40th

first. don't fire me for one week now.

uhhh, she was having babies instead of concentrating on the law. Game, set, match.

"Working Mother magazine's best law firms for women attorneys."

I give that about as much weight as a J.D. Powers and Associates award on a consumer good!

This article puts PH in a better light by showing that it is not some outlier. These claims are a dime a dozen.

How is it not "family-friendly" to fire a woman who was apparently incapable of having a family?

Can we please get one thing straight about miscarriages? Estimates put roughly 25% of pregnancies as ending in miscarriage. It just happens. If you think you don't know someone who has had a miscarriage, you're wrong. Seriously, cool it with the lame ass comments about the PH's wrong doing or alleged shortcomings that brought about her miscarriage.

Worthless assholes.

Don't forget Bloomberg LP.

Is there a cause of action for discrimination against Dorsia, in that they wouldn't accept my reservation, possibly because of my business cards?

Dorsia? Really? You have been watching too much American Psycho

Dorsia, no one goes there anymore....Is that Ivanna Trump?

When are these "have it all" women going to understand that you cannot have kids and do a decent job as an attorney. You simply do not have the time or energy necessary to do the job as well as your male counterparts. Just accept it and move on.

What I want to know is why male associates who get their partners pregnant aren't seen as simply "sperm donors" who can no longer concentrate on the law. One has as much to do with an associate's job performance as the other- at least it would, if fathers would step up and take as much responsibility for their offspring as women are expected to.

pregnancy discrimination also covers the capacity to become pregnant. her email sounds she's setting up that claim. ph fired her before she could get pregnant again

I think it is a little sketchy to suggest, as this post and the quote from Jezebel do, that Paul Hastings fired the attorney because of pregnancy discrimination. The departure email, while making plenty of accusations, didn't even suggest that.

It seems that PH was doing something unfortunate and profit-driven (laying off a number of associates) in an incredibly insensitive and uncaring way (right after her miscarriage). I don't think there's even room to speculate that it was more.

That said, Paul Hastings has lost what little respect I had for it. It seems like a miserable place to work.

"at least it would, if fathers would step up and take as much responsibility for their offspring as women are expected to"

We don't, and so it doesn't. End of story.

Thanks for posting this. If there's one thing that gets my panties in a wad, it's lawyers who know nothing about employment discrimination insisting there's no case or no evidence.

"at least it would, if fathers would step up and take as much responsibility for their offspring as women are expected to."

Yeah. Working outside the home in order to pay for the offspring and for the woman who takes care of them is in no way taking any responsibility for the family.

It's odd so many lawyers are reading into the PH email as setting the table for a pregnancy discrimination suit. She directly stated in the e-mail that she was being laid-off b/c her rate was too high and there was not enough work, I think even saying it was an obvious result or something. It seems odd to me that an experienced attorney would put forth a non-discriminatory, justifiable reason for their firing when they were anticipating filing a suit.
To me it seemed more like she wrote the e-mail b/c the partners slandered her work to justify a firing for purely economic reasons, and the timing just greatly added insult to the injury.

i'll be interested in seeing how things play out. im disappointed that so many people on this site have jumped on PH based just on her email. i'm not going to make a judgment based on what we have.

PH may be an insenstive employer (read biglaw employer), that does not mean they should be crucified based just on that.

5:56: yes, paying for your family is great, congratulations. Many women would like to be given the option of paying for their family, but because men refuse to take equal responsibility for the physical and emotional care of their children, women are left responsible for all of it, and consequently are viewed negatively for wanting to "have it all" when they actually want no more than the 85-90% of male attorneys who have a family and yet maintain respect at their careers.

So yes, I would say the majority of men need to step up and stop blithely relying on a full-time caregiver while disparaging women who don't have the same luxury.

6:15, don't have kids, problem solved. in the 21st century we have birth control and the right to choose. all women know they'll have to make sacrifices to have kids, it's a choice.

6:19, fair enough, but I guess I'm just being idealistic- why are women asked to sacrifice things that men aren't? Many women don't feel that not having kids solves the problem- they want children and a career, just as men do.

I'm not sure there's a good solution- it just bothers me that I will have to make this choice eventually, when the male associate down the hall will not have to.

"Seriously, cool it with the lame ass comments about the PH's wrong doing or alleged shortcomings that brought about her miscarriage. "

Wow. Can you point to any comment in any thread suggesting that the PH associate did anything wrong to cause the miscarriage?

"It seems that PH was doing something unfortunate and profit-driven (laying off a number of associates) in an incredibly insensitive and uncaring way (right after her miscarriage)."

