And So It Goes for Parental Leave … A Continuing Saga

Posted on January 31, 2026

Parenthood, as wonderful as it is, can have a negative impact on careers of both women and men, especially women I submit. The “caregiver bias” and the “motherhood penalty” and the challenge for men who want equal leave periods are all thorny issues. And it seems like they have been so for a very long time without much success for either the lawyers seeking and returning from leave or the firms that suffer unnecessary turnover to fill the retention voids.

As many as ten years ago, when I was presenting a program at a large law firm in Texas, I encountered this issue head on. After my luncheon address, I was asked to meet with the members of the Management Committee. I hoped it signaled that the committee members had been pleased with my program, but I did not know what to expect.

The committee members showed up both in person and virtually from remote offices, and, after some pleasant exchanges, the question presented was “What more can we do for our women lawyers?” Wow, I thought, that’s a long discussion, and my contract is only for a day! Fortunately, I had met with the young woman lawyers earlier that morning, and I had a pretty good idea what was first on their list of grievances. Maternity leave, of course. Although I had my own disappointing tales from so many years ago, I now was being asked to see the issue through the eyes of the all-male Management Committee.

My response went something like this: “For starters, you could respond to the proposed parental leave policy that the Women’s Committee sent you two years ago. And you also could stop referring to the Women’s Committee as the ‘Mom Com’, which the women lawyers find very insulting.” It got the attention of my audience — as in “busted” — and the members of the Management Committee were speechless, perhaps for the first times in their collective lives. And they should have been because they had not performed well.

Ten years later, this is still a very big problem for individual attorneys and also for firms. For firms that have not addressed it with both wisdom and compassion, the issues of poor morale, unfair compensation and being passed over for promotion associated with poor parental leave policies are very costly in terms of attrition and replacement of talent. And for the lawyers caught up in the unresolved issues, the result can be very disruptive and harmful to careers. I know this only too well. My children were born in 1984 and 1985, and my colleagues did not call me “The Queen of Reinvention” for nothing.

The article referenced at the end of this blog appeared recently on Above the Law and should be read by both sides —- those who seek fair treatment without punishment and those who are making the rules. Here are excerpts from that article which provide a much better answer to the question “What can a firm do to support new parents?” Much better, indeed, than the example set by the managers at that particular firm in Texas.

Top leadership will benefit from understanding the value of working parents within the firm and should reflect those insights in decision making related to parental leave policies. … Ensure [that] managers are informed, supportive, and intentional, focused on the long game. Along with the employees, they should develop strategic plans for offboarding and – crucially – re-onboarding on projects and cases so that the employee does not lose [career] ground before and after leave.

[Management should] create a shared language and defined process across the organization while allowing for flexibility to adapt to individual circumstances, and empower parents to be engaged, communicative, and proactive in managing the process surrounding leave.

There is a long way to go, but this is a start. For best results, the article should be read in full.

The Above The Law article can be found at:
https://abovethelaw.com/2026/01/why-firms-cant-afford-to-ignore-working-parents

Career Counselors, Law Firm Managers, Law School Educators, Law Students, Practice Advice, Pre-law, Young Lawyer | 3 Comments

An Important Lesson For All Lawyers

Posted on January 21, 2026

Occasionally something comes along that validates my work at Best Friends at the Bar in such a way that I am compelled to write about it. This is such an event. A young woman lawyer teaches us all an important lesson about how to be honorable when our profession is threatened.

Rachel Cohen, former Skadden associate, has been named 2025 Lawyer of the Year in the Above the Law annual competition. As you may recall, Ms. Cohen resigned from Skadden early in 2025 as a protest to the firm’s capitulation to President Trump’s Executive Order interfering with firm policy and practices.

This distinction is a great honor for any lawyer but particularly for a young lawyer. Ms. Cohen now finds herself in the company of past recipients including Supreme Court Justices and other very distinguished members of the Bar.

Not only has Rachel Cohen shined a light on the power of women lawyers, but she also has demonstrated that young lawyers should not be excluded from the wisdom discussions. Her actions demonstrate that it is not necessary to be a “seasoned” lawyer to understand the difference between right and wrong.

Rachel Cohen understood that difference very well. She was willing to risk what so many lawyers hold to be the dearest — money, position, power — to embrace a decision that rocked the profession and inspired others to follow.

This is truly a feel good moment. At a time when feeling good in our political and legal environment is such an unusual treat.

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Advice for Young Lawyers On How to Achieve Success

Posted on November 21, 2025

Recently I have read several advice columns for newly-minted lawyers. This kind of mentoring never goes out of style and a lot of it never changes. Law is a profession slow to evolve.

