economic pressures have forced law firms to demand more billable hours from their staff. However, she predicts they’ll be forced to change their philosophy somewhat as larger numbers of women enter the profession.

"When you look at it long-term, it’s impossible to say, ‘I don’t think part-time policies work.’ You’ll lose the talent you need," Ballard notes.

Removing the stigma
But many firms have a long way to go before part-timers are no longer marginalized. According to the women’s bar report, 74 out of 96 partnership-track associates said their part-time status had affected, or would affect, their road to partnership. Most said they simply expected their partnership to be delayed. However, many said they expected never to be considered for partnership. One woman wrote, "A member of the Executive Committee told me it never occurred to him that I was on partnership track since I was part-time."

Several respondents said they were taken off partnership tracks involuntarily when they switched to a part-time work schedule. One woman was forced to relinquish her partnership in order to work on a part-time schedule. These things occurred even though there are firms in Massachusetts who grant partnerships to part-time associates.

Further, 25 percent of the corporate/business lawyers in the women’s bar survey said their practice had been adversely affected from going part-time. For example, they were moved off fast-paced, major transactions and initial public offerings to fewer and smaller deals. Among the litigation respondents, 75 percent reported damage to their careers, such as being excluded from high-profile cases.

For many part-time lawyers, the only way to avoid such career setbacks is to continue to work a full-time schedule. Patricia Johansen, a part-time Boston lawyer in private practice, says she frequently has full-time weeks, as well as "typical year-end (duties) where you’re working till one o’clock in the morning."

A part-time arrangement, she explains, "works if you come in with a frame of reference that it’s not a set schedule. There will be times that you have to work Fridays." For Orlov, a change of environment was the only answer. She now works in-house for Lawyers Title Insurance Corporation in Boston, and doesn’t miss all those extra hours on the clock.

"I was the only real estate associate" at the old firm, she says. "I’d have partners that gave me stuff at five in the afternoon and needed it first thing in the morning. As an associate, when a partner comes to you with more work, you can’t say, ‘Sorry.’"

Studies show it’s common for young associates, especially women, to take Orlov’s route. According to the 1998 Boston Bar Association report "Facing the Grail," 43 percent of new associates leave their firms within three years; the attrition rate is even higher for women. American Lawyer Media reported that the number of female partners at law firms decreased from 15.7 percent in 1998 to 15.6 percent in 2000. That occurred even though the number of female associates rose from 39 percent in 1998 to 41.2 percent in 2000.

However, despite the bleak statistics, there are success stories out there. The women’s bar association said many women are enjoying workable part-time schedules because of the support of their firms. Partners in such firms tend to take steps to make part-time employees feel respected. For example, they monitor the part-timer’s hours, making sure that full-time weeks don’t become the norm. They allowed flexible workdays, provided career-enhancing work, and allowed part-time lawyers to be eligible for partnership.

Nancy Baron-Baer, a lawyer in the Philadelphia office of Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, is one of the fortunate few who has had a good experience with an alternative work arrangement. She became a managing partner of her law firm while on a 60-percent work schedule.

"There were periods of time that were very hectic, but overall there was a great benefit," Baron-Baer says.

Proactive steps
The Women’s Bar Association of Massachusetts recommends that firms take proactive steps to retain their part-time lawyers, such as compensating them for time worked beyond their agreed-upon hours, providing full fringe benefits, permitting individualized schedules, helping part-timers develop professionally, and fostering an attitude of respect toward part-timers.

Firms should also encourage part-timers to stay involved in internal committees, professional associations, continuing education, non-profit groups and other professional activities, the bar report said.

With changing demographics, many predict that law firms will ultimately stop seeing part-time schedules as a "women’s" issue. Al Vixler, managing partner at Eckert Seamans’ Philadelphia office, didn’t hesitate to ask for reduced hours when his first child was born five years ago. His wife was a new doctor in residency at the time.

A flexible schedule, he says, "made a tremendous difference in my life. I don’t know how I would practice if I had a firm which was not as sensitive to those issues."

Vixler is part of a trend that will probably change the law firm environment dramatically, experts predict. For lawyers, that could be a change for the better.

"With young (lawyers) in general, the role of work in their lives does not seem to be so overwhelming as it was 20 years ago," observes Carol Nelson Shepherd, co-chair of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s Women in the Profession Committee. "They’re all trying to find a better balance between work, leisure and family."

The author is a writer from St. Joseph, Mich.