As many others have asked, how much job security does a miscarriage get you? I'm not being callous, just realistic. She had a miscarriage and got fired 6 days later. Would 8 days have been not "insenstive and uncaring"? What about 800 days? On what reasoned basis can you draw a distinction between the two? Is there any evidence that anyone involved with the firing even knew she had a miscarriage?

"I'm not sure there's a good solution- it just bothers me that I will have to make this choice eventually, when the male associate down the hall will not have to."

The male associate also has issues that you will never face as a female associate. For example, we have to be browbeat by female attorneys all the time on issues such as this.

Someday we may get to a good solution. I do know couples who have had kids and work out decent solutions but nothing is perfect. I also know men who have been the ones to make these kinds of necessary sacrifices to have a family and multiple careers work. the law in particular is a very demanding profession making balance tough for all families.
-6:19

Ah well, 6:35, it's the least you can do for us.

That's cool, 6:37. As a straight white male, I'm used to being seen as the bad guy.

The problem is that working women do more housework and more childcare than their working husbands.

So yeah, you guys are a lot of dead weight, and yeah, you should fix it so your wife's career isn't effed by your own entitled prickery.

No one, male or female, HAS to do biglaw.

Hey 6:27, you can comfort yourself by knowing that it will be easier for you to make partner.

6:49, while in theory that may be true, at my firm it seems like the vast majority of the women who have stuck around are counsel or "senior attorneys" (whatever the hell that is). I wonder if other firms are different in this.

6:15, you insinuate that men have a choice in their primary breadwinner status. Sorry, not so. Beginning with pregnancy, men have zero reproductive choice while a woman gets three (unilateral abortion, adoption with no further obligation, or raising the kid on 18 years' worth of the man's involuntary dime). After that, men who work with little kids are suspected of being pedophiles, so it's hard to be sufficiently involved in your young child's life to the extent a woman can be without incurring social stigma. And that's to say nothing of the stigma associated with not having a successful career or depending your wife for financial support because you're devoting time to your family instead.

After that, we have the unceasing negative depiction of fathers in Western culture (abusive, incompetent, emotionally stunted, etc.), which doesn't exactly encourage fathers to take an active parenting role or make involved fathers feel appreciated. On top of that, in the context of divorce, wives get child custody in the overwhelming majority of cases while the husband gets stuck with child support payments enforced on pain of incarceration (in a society that purports to have abolished debtor's prison, no less); at the same time, mothers can obstruct paternal visitation with little consequence and have no accountability for how they spend support payments.

In sum, douse your burning bra, turn your calendar ahead and out of the 70's, and stop blaming men for the state of the world around you. 99.999% of us gain nothing on account of our gender besides scapegoating, and do nothing to perpetuate these norms you find so intolerable.

And working husbands do more actual work than working women. See how it all balances out, 6:49? Of course you don't. Just go back to reading your Womyn's Studies propaganda; this issue is obviously too much for you.

6:27, it's the women's own fault if they marry men who don't care about household work or are not taking the responsibility for child-rearing. There are plenty of responsible men who would be willing to share family duties and chores, and take time off work for the woman to have a satisfying career. If you didn't marry one of them, that's your own damn fault. I for one would be glad to be a stay at home dad.

It's like if I bought a Volkswagen Beetle and then complain that the car can't haul loads. Um, I should have gotten a different car that met my needs instead of whining about the car's known features.

Gee, 6:55, life sure is hard for you. You may think you do nothing to perpetuate those norms, but your moronic last paragraph betrays you.

Wow, there sure are a lot of bitter male attorneys on here- who woulda thunk?

6:58, I think your analogy is a little off. It's more like if you bought a vokswagen beetle when really you needed the flight capabilities and magical healing powers of a unicorn. Men like to talk a good game about how they would be a stay at home dad, but notice how many of them actually follow through...

7:07, so the stay-at-home dad is as mythical as a unicorn? Perhaps you should expand your male social circle to beyond the alpha-male law school frat studs.

Plenty of people (authors, programmers and other self-employed or telecommuting employees of both genders) work from home, or do no work from home at all. Try to broaden your horizons.

I'm sure it's been mentioned before somewhere in one of these comment threads, but Paul Hastings did not make Working Mother's 2007 Best Law Firms for Women list.

That list was 50 firms long, so maybe when Paul Hastings says they're "one of the top family-friendly firms in America" they mean one of the top... 51?

Guys I know from high school used to stay home and rear the kids all the time, it was no big deal.

Not in defense of any of these male attorneys, but:

My husband and I are both at BigLaw firms. We have two little ones. He does as much as he possibly can to share the load, he really truly does.

