Yesterday I spoke at the Lerch Early Brewer law firm in Bethesda, Maryland. As a mid-sized firm, Lerch Early is involved in many different practices in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area and beyond. Many of the lawyers there have recently been named to the DC Super Lawyers List, so you know that these are busy lawyers with busy lives.
Inspite of those busy lives, there is so much interest in the subjects of Best Friends at the Bar at Lerch Early that the law firm turned out an impressive audience, which included associates and partners and both male and female lawyers. Like so many of the law firms where I present, the lawyers at Lerch Early understand the importance of the work-life issues and the effects they have on attrition, loss of talent and the future of best law practices.
Here are some examples of the things we talked about:
- The effect of work-life challenges on the alarmingly low retention figures for women lawyers;
- How the “Having it All” message of the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s and adopting the male definitions of success was not realistic then and is not realistic today for many women lawyers;
- The importance of staying in the profession during the challenging work-life years, for both financial and professional development reasons, and the need for some women lawyers to adopt Personal Definitions of Success for those practice years—like flex time practice, part-time practice, and the alternative practice settings discussed in Best Friends at the Bar: The New Balance for Today’s Woman Lawyer;
- The dangers of going “off ramp” in a shaky economy with expectations for re-entry;
- The value of having a critical mass of women lawyers able to continue on full-time career track to increase the number of women in positions of leadership and management in law firms and in other practice settings;
- Why the “lean in” advice for women in business is not as realistic for women in private law practice where success is measured by time billed;
- What is expected of young women lawyers, even those on less than full-time schedules;
- The importance of paying attention to “self” in the work/self/home and family balance that is the major theme of the New Balance book;
- The need for seasoned women lawyers to step up to their responsibilities to mentor and sponsor young women lawyers;
- The changes on the horizon for law firms and the future for women lawyers; and
- The responsibility of law firms, law schools and law organizations to engage on these issues and to contribute to the solutions.
It was a lively discussion, and one that I would like so many of your law firms, law schools and law organizations to sponsor. Please spread the word about these programs to the lawyers in your past and present, and let’s get more people engaged in solving the problems.
Thank you, Lerch Early Brewer, for your continuing support and attention to the issues that are critical to the Best Friends at the Bar project.
