Taking Paternity Leave Can Be 'Damaging' To Your Career

If paternity leave is on the table, should you take it? Maybe not, according to this associate.

The huge thing that’s changed only in about the past five years is suddenly men feel entitled to take time off for family. They’re willing to put their careers on the line to live up to that idea. It’s revolutionary.

— Professor Joan C. Williams of the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings College of the Law, commenting in the New York Times on the new trend for male lawyers to take paternity leave. In the same article, David Reina, a lawyer who once worked for a prominent Biglaw firm, noted that taking advantage of his firm’s leave policy could’ve been “damaging” to his career, as the firm made it known that if senior associates wanted to make partner, they shouldn’t take full leave.

Sponsored