The sad fact is I am given more leeway than he is to take care of family matters. The other sad fact is that my "family-friendly" firm (ha ha) began to law the groundwork to tank my career the second my first pregnancy bump showed. Believe me, don't believe me, I really don't care.

The partners tell me to my face that I am still on partnership track but I know better. I have to work harder and sacrifice more to "prove" that I still "want it.'" Meanwhile, my male colleagues can knock up their non-lawyer wives to their hearts' content--I don't hear anyone asking them to show they still have fire in their bloated, white (probably hairy) bellies.

6:15 wrote

"5:56: yes, paying for your family is great, congratulations. Many women would like to be given the option of paying for their family, but because men refuse to take equal responsibility for the physical and emotional care of their children, women are left responsible for all of it, and consequently are viewed negatively for wanting to "have it all" when they actually want no more than the 85-90% of male attorneys who have a family and yet maintain respect at their careers."

My response: My wife is a full-time caregiver for our kids. I bring home the bacon. In our case, the decision to stay home with the kids was entirely hers; my financial concerns were dismissed with anecdotal horror stories about daycare. In fact, one of my reasons for becoming an attorney was so that I could more readily provide the financial stability our family needed so she could stay home with the kids. Again, it was her choice, and I'm doing everything I can to give her that option.

Please don't assume that all of the women staying home with kids were forced to do so because of a lazy husband. In many cases, though certainly not all, it is the wife choosing to stay home with the children, and the husbands who "have it all" have the full responsibility for providing for the financial well-being of the family.

Parents who have chosen a more traditional allocation of financial and domestic responsibilities should at least be given the benefit of the doubt. I'm not Homer Simpson, and my wife isn't chained to the washing machine.

7:16: Right on.

Does it occur to the authors that these cases are often hard to prove because they are often BS?

A firm cannot fire you for getting pregnant, or for having a child. They also cannot use "poor performance" as a pretext to fire you for getting pregnant or having a child. They can, however, fire you if your performance actually does drop below their standards, even if that drop in performance does occur soon after you get pregnant or have a child. This may make you angry, but it does not give you grounds to state a claim.

Once you come back from taking paid time off, you had better be prepared to be treated equally. That means equally. If the team is billing 90 hours a week to get a deal done, you have to do the same. If the team needs to travel to another state for an 8 week trial, pack your bags. If the team needs to stay all night at the printer, you get to stay too.

Most of these lawsuits are by people that do not really want equality. They want their firm to cut them more slack than they cut childless employees. They want to bill fewer hours and get the same pay. They want to go home early, knowing that others will have to work late and cover for them.

For Paul Hastings, the damaging negative publicity from these disclosures is just the hens coming home to roost.
- Mrs. Rev. Wright

6:55, dead on. As history teaches us, societal norms have never, and can never, change. What's more, these norms are perpetuated by some nameless outside force, not by individuals, so individuals are powerless to change them. Brilliant.

"The partners tell me to my face that I am still on partnership track but I know better. I have to work harder and sacrifice more to "prove" that I still "want it.""

This is the kind of thing that's really easy to say and really difficult to prove. I'm sure you'd say that you were there so you know it, but your subjective biases may cloud how you are assessing the situations that made you draw this conclusion.

At least we know she puts out.

6:58, that's why people date, and sometimes even get to know each other really well before getting engaged. If you don't want to marry a man who will shirk his family responsiblities, then...um...don't. However, as a biglaw associate, if my future partner didn't work the same hours as I, I sure as hell would expect him or her to pick up a larger share of family responsibilities to compensate.

I don't know anything about employment law, so don't chew me out, but I was wondering about how pregnancy discrimination claims work. After the woman has used up her maternity leave, does the firm have cause to fire her if she shows up late, bills less hours, work quality drops, etc.... after she has the baby? If not, it seems like having a pregnant woman on board would be a huge liability for the firm.

I'm not criticizing anyone with a stay at home spouse, particularly if that wasn't fairly negotiated.

And yeah, I'm marrying a great guy, but it isn't all about me.

This whole thing is a vicious cycle, as another poster pointed out, with women (even lawyers) being given more leeway wrt to family but taking the hit for it. (although not always--in some workplaces the perception is that women take more family time, and the reality is they don't)

Let's face it, 9:00, working in Biglaw sucks for everyone invloved.

8:46, I agree (and this is 6:58). If a woman doesn't want to marry a man who shirks his family responsibilities, then she should find a man who doesn't do that. If instead she marries some jerk who goes to work and selfishly forces her to stay at home with the kids, she either didn't think that was really an important quality, or she can blame only herself and the husband (but don't blame men in general or whine about "male associates down the hall" for your own poor choices in a life partner).

