Biglaw Mommy: Let's Track Some Changes, Shall We?
Mommy Dear, Esq. can write column after column talking about ways to help working mothers, but if the boss doesn’t want to help, there’s not much she can do.
Not all the issues that working parents face are monumental, headline-making, SCOTUS-hearing topics, such as pregnancy discrimination in the workplace. At first blush, some issues might seem downright trivial. But dig a little deeper, and you’ll find that those “trivial” issues arise from some of the same attitudes and ideas that make headlines in a different context.
Take today’s topic: The Dreaded Hand Markup. You know, when you give a partner a draft letter to a client and it comes back looking like something off the wall in A Beautiful Mind, a roadmap of barely legible scrawl and arrows pointing every which way and “stets” floating somewhere in the middle of the page with no corresponding text, and it’s your job to decipher this chaos and turn it into something that justifies the absurdly high rate you’re charging the client. Annoying for anyone, to be sure. But for the working mother, the hand markup can pose the biggest of challenges. For example, when it’s 5:30 and the partner still hasn’t looked at your draft, you have to get home because the nanny leaves at 6:30, and you know the partner is going to leave a hand markup of said document on your chair with the expectation that the changes will be made tonight. Trivial though it may seem, this is a real problem, and emblematic of a larger issue.
Before I get into the deeper significance of the hand markup, I just need to say that in this day and age, I object to marking up a document by hand. It is such a complete and utter waste of time, and I have yet to hear anyone give me a convincing argument in favor of the practice. I’ve heard stories about some extremely technologically inept partners in my years in Biglaw, but I feel safe in saying that across the board, every partner knows how to type. Every partner knows how to open email attachments. It’s not much of a stretch to click on the “Review” tab in Microsoft Word, select “Track changes,” and proceed with your markup. Yes, I know many partners prefer to write by hand, but I really don’t think that this preference justifies the literally hundreds of hours associates spend over their careers trying to decipher a partner’s chicken-scratch, running to other people’s offices to see if THEY can decipher the handwriting (spoiler alert: they can’t), entering those changes, and then hovering outside said partner’s door to ask what that word that looks like “spooshis” actually is (the answer is “spurious”). I’m sure the clients paying the bills would agree wholeheartedly.
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I digress. Allowing that everyone has their preferences, it is totally possible for the flex-time mom to leave at 5:30 and still make the necessary edits as soon as baby goes to sleep, even IF the partner insists on the dreaded hand markup… IF that partner is willing to take the very small step of either (a) scanning the markup and emailing you the PDF, or (b) asking after-hours support staff to scan and send. (Or I suppose (c) asking another associate in the office to do it, but that just really shouldn’t be necessary). You wouldn’t think this would be such a big deal, but apparently, you would be wrong.
The thing is, flex-time is totally doable if ALL sides are willing to give a little. It was made very clear to me when I went on flex-time what the expectations of me were vis-à-vis flexibility, namely, being willing to work on my days off when necessary, working at night or early in the morning, staying late in emergencies — all very reasonable and totally expected conditions. Less clear was what would be done on the partners’ end of the arrangement. Oh sure, the assumption was that if you’re not working one day a week, the partners will do their best not to bother you on those days unless it’s necessary, and won’t have the same expectations when it comes to face time. To give credit where it’s due, I will say that everyone I know on flex-time has said that they feel partners do at least try to accommodate those arrangements, in the sense that the associates don’t feel they’ll get in trouble for leaving early or not immediately responding to an email on their day off. That’s something, for sure. But as soon as a partner needs to review and revise a document, it seems like all bets are off.
From what I can tell, reluctance from the partners to take these extra steps comes from three possible sources: ineptitude, unawareness, and/or complete unwillingness to do anything extra. By ineptitude, I mean the inability to operate a piece of electronic equipment such as a computer beyond replying to emails in Outlook — forget pushing the correct buttons on the scanner that would generate a PDF. (Seriously, I once heard about a partner at a friend’s firm who hasn’t authored a Word document in 20 years.) When this is the issue, I sympathize, I really do. I’m not exactly tech savvy myself. That level of ineptitude can be kind of cute, and can be overcome if the partner is otherwise willing to work with you. Similarly innocuous is the partner who just honestly never gave a second thought to hand markups, whether it’s because that’s how things were done when they were an associate or they just find it easier to write with a pen — and because up until recently, an associate was always available to take the hand markup from them and make the changes, it never occurred to them that it’s a practice that might need tweaking if that associate goes on flex-time. Both of these sources are easily fixed, particularly when you work with nice people.
The biggest problem is complete unwillingness. This is the case of the partner who doesn’t see why s/he should have to exert extra effort when it’s the associate who should be kowtowing, who refuses to either work in track changes or send you the hand markup completely on principle. Even more disturbingly, flex-time moms also report an additional undercurrent of… testing. Meaning, the partner is creating difficult situations because s/he is looking for a reason to tell you that your arrangement isn’t working, because remember that night when s/he had a markup for you and left it on your chair, and you weren’t here and it sat there all night even though it was critical that the client get the draft before the morning? Even though that partner was well aware of your schedule and you checked in before you left to ask about the draft.
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I personally feel very fortunate that I’ve never had to deal with this type of intractability or manipulation. I’ve actually been pleasantly surprised at the willingness of partners to help make my arrangement work. I’ve even had several partners send PDFs of their hand markups after I got home! (It’s not track changes, but, baby steps.) Unfortunately, my experience isn’t everyone’s, and I’ve heard from women who were essentially driven out of their jobs for silly and completely avoidable issues such as a late night hand markup, because when it came down to it, it wasn’t that flex-time was impossible to accommodate — the partners just didn’t want to. I can write column after column talking about ways to help working mothers, but if the boss doesn’t want to help, there’s not much I can do.
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 [email protected].
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