The truth is that how to be a successful lawyer is not covered in law school. Most lawyers you know will agree with this, and the ABA Journal recently reported on a survey finding that 73% of the attorneys surveyed agreed that law school did not adequately prepare them for the realities of legal practice.

Law schools are focused on teaching students about the law but do not spend much time on how to function well and successfully as a lawyer. If law school got down to the practicalities, however, it might need to become a four-year grind. And I doubt anyone wants that, especially the students themselves — and anybody else who is paying for it.

So how are newly-minted lawyers to get the practical skills to survive in a very demanding profession?

My most recent book, New Lawyer Launch: the Handbook for Young Lawyers, is a good place to start. It includes advice for both law graduates and law students on how to hit the ground running at law firms, and a lot of the advice also translates to other venues of law practice. For more information about the book, see my website at www.bestfriendsatthebar.com.

As much as I hope you read my book, I do not have a monopoly on this type of advice. So I have included below snippets from other recent sources to complete your education!

From Original Jurisdiction:
*Act like you want to make partner [because some day you might want it].

*Take the initiative in your cases or deal [in other words, act like a partner].

*Acknowledge receipt of emails.

*Be discrete in discussions about client confidences — in public places like elevators and restaurants.

*If your business clients watch CNBC, you watch it, too!

From Pursuing Justice and Above The Law:
*Come early to work to give yourself time to settle [before the craziness begins].

*Get the paid version of Grammarly and always use the active voice.

*Get published — even if you start small.

*Go to lunch with your colleagues and get a hobby.

And I might add, become proficient with AI and other new technologies affecting law practice. In that one regard, law practice is changing very, very fast.

There you have it! Pay attention to the advice from seasoned lawyers as an investment in your future. And think about my book as a perfect stocking stuffer for family and friends! I am a shameless self-promoter!

Law Firm Managers, Law School Educators, Law Students, Practice Advice, Pre-law, Young Lawyer | 6 Comments

The Benefits of Public Service and Why We Want to Keep Them

Posted on November 13, 2025

Public service is so important, especially for the youth of America, that I find myself advocating for mandatory public service after college to help our youth grow up and decide what they want to be in this complicated world. I think it would be a huge benefit to their focus and direction.

And I believe that those benefits of public service also apply to newly minted lawyers. Although I would not go so far as to make that service mandatory, I do think it might be helpful.

Public service is an important path for legal professions both as an experience and as a career. There are so many ways to practice law in the public sector, so many ways to influence public policy and the process of enacting laws and regulations that affect the people. It is a tremendous growth experience, particularly if the leadership is strong and well-intentioned.

Public service has a long run in my family, for which I am very proud. My father, my husband, and my son all join me in our experiences as public service lawyers. My husband and son chose the Department of Justice and the US Attorneys Office, respectively, and my father was a US Army lawyer and judge on the western front during WWII and later became a District Attorney. I will get to me later.

“Doing good” and ‘making a difference” are not the only reasons for public service. Since 2007, it also has become a path to student loan forgiveness for service of ten years or more. The Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program was enacted by bipartisan legislation under President George W. Bush and was intended to help a variety of public service providers, from public school teachers to government employees to fire fighters and those who work at food banks. It has been a strong motivation for many young lawyers to enter public service, especially as the cost of legal educations has increased at rates that could not have been imagined and cannot be justified.

Unfortunately, however, there is talk by the current Administration of ending that important benefit, partially, I believe, to weaponize against the legal profession. I find that highly inappropriate, and I sincerely hope that it does not come to pass. However, even if it becomes the subject of an Executive Order, be of good faith. Times change and administrations come and go.

For both lawyers and non-lawyers, there are so many not-for-profit organizations to choose from. A thorough Internet search will reveal opportunities that might appeal to you. However, a recent November 10, 2025 article in the Washington Post makes it clear that, because of the large number of resignations and firings at the federal level, particularly the DOJ, there may be few opportunities available in federal government at this time.

As a result public service in state and local governments may take on greater interest. Many of the issues that affect Americans most are at the state and local levels, and the opportunities to affect public policy there is very gratifying. For those very reasons, I chose to serve in local government for eight years of my career when the requirements of billable hours in private practice did not mix well with the demands of motherhood. As the Chief of Staff for an elected lawmaker, I had an opportunity to protect my community and safeguard things I knew to be important and critical. And that experience led to many other opportunities for important work in the law.

If you are interested in becoming a public service lawyer, stay the course. The current roads may be rocky, but there is smoother sailing ahead. How’s that for a mixed metaphor to inspire you!

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The Renewed Importance of Personal Definitions of Success for Women Lawyers

Posted on October 31, 2025

I always have been a proponent of women lawyers having “Personal Definitions of Success.” That important theme runs throughout my work because traditional models of success in the practice of law do not fit all women lawyers. For example, climbing the ladder to partner, especially equity partner with profit sharing AND business promotion responsibilities, is not a good fit for many women lawyers with small children and significant family responsibilities. For them, senior associate or of counsel may be much more comfortable at certain times during their practice years.