Vinny - You're assuming facts not in evidence (and that likely aren't true in the first place). Most of the women lawyers in BigLaw are - how to say this kindly - not flush with options when it comes to choosing a mate.

The female BigLaw associate with multiple suitors banging down her door is almost as scarce as 7:07's unicorn.

You know why some firms pay their associates between $160K-290K, plus bonus? Because they can (i) drop everything on a moment's notice and work eight 20-hour days in a row to get a deal closed, (ii) work 80 hours per week during a three month long trial, often in a city where they do not reside, (iii) get an assignment at 6:00 p.m., with no advance notice, and stay until 3:00 a.m., to get it done and out to the client that night. That is the price you pay to be an associate at a top tier firm making the big bucks. That is why they pay you so much. I intend to have children one day, and when I do, I will no longer be willing to do any of the above, so I will leave my firm. What I won't do is what I have seen some (a minority, to be sure) women with children do. Expect to work far less than my piers, avoid bone-crushing assignments that keep me there nights and weekends, and still make the same BIGLAW salary that they do.

"I'm not sure there's a good solution- it just bothers me that I will have to make this choice eventually, when the male associate down the hall will not have to"

No, the male associate has the same choice, focus on job or focus on kids: he'll just be forced into a different focus than you will.

Are there jobs where you could both split your focus equally between kids and job? Of course. Biglaw is not one of those jobs, for the reasons that 10:31 pointed out. The "family friendly" accomodations that these firms provide are designed to allow the working half of a two parent household *some* limited time with the kids. They necessarily assume that the other half of the two parent household spends more time with the kids than with their job, or else nobody is spending enough time with the kids and Maria at daycare is actually "raising" them.

Nobody, male or female can "have it all" where "all" is defined as both a serious legal career at the firms at which we work and a serious share of family responsibilities. That's the job. Accept it. Or, go do something else.

Well put 11:14. Too bad nobody tells you that when you apply to law school. It would save a lot of people endless heartache and disillusionment. [Was that a Bushism . . .I hope not.]

I was at a top flight New York firm for many years before going in-house. You must choose between firm life or having time to spend with your family. You cannot have both. Ever notice how those female partners almost never have children, and, when they do, they do not participate in raising those children in any meaningful way. Neither men nor women can both excel at firm life over the long term and be good parents. The men don't get quality time with the kids either. There just isn't time for both. Law students should know this before taking out 150K in loans.

11:29,

I wonder how one can seriously believe that some of the brightest college seniors in America can think critically enough to get into the best law schools in America, but are all somehow blind to the realities of life in the law. I graduated two years ago this May, and while none of us particularly liked or wanted to admit to other (or really to ourselves) the life-consuming aspect of the job we were chasing... I don't recall anyone having any real illusions to the contrary.

11:14

11:14

I guess I just don't understand why I see so many junior associates get shocked and indignant when they learn that law firms expect them to put their personal lives and families second, and the firm first. Maybe they knew this would be this case all along, but perhaps were hoping to forestall the inevitable. Anyway, I have been out for 14 years, so maybe I am a little out of touch with students these days. Maybe they know full well what they are getting themselves into. If any don't and are reading these posts, understand that you will excel in your personal/family life or at a firm. You will not excel at both.

11:29

11:29: Maybe it's because the "brightest college seniors in America" have spent most of their lives studying for standardized tests. They may know, abstractly, that their lives will 'suck' once they enter the real world but have no idea what this really means.

The resurgance of beleagured males in this thread restores my faith in ATL. I wondered where all the shitheads had gone.

12:18, as a second year assoiate at a Biglaw firm, I can tell you that your last sentence is 100% correct in my case.

Damned few women would accept a stay-at-home husband who took care of the kids. They talk a good game but most would be insisting on changing places or reducing their own work hours and sending hubby back to work to make up the difference very quickly.

When I was at Big City Big Law, everything was a problem. I bought a place of my own -- bad -- that meant I had to leave the office for the home inspection, the real estate closing, and sometimes be home sometimes to let workers in. No more just calling the high-rise's management company! Nevermind the blackberry and the laptop kept me tethered to work even when I unchained myself from the desk. A date = a problem. Relatives that died and had funerals = a problem. Everything = a problem.

Then I moved to Small City Mid Law. Married; partner even (but NEP). Problems still exist. No wife to pick up my drycleaning and oversee the home. Co-workers who don't think that married women should work, especially if they have children (not members of firm's employment law group, but you'd think they'd know better). Firm success in some groups seems to hinge in part on being in the men-only bible study. And firm compensation seems to be weighted so heavily on seniority that it is often better to be a fossil than to bring in your own work.

