Kids, Supreme Court Clerks

What Drove This Supreme Court Clerk To Become A Stay-At-Home Dad?

Which justice did he clerk for? Why did he become a stay-at-home dad in the first place?

By  
on

Ryan Park actually clerked for not one, but two Supreme Court justices: Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the retired David Souter (which we wrote about back in 2013). As Professor Josh Blackman notes, what often happens when one clerks for a retired justice is that they’ll also be assigned to do part-time work for an active justice. Unfortunately, Souter’s name was mentioned only in the footer of Park’s article — after Justice Ginsburg’s — which struck some readers as being quite rude.

It seems that Park enjoyed his time with Ginsburg far more than his time with Souter, because he credits the notorious(ly awesome) RBG with teaching him a lot about what it would take for him to become a stay-at-home father. After all, she was “legendary in her ability to navigate [work/life balance] obstacles with deftness and grace.” Here’s some of the best advice Park says he received from Ginsburg:

During my year at the Court, I sought insight into how the Boss managed to successfully balance her family and career. She shared many tactical pointers, offering her views on the virtues of au pairs over other forms of childcare, the advantages of having an extended period between children (an extra pair of hands and eyes with number two!), and the art of recognizing and cultivating a child’s interests and talents. But the most important and enduring advice she gave was the most seemingly banal: “be a good partner” and “take breaks.”

Park and his wife took turns as stay-at-home parents, with his wife taking an extended leave from medical school while their daughter, Caitlyn, was very young. When Park’s wife started her pediatrics residency at Georgetown, his clerkship at the Supreme Court was drawing to a close, and it was his turn to be a stay-at-home parent. Most would not have been so willing to put their careers aside to take on a primary parenting role, but as our beloved Justice Ginsburg once wrote, “gender lines in the law are bad for everyone: bad for women, bad for men, and bad for children.”

After about five months as a stay-at-home dad, Park began to search for a job so that he’d be able to maintain a “dual-career household” with his wife. He took care to mention his commitment to his family in every interview he went on, something that he believes may have cost him a few job offers. Take that for what you will, Biglaw adherents. Now that he’s at Boies Schiller, have his feelings about family changed?

At the office, the encouraging reactions of the younger partners make me hopeful that a commitment to family won’t necessarily mean a future of depreciated income and stunted professional advancement. But if it does, I can live with that tradeoff. I’d far prefer it to a future of maximized career potential and personal regret.

Perhaps if more law firm associates took a page from Ryan Park’s book, we’d have a kinder, gentler, and more understanding profession. Even though it’s unlikely that such a thing would ever happen, it’d certainly be a change worth waiting for.

Sponsored

UPDATE (6:40 p.m.): On the issue of Justice Souter’s treatment in The Atlantic versus Justice Ginsburg’s, Ryan Park contacted us to explain:

I just wanted to write and address one thing that is mentioned in the post, which is my dual citizenship in both Justice Souter’s and Justice Ginsburg’s chambers. I completely agree that I owe the privilege of clerking at the Court to Justice Souter, who is the person who actually hired me. But I couldn’t really think of a good place to mention my relationship with him in the main body of the article in light of the article’s context. (I mean, much of it is a tribute to Justice Ginsburg’s life and career.) I’m grateful to Justice Ginsburg for taking me on as one of her own. I didn’t mean to slight (or think I was slighting) Justice Souter by writing an article highlighting my relationship with her. It also would have been nice to mention the other judges I clerked for, Chief Judge Robert Katzmann and Judge Jed Rakoff, but it wasn’t really relevant to the piece. I didn’t write the byline (or the headline) for the article, but I asked that the order of the Justices be flipped, just to put the issue to bed. The Atlantic agreed to do so.

What Ruth Bader Ginsburg Taught Me About Being a Stay-at-Home Dad [The Atlantic]
But What About Justice Souter? [Josh Blackman’s Blog]

Sponsored

« Previous 1 2

Topics

, , , , , , , , , , ,