One of my books, Best Friends at the Bar: The New Balance for Women Lawyers (Wolters Kluwer, 2012), explores these themes extensively and candidly addresses problems, advice and solutions unique to women in the practice of law. It is based on research that is currently applicable, my own experiences, and the experiences of other women lawyers who successfully transitioned in their practices, in some cases to meet the needs of their personal lives.

As it turns out, the important concept of Personal Definitions of Success has taken on even greater significance today. According to a recent Substack article by Vivia Chen, formerly of Bloomberg Law, there is a rise in the popularity of traditional wives (“trad wives”) which is influencing the number of resignations by women in the workplace, including women lawyers. That article, captioned “Women Are Quitting. WTF” cites information from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showing that women are currently dropping out of the job market in significant numbers, specifically 600,000 women “abandoning ship” in the last year. Many of these women have college or higher degrees and young children. By comparison, during the same period of time, college-educated men with young children saw a rise in participation in the workplace. In Chen’s words, “Men are living like their grandfathers” while women have responsibility for more of the childcare and home responsibilities.

Chen states, “This is puzzling. Because just when we thought that women were unstoppable (remember, they’re the majority in colleges, law schools and medical schools) they’re instead losing ground. What’s going on?”

The reasons for this societal and professional change are explored in the article, including female with children stigma, the unavailability of flexible work models, and the insistence by employers of returning to the office. These realities, described as hostile, are causing a reversion from 2023 statistics and even the presence of women in the workplace prior to the pandemic.

But it is not all bad news. As cited in the article, The Economist magazine sees the most recent “dip” for women as temporary and caused by the current baby boom following the pandemic. I hope that is correct, but I also know that women lawyers, in particular, have so much to lose in terms of professional satisfaction and financial support for their families. And I am worried.

Fortunately for women lawyers, there is a middle ground and one far less impactful than jumping ship and sacrificing all that women have worked for and achieved. That is why my book on finding a suitable balance is so important. It provides choices, alternatives and successful transitions that can serve as life rafts for women lawyers who are struggling with the responsibilities of home and family.

Times change and children grow. I know from personal experience the disappointment of taking even a few years off after achieving so much. In my day and in my case, support mechanisms to avoid that result were not available. But that is not true today.

Women lawyers no longer need to leave their jobs to support the male definitions of success. We can define ourselves. And we should.

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Getting Comfortable With Fear

Posted on October 23, 2025

Fear is something most of us do not embrace. We do not like the discomfort it engenders. We try to avoid fear. At all costs in some cases.

However, is that the right approach? Is it most likely to lead to the best result?

When I read an article in a recent edition of my bar publication, Washington Lawyer, I asked myself those questions. Fortunately the article helped me find the answers.

The premise of the article was that, because fear and lawyering are intertwined, the sooner we confront our fears and develop coping mechanisms, the better off we are as lawyers. You have to admit that sounds logical.

But it turns out that fear is not all about logic. Fear also is emotional and many times very illogical.

The author, a volunteer in the DC Bar’s Practice Management Advisory Service and Lawyer Assistance Program, has counseled many lawyers over many years. He unequivocally believes that those lawyers who are aware of fear and are not paralyzed by it have the greatest success and satisfaction. So, there is a real benefit to becoming comfortable with fear.

The key, according to the author, is to turn fear into an ally. To do that, you must reject the logical, which tells you not to fear but provides no way out, and embrace the emotional, which leads you to investigate the fear and offers a solution. In other words, you need to get in touch with your emotional intelligence, something that an ABA study demonstrates most lawyers lack to their detriment.

The investigation of a fear involves asking yourself the following questions: What is going on around me to make me fearful? What is my fear trying to tell me? What can I do about the situation causing the fear? And how will my actions affect me and others in my surroundings?

This process requires you to become proactive and get out of your comfort zone of avoidance. Most of you know what your comfort zone is, that it can become constraining, and it can foster fear. So it also can be a dangerous place.

Here’s how it works in one example that may hit home with you. Currently, law employers are insisting that lawyers return to the office in what is now a post pandemic world. But many lawyers are resisting. Giving up the comfort zone of practicing law on the sofa in sweats and returning to the harsh reality of a sterile office environment and a cold break room, not to mention the bothersome commute, can be fear inducing. But when the fear is faced and subjected to the questions suggested above and evaluated objectively, the quandary of returning to the office or not resolves itself easily and naturally.

