The roles of women and men in our society and in our profession are changing, and we need to embrace the opportunities presented by those changes.  As women lawyers and law students, you have chosen a profession that will result in success and power, and this has the potential to interfere with the relationships that you have with men—many of whom may be threatened by these new roles for you.  It is important to think about these changes and to anticipate the future dynamics to give yourself the best chance at a positive outcome.  Here is some food for thought.

There is no real news in the fact that the roles of women have changed.  It has been going on for decades, and much has been written on the new roles for women as professionals, executives, entrepreneurs, managers, and power brokers.  Women entered the workforce in record numbers during this time, and there was bound to be plenty of change for them.

We also know that the roles of men have changed and that many of those changes are related to the changing roles of women.  Many men are more involved in caring for their children, in the details of home life and in supporting the work their spouses do outside the home.  Some men have enthusiastically embraced these new responsibilities and involvements and some have done it more reluctantly because it needed to be done.  It has not been easy for the men any more than it has been easy for the women, but very often financial and economic concerns have driven the result.  We now have many more stay-at-home fathers than ever before, and it is not unusual for a law firm to provide paternity leave as well as maternity leave.

This is common knowledge, but I recently read a new take on this familiar story that I think may interest you.

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It is time for me to come clean with you.  I was just slightly less than honest with you last week when I told you that I was MIA for a week because I was doing community projects.  That was the truth but not the whole truth.  I also was out playing with my girlfriends at the Picasso exhibit at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, and the significance of this will become more clear in a moment.

The exhibit, by the way, is excellent and is on loan from the Musee National Picasso in Paris where I first saw it years ago.  It is on tour while the Paris museum is being renovated, and Richmond is the only east coast venue on a seven-city world-wide tour.  Richmond is the closest venue for my friends and me, so off we went for two days of art, shopping, eating really good food, and acting like Thelma and Louise times two and without the harsh overtones.  Just the fun.

The significance of this is the value of friendship and how important it is to protect your friendships no matter how busy you become in your professional lives.  Friends are what ground you.  They are the ones you can laugh with and cry with and the ones who give you great advice because they have known you “in thick and in thin” and they understand what makes you happy.  They are the ones you will call on in your future when you need a babysitter at the last minute to make that critical meeting with clients, when your mother becomes ill, when you lose a family member and when you are on the edge from the weight of all your responsibilities.  And they will call on you, and you will do the same for them.

Holding fast to who and what you are is very important in this demanding, project-oriented and time-consuming profession you have chosen.  It is very easy to stray from the things that make you happy, and friends help you from straying.  They help to keep you on a straight course, they nurture you, they rejoice at your successes, and they help you through your losses.  Without them you simply can cease to be who you really are and who you were meant to be.

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