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Biglaw Perk Watch: Infertility Treatment

embryo fetus in vitro fertilization ivf Above the Law blog.jpgOne subject that we’ve covered extensively here at ATL is parental leave. If you’re lucky enough to be blessed with children, presumably you want to spend time with them, despite the demands of law-firm life.

But what about individuals who want to have kids, but are having difficulties? A few readers have submitted inquiries about infertility treatment. This one is representative:

Your posts on maternity and paternity benefits are interesting; thanks for posting. One benefit that I don’t think you’ve touched on — if you have and I’ve missed it, I apologize — is the availability of coverage for infertility treatment. Not the sexiest topic, I know, but certainly significant.

How significant? Some details:

For example, one IVF (in vitro fertilization) cycle might cost $15,000 or more, and many people have to to go through several tries before any success (everyone’s always hoping for success). Some firms offer this coverage as a part of their insurance packages. Baker & McKenzie in Chicago, for example, is a firm I’ve heard of that has this coverage available. [Ed. note: This is just hearsay, which we haven’t confirmed with the firm. If it’s important to you, you should verify it before acting upon it.]

If you’re unfortunately in the position where you have to seek infertility treatments, they are ridiculously expensive. Doctors visits, fertility drugs, IVF, etc. Ridiculously expensive. My firm does not offer the option of insurance coverage for these expenses, meaning that I may be out $20k to $50k (who knows how it will go) over the next year, whereas an associate at Baker might have full coverage (in addition to what is probably a higher salary in the first place).

It might be an interesting piece of info for folks to know. Not one that everyone needs to consider in law firm decisions, but maybe more than you’d expect. People don’t like to advertise infertility.

True enough. So here’s an open thread, where you can discuss the subject of infertility — and which firms will cover the cost of infertility treatment — on an anonymous basis, in the comments.

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