The nature of the fear and what it is telling you is quite obvious. What to do about the fear and how your actions may affect you and your surroundings are the nagging issues. Putting it to those tests should lead you to the conclusion that refusing to return to the office could cause you to lose your job. And this time and place in history is not a good one for finding new employment. The inquiry process also will remind you that it is the team players who typically advance in the profession. Presumably you want to be one of those who advance.

So, it is really quite simple. Face your fears. Come out of your comfort zone. And help yourself become a satisfied and successful lawyer. Because there will be many other fears on your path to success, and you want to become very adept at facing them. There will be the first deposition, the first trial, the fear of losing a client, the big deal that is in danger of being lost, and the list goes on and on.

Getting started early in becoming comfortable your fears and dealing with them is a very good idea.

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Two Women Throw Off the Shame of Being Fired

Posted on October 8, 2025

Nobody wants to get fired. But I recently read a great article in the VOICES section of the October 2025 edition of Harper’s Bazaar that put a whole new light on it. Based on an interview with two young women, who have written a book about being fired from their jobs earlier in their careers, it was not a sob story. In fact it was a very life-affirming story. It made me think of something once told to me which has stuck with me over many years. “It’s not about what happens. It is about how you handle it.”

Here’s how the interview was introduced, “There was a chunk of time in the last decade when ambitious women were encouraged to lean in: to work later and harder and be better than their male counterparts — to do whatever they needed to do to get that seat at the table, regardless of whatever else might be going on in their life, including raising kids.”

That is true. That is what the “lean in” message was all about. For the record, I was never on board with it, and I have disputed the Sheryl Sandberg version of success for women on many occasions. For me it was always about balance and not sacrificing one side for the other.

The book, All the Cool Girls Get Fired by Laura Brown and Kristina O’Neill, is an update on “lean in” and puts that notion to bed nicely. The examples of the wildly successful and well-known women who have been fired from jobs are very good reading, and their stories of survival are motivational. And, perhaps more importantly, these stories provide fodder for what to do next if it ever happens to you.

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the interview:

“The reason why so many women feel [the shame of losing a job] is because it took us so much longer just to get to the same place that men have taken for granted for a long time.”

“It [being fired] didn’t mean we sucked. It didn’t mean we were incompetent. … It made us immediately stronger to admit it. It firmed us up. It made us stand taller.”

“Everything you’ve built over the course of your career does not go away [when you are fired]. … Ambition to me now is taking what I built and using it in the bigger world. It may not look like the Devil Wears Prada version of ambition or the corner-office version of ambition, but I think all of that is terribly dated.”

“When I had to think about what could be next, my relationship to what made me happy changed. I think that is the gift you get when you lose your job. My family is first and foremost the thing that drives every decision I make.”

Wisdom for certain. Check out the book and pass it on. Sounds to me like a great stocking stuffer for your best girlfriend!

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Who Is Looking After The Boys?

Posted on October 2, 2025

A crisis is looming, and it needs our professional attention. But first some background.

In the early 2000s, I was one of a small group of seasoned women lawyers who developed comprehensive programs to mentor young women lawyers. We all had experienced our own challenges as young women in a profession dominated by men, and we wanted to help a new generation of women lawyers still struggling with some of the same challenges — to be treated equally and to have the same opportunities as their male colleagues.

So, we dove in deep to share our experiences and advice and motivate and inspire the young women lawyers. And I am happy to say that, in spite of the challenges, so many of the young women lawyers we mentored prospered and today are represented in large numbers at all levels of law practice. The bulk of the credit goes to them, but I also am certain that mentoring helped.

Today, another similar crisis lurks on the horizon. This time the cohort in need is young men — sometimes referred to as the “lost boys” — and much is being written about and spoken about the problem. Studies at institutions like Stanford University confirm it, and it also is the subject of a new book by NYU professor and Pivot podcast cohost Scott Galloway.

Galloway’s book, Notes on Being A Man (Simon & Schuster, 2025), makes it clear that boys and young men in America today are in crisis. He cites statistics supporting lower college enrollment for men, rising suicide rates for young men, fewer close friendships for young men, and increasing isolation for young men, with one in ten young men neither working nor in school. He concludes that rarely has a cohort fallen further and faster than young men living in western democracies.

This problem has been brewing for awhile now, and that is what concerns me most. It is reasonable to assume that some of the young men affected have already become or will soon become lawyers. As a result, we cannot assume that the young male lawyers among us are not experiencing lack of confidence and isolation and do not need help and encouragement. In fact, the evidence points the other way.

The professional success for young male lawyers no longer can be taken for granted. Just as young women lawyers need mentors, so do the young men, and seasoned male lawyers need to step up to the plate and become mentors to the young men among them.

Women did it for women. And now it is time for men to do it for men. Feeding the male stereotype and letting the young men “tough it out” is no longer an option. Something more is required.

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