"If you had a child, would you feel comfortable leaving the firm at 6pm to be with him or her, and then continuing work remotely?"

Since you asked, I don't have a child and I feel quite comfortable leaving the firm at 6pm and working remotely (as does just about every associate at my large DC firm). I would think people who don't feel comfortable doing that are in the minority.

I would definitely feel comfortable taking 12 months of parental leave. Shoot, make it 24.

Justin,

Kash's posts are much better than yours, plus she has the added bonus of being hot. Lat is cooler than Chuck Norris. Prove that you're cool.

Thank you.

I agree with 10:43. This survey is odd. Why does it assume no one answering has any kids?

can't these bloody polls be put after the jump? they take up the whole damn page. this site is ugly enough as it is.

10:57 - because lawyers are genetic defectives, incapable of giving birth to living offspring.

10:46 - what firm?

Shouldn't there be a lead question about whether or not the person is planning on having a kid? You need some kind of ballpark figure as to what percentage of the respondents are not directly affected by these kinds of work-life balance issues (though they may be affected by having additional work given to them when others are affected by them).

Um what's with the graphs? 48 to 52% is a pretty close call, but the graph makes it look like a landslide.

"At your current firm, would having a child hurt a female associate's career?" That's the wrong question to ask/highlight. Having the child is not the issue. It's a question of how much time off is taken, before and immediately after the kid is born, and how the firm reacts to leaving at 6pm, working from home, or taking an extended (6 month+) leave.

It should be noted that the x-axes of the graphs do not match. Is this intentional to make it look like a lot of people said yes when really it is about even?

These posts suck. I demand that Kash kick the lateral link d-bags in the nuts.

Associates, rather than taking leave, try to go in labor while at the firm. Word of your dedication will enhance your standing with the partners.

... I just don't get why you would expect to be a mega-lawyer and also raise a family before making partner. You put in the work and then have a family, that's how it goes. While I fully respect those who choose to have children, doing so at a time where you have the possibility to reach earnings beyond 95% of all people in the country is poor planning.

I talked to my girlfriend about it, she said if she was in that position she would just have a surrogate.

I think they're approaching the question the wrong way. After you have a child, your options are severely limited because you have the most unreasonable boss ever created... and you can't quit. The most demanding senior partner would be hard-pressed to compete with the time pressures and demands created by a five year old. So, the question is: Once you have a child, can you have a full life? Not so much.

Seriously, do something about the scale on your graphs. They are completely misleading.
It would have been nice if you had included a question or two for people who already have kids.

Huge points for not dropping off conference call when water breaks.

Of course, that won't stop them from falsifying a bad review and dropping you like a hot potato the instant it becomes more convenient to do so.

Kids, unless you're in BK, patent lit, or a few other likely-immune areas, expect a slaughter in the coming recession...

12:15 - Don't kid yourself, I don't know many female associates who aren't just waiting for a guy to come along to get pregnant & drop out. And I've asked.

A year or two of abuse at the hands of BigLaw partners and clients is all it takes to convince you that stay-at-home motherhood and making the man bring home the bacon is vastly preferable.

I left a BL firm about five years ago, after having been told that the firm would not make someone a partner after returning from maternity leave, but "maybe the next year." I didn't have a child, but the issue came up during my review. When I left, as the most senior female associate in the litigation department, no woman had made partner in the NY litigation department since the 1970's (and she was gone) and not one of the female associates (close to 50% of the total) had a child of any age. The male associates semmed to breed like rabbits and it's probably fair to say that it helped their partnership chances.
Don't kid yourself into thinking a female attorney can have a child pre-partnership at a biglaw firm and not suffer consequences.

Having a child would not, in itself, hurt anyone's career. Raising one almost certainly would, as would taking up stamp collecting or any other non-career-advancing hobby.

But just having a child, provided it was promptly deposited at a nearby orphanage (between conference calls), should not be too problematic.

Kids are expensive in way too many ways.

There is a successful female partner at my firm who, it is widely known, was on her blackberry working while in labor in the hospital bed. It would appear that this is, in fact, what it takes.

@204 - If it was her first kid, she may have been in labor for quite some time. 12 hours easy. Between contractions it is quite boring. Why not get a little billing in?

Not saying one should be expected to do so, but it may not be the Herculean feat you imagine.

2:04 - That's nothing. Not only did I check my blackberry while in labor in the hospital bed, I checked my blackberry during the conception.

-Biglaw Diva

This poll was really hard to answer. Could I take tons of time off, go part-time, and leave at 6pm yesterday if I had a kid? Yes--I could do all that and not lose my job at my firm. BUT, I couldn't behave that way and expect to make partner, be compensated fairly (at the same hourly rate as full-timers not full salary), or be respected by my peers. Even if my part-time work kicked ass and I added a ton of value for clients, the mommy-track kills careers.

I did work via Blackberry once from the dentist's chair. Other than different attire and gloved hands in a different orifice, I can't see much difference.

Okay, there is no survey to take on this page, but apparently it wasn't geared for those of us who already have kids, so I'll just have my say here.

I recently returned full-time from 5 months of maternity leave at my Vault 5 firm. At the end of the day, I don't think that the length of a single maternity leave is that big of a deal. No one is going to remember or care how long you were gone, particularly if you are junior and still more or less interchangeable with your peers. That said, my experience was that, with all of my matters having closed about 3 months before my due date, it was really tough to find work during that time because I looked like I was going to pop at any moment. So the time I was out of the game and not able to build skills was longer than the maternity leave alone. And reminding everyone of who I am and the good work that I do has had to happen a bit more since I returned, but none of this is career-ending. It just takes patience, but that kind of perseverence comes quite naturally to me now that I am a mother.

I worked until a week before the baby was born. Though 16-hour days or longer are possible for most of a normal pregnancy, they are not a good idea in the late stages (the last 6 weeks or so). Even a normal pregnancy is a lot of work, don't get me wrong, but, honestly, the talk about using surrogates because you don't want a pregnancy to slow you down is just silly, and clearly the idea of a childless person who has not seriously contemplated what surrogacy involves. A few months of being pregnant, and then taking maternity leave, in my experience, just isn't going to kill your career.

Assuming, of course, that you work with good people. Every office of every firm has the assholes, the benevolently inconsiderate, and the hard-core work for work's sake types. I avoid them where I can and suck it up when I can't. Just like my peers. Except, yeah, I get a terrible ache in my stomach when it's been two days since I was able to spend more than 10 minutes with my baby. My childless peers obviously don't worry about that.

As for the real question -- whether you can participate meaningfully in a child's life while working in Biglaw -- my hope is that the answer is yes, and I am doing what I can to make it work, but it is not entirely up to me: The assigning partner at my office is awesome. My firm will approve virtually any arrangement or schedule that an associate asks for. I have a husband who is at home with my baby. We are in the process of moving very close to the office. My baby is healthy. But at the end of the day, I am still a lawyer. Just like a doctor, I don't get to choose when my clients have crises or otherwise need my attention. I just do what I can.

Good on you, 5:10. It sounds like you're in a good spot and have a good idea of how to manage the situation. Congrats on the birth and good health of your baby, and best of luck with all of it.

To be honest, I still think that you've put in enough time that your time is about 3 to 8 times as valuable as the average citizen, you should make someone who's going to miss out on doing something useless like a professional blogger have your kid.