Biglaw

A Day In The Life Of A High-Powered Biglaw Mom At An Elite Firm

Can you keep up with this super mom? Probably not.

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Are you an attorney who thinks your day is especially difficult? If you don’t have children, you may want to think again.

Being a high-powered lawyer at an elite firm can be quite complicated, and when you add children to the mix, it can become an acutely distressing experience. Now, imagine being the co-chair of not one, but two practice groups, and add in a husband who’s also a partner at another elite law firm. How on earth can you manage your days, much less your home life?

Deneen Howell, co-chair of the employment counseling and litigation and transactions and business counseling practice groups at Williams & Connolly, has gotten all of this down to an art. Her husband, Donald Vieira, is a partner at Skadden, and her two children, Jasper and Vivian, have two goldfish. She describes her workday juggle in a recent article published in the National Law Journal. Here’s a maddening little excerpt from Howell’s day, which starts at about 5:45 a.m., every day:

Pushups and Planks  I set an alarm on my phone and I usually get up between 5:45 and 6. First thing I do is check my phone and see if any emails have come in from the night before that might make me need to shift my to-do list. Right now what I’m doing is a workout challenge. It’s a series of pushups and planks, so I do that. Then I have my debate about whether I wake up the kids first or I take a shower first. They could always benefit with a little more sleep but I feel like as a family we can benefit with a little more time spent getting ready. …

Dual Calendars  Other than the first email check-in, I’m not working again until I get to my desk usually at about 9. I check emails again to see what came in between 6 or so and 9. I’ll see whether that changes the way I run my day. I have a month-at-a-glance spiral paper calendar that I usually carry with me everywhere. Then I have the Outlook calendar on my phone. I try to have the same appointments in each. I make sure those things match up, and I’ll think about what are my pockets of time between calls and meetings. During those times, I’m reviewing contracts, editing, talking to colleagues. …

Checking In  After the kids are in bed, I’m almost always checking email just to see if anything I might have been working on got moved forward in any way that I need to keep up with before the next morning. A handful of nights a month, sometimes more concentrated than that, I’ve scheduled calls. I’ll get back on the phone at 9 o’clock or 10 o’clock depending on the time zone involved. On nights when I don’t have scheduled calls, it’s usually just status checking, and I might respond to an email or two and reset my priorities for the next day, depending.

Howell gets through it all by using the three R’s: being realistic, responsive, and relatable. “I’m realistic with my clients in helping them manage expectations about me. With my kids, I’m realistic about what they can expect from their mom,” she says. “With being responsive, I try to meet their needs, whether it’s clients or my kids as best I can. For relatable, I really want my clients to know and understand me and for me to know and understand them, so that I can meet their needs.”

If you’re feeling overwhelmed with your work at your firm, perhaps take a cue from Deneen Howell on how to get your act together and keep it that way. Because she’s so efficient, she’s not just a super lawyer, she’s also a super mom. Congratulations!

With the Three R’s, Here’s How Williams & Connolly’s Deneen Howell Powers Through Her Day [National Law Journal]

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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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