Biglaw Mommy: Necessity Is The Mother Of Efficiency

It’s truly amazing how much work you can get done in eight hours when there’s a chance that you won’t see your baby at all that day if you don’t hurry up and get home.

When you have a baby, you undergo a dizzying array of transformations in a very short period of time. There’s the most obvious transformation: you become a mother. Suddenly, you’re a different person. Which is not to say that you’re not still you, because of course you are, but you’re a new you. It’s hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it… It’s like, up until the moment when you have a baby, you’ve had one focus in life and that’s yourself. You love other people and they may have a profound impact on your life, but they don’t permeate your identity. Then you have a baby, and it’s like part of your self is suddenly… outside yourself. You devote your time and energy to another person and it’s not even a choice that you’re making. You just do it. At least, that’s how it was for me. (Note to any new or soon to be moms who may be reading: don’t worry if you don’t feel that way at first. The first few weeks were a miserable blur. You get through it.)

Another obvious one is the physical transformation. Sharing your body with another human being for 9 (actually more like 10) months is a pretty big deal. The physical side effects of pregnancy run the gamut, from the classic food cravings and aversions, to the more bizarre experiences like a constant metallic taste in your mouth and overnight carpel tunnel. Then you have the baby and think your body will go back to normal, but nope! For one thing, if you’re breastfeeding, forget it. Your body won’t be your own for a long while yet. Your primary occupation will be as a food source and you will commiserate with dairy cows. (I kid, I kid. Breastfeeding is actually pretty cool.) Even if you’re not, your body will spend its time devoted to a baby’s needs, holding that baby even when it feels like your arms will fall off and going without sleep for record time. And you won’t look the same for a long time either, maybe never. Rib cages spread. Fat redistributes. My feet got bigger and I had to get rid of half my shoes. It sucked.

You’ll probably transform emotionally. Part of that is hormones, and it does go away eventually, for the most part. You’ll probably be a weepy mess for a while after you have your baby, but someday you’ll stop feeling like a crazy person. However, you may never again be able to hear a baby crying without instinctively swiveling your head to find the source in case it’s your baby (even when you know your baby is at home with the nanny), you might tear up at commercials you used to think were stupid, and if you’re like me, the news will be too upsetting to watch ever again because somehow children are always involved, and that’s rarely a good thing.

And then, as it pertains to this column, there is the professional transformation. In this case, I’m not talking about abstract issues like leaning in and finding work-life balance. Well, I guess I kind of am, but in this instance, I’m talking about a much more specific transformation. I had heard about this phenomenon and now I can confirm that it’s true. Working mothers have the ability to turn into mega-efficient superwomen.

I’m serious. I thought I was efficient before having a baby. Most lawyers are. The law, in general, attracts a certain type of person to its ranks. Type A. Smart. Analytical. Detail-oriented. Of course you should never generalize too much, and in fact, the legal profession does attract a wide variety of people — in law school, I was privileged to know people from all backgrounds and walks of life, with a variety of interests. Whether this is because people who study things like English and philosophy in college realize that they need something like a law degree to find gainful (and perhaps more lucrative) employment (no judgment, that’s what I did), or because there are many ways to practice law beyond the corporate Biglaw grind, all lawyers are definitely not the same kind of person. But in reality, most lawyers possess these traits. Naturally, it’s far more common for the hyper-organized person who enjoys rules and structure to be interested in pursuing a career like law than the free-spirited poet whose preferred pastimes include whittling wood and raising free-range chickens.

So yes, most lawyers were probably already efficient to begin with. I’d like to think I was, but pre-baby, I didn’t always have to be because there were no other demands on my time that were as pressing as work. Sure, I wanted free time and a personal life, but the draw of getting home to watch late-night TV wasn’t strong enough to keep me from interrupting work with frequent internet or coffee breaks. But a baby is a game changer. Suddenly, you have a reason to get home as early as you possibly can, and it’s an incredibly powerful motivator. Every minute you waste in the office is a minute you don’t get to spend with your baby (and quite possibly a minute that you’re paying someone else to watch her). Even if you’re lucky enough to have a spouse or other family who can be with your baby while you work your long hours, you WANT to get home. It becomes more important than work, and the desire to be home with your baby hones your focus at work in a way that you never thought possible. It’s truly amazing how much work you can get done in eight hours when there’s a chance that you won’t see your baby at all that day if you don’t hurry up and get home.

This hyper-efficiency means that working lawyer-moms really can continue to make valuable contributions to their firms. After all, if I’m getting the same amount of work done in 8 hours that I used to accomplish in 11, does it really matter that I’m in the office less than I used to be? Isn’t the work the only thing that matters?

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Here’s the rub. In my experience, the work is NOT the only thing that matters, not when you work in Biglaw. And that’s a problem for working mothers. For one thing, the entire Biglaw model (and smaller law, too) is structured around the billable hour, where the most important metric is simply more. More, more, more hours. Partners might not admit it, but they actually don’t want their associates to maximize their efficiency because it means fewer hours, lower bills, and less profit for them. I strongly suspect this is the real motivation behind so many pointless, busy-work assignments — drafting memos the clients will never see, or doing research that the partner has no intention of including in the brief. I even heard a story of a partner telling an associate to stop being so efficient because the client would pay much more for the case, so she should just keep billing. Unethical? Yep. But not surprising. The billable hour model inherently creates perverse incentives.

The other problem is Biglaw cultural expectations. In this day and age, I still can’t believe the emphasis that many partners continue to place on face time in the office. I get that some of them are old dudes who can barely use cell phones, and that they were associates in a time when, if you weren’t in the office, you literally couldn’t be reached except by carrier pigeon or smoke signals. But many offenders are younger, hip, savvy partners… and they continue to perpetuate the face-time culture. It’s as if the only way that associates can prove their loyalty to the firm is by living in the office, nevermind that thanks to technology, we can bill as many if not more hours working from home, or a coffee shop, or on the beach. Really, it shouldn’t matter one bit how much we’re in the office, and yet it does.

It’s largely these warped incentives and expectations that make life hard for working mothers in Biglaw, not the work itself. It’s no secret that being a lawyer is a demanding job. It’s a lot of work, clients can be difficult, judges can be merciless. And being a mom is just as hard, and just as unpredictable. But lawyer-moms are rock stars, and we can juggle more than you’d believe possible if you just keep the air clear of unnecessary obstacles. So if your lawyer-mom-associate gets all your work done on time, in eight hours, at home, and does a good job, don’t criticize her. Just say thank you.


Mommy Dear, Esq. is a senior Biglaw associate in NYC by day and a new mommy by evening, weekend, and 3:30 a.m. She’s currently trying to “have it all,” “lean in,” and sometimes even cook dinner. Mommy Dear, Esq. is very, very tired. You can email her at mommydearesq@gmail.com and you can follow her on Twitter here.

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