As soon as polygamy is legal, must remember to get sister-wife to mind the hearth.

Until then, the *only* thing that keeps the bastards at a safe distance is having a very portable book of business. And it helps greatly to have clients who respect you and pay promptly.

As soon as you sense a slow-down in Big Law, assume that you're getting canned and not only start looking, but do whatever you can to stay in the good graces of the highest up people in your office, even if they aren't in your group and even if your group hates them. If your group slows, your partner will get told to cut people in his group. This person is now at odds with you, even before that day comes. He likely has a wife who has gotten used to his $ and he has a bigger mortgage than you (and unlike you, moving back in with the parents isn't an option). He will not risk his draw when he could just ax you. If you are busy working for someone up the food chain who is busy, you may do no more than forestall the inevitable (or you could actually hang on), but you need time to land well on your feet and being even momentarily necessary to important people is the only way to do that.

Sluts at my high school used to get knocked up all the time. We'd make 'em drop out of school or go to Canada and get an abortion. It was no be deal.

Dude, 1:28 is out of touch with reality. Many of us FANTASIZE about those men. (Although, being feminists and thinking full-time SAHP gets dull after a while, we feel guilty about it.) I'm marrying a guy who is willing to be a SAHD. Yay, unicorns!

"I'm marrying a guy who is willing to be a SAHD."

Hope he's also willing to be a cuckhold--you'll be driven to cheating on his pathetically emasculate ass with a charismatic, career-driven man before the first kid is out of diapers. I suppose he's asking for it, though.

Why is it that men bitch about how women force them to be breadwinners, and then still more men bitch about the men who manage to choose other options?

You are your own worst enemies, guys. (This is 10:02, btw.)

And it is cuckold, btw. And you're really, really not in a position to call him emasculate[d]. I won't tell you what he does now, but you did almost make me snort coffee out of my nose, is all.

Wow, 10:29, sounds like you got some inferiority complex issues that you're trying to compensate through work.

Good luck trying to convince women that you don't have a small penis and that you're a real "charismatic, career-driven" man because you're a 70-hour-a-week employee.

Vinny, sometimes I love what you say, other times I want to smack ya upside the head. You would be a worthy opponent.

--10:02

SAHD = weenie hubby = unsatisfied and embarrased wife

80 hour/week working hubby = stressed out hubby and abandoned wife = unsatisfied wife

50-60 hour/week hubby with good job = hubby with energy to satisfy wife AND the money to give her a decent, if not extravagant, lifestyle = VERY happy woman

in other words:

all money + no devotion = neglectful husband
all devotion + no money = unrespected husband (you know it's true, you just won't admit it)
healthy devotion + healthy money = FOUR NIGHTS A WEEK! mmmmmmmm....

11:26,

I don't recall saying that I'm a "real 'charismatic, career-driven' man." In fact, I'm a woman, and one who has been working at the same NYC law firm for eleven years now. The idea of a SAHD may seem appealing now, but in my experience you'll feel differently in a few years.

10:29

I actually think childrearing is real work, although it would make me crazy because I need interaction with other people. He, like my sister, doesn't need that interaction and is perfectly happy as long as he has time to read his books and engage with his ideas.

If you think I would cheat on him for that, for some sort of "real man" than you have a really fucked up idea of what a real or good man is. I assumed you were a man, because you seemed so invested in the idea that the type of masculinity you described was somehow strong or sexy. In my book, it isn't. Him caring for children doesn't make him less strong and sexy to me, he is both. Being obsessed with capital success is not the end-all be-all in my world. Money is necessary, convincing myself that the rat race is some kind of fucking prize is not.

The only reason I'm nervous about him being a SAHD is because I think childcare (although wonderful, in its way) can get damn tedious day after day.

And if we feel different in a few years, we'll talk about it and make adjustments so we are both happy. That's the whole thing about finding someone who you love and who has your back.

My husband is a SAHD and has been for three years. While we've had kids, we've both worked, I've taken time off or had a flexible schedule, and now he's home full time after following me to a new and more demanding job. I don't resent him or find him less desirable. In fact, I'm about the luckiest woman I know because I don't have to do the stuff that I find mind-numbing, he's great at it, and he's secure enough not to care too much that people either view him as super-dad or pervy-dad for his choice. Things may change if he decides to go back to work, and he may have a hard time validating his choice to future employers, but we'll deal with that then. The gender movement has mostly been about choice. The lifestyle at Biglaw is unnecessary for either gender. Clients don't demand it. It hangs on for cultural reasons alone.