What Do You Do When You Become The Statistic You Desperately Hoped To Avoid?
Most Biglaw firms are built on a business model that puts women, especially mothers, at a disadvantage. Small law firms are different.
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Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts on motherhood in the legal profession, in partnership with our friends at MothersEsquire. Welcome Amy D. Cubbage to our pages.
When I got out of law school, freshly minted as an attorney, I was prepared to change the world for women lawyers. My law school class in the mid-1990s was only 30 percent women, and we felt it. We were told in ways both subtle and direct that we didn’t belong. So when I graduated and joined the largest law firm in my state, I had a mission. I didn’t just want to make money and rise through the associate ranks to become a partner — I wanted to prove that women belonged, and I wanted to be an example for others coming behind me.
Fast forward 10 years. I’d done what I set out to do. I’d become a partner in a large law firm. I had a (reasonably) thriving practice. I’d helped other women coming up behind me. Then I become a mother.
Motherhood was not a surprise. What happened after I became a mother, however, completely knocked me on my ass. I saw other women in my firm struggle after becoming a mother, but I had discounted those struggles and thought I’d be different. They were weak; they were sellouts. They let themselves become part of the sad statistic, the large number of women who quit the law after becoming parents. They didn’t understand they needed to stay strong for the other women in the firm. Being a mom and a lawyer was hard, but women lawyers know hard. Adding motherhood wouldn’t change that. It was all part of the package of being a woman lawyer in this day and age, and it was on me to hang strong.
I knew being a mom would be hard, but I had no idea just how hard it was going to be to balance being a mom and being a lawyer. Our society does a horrible job of supporting all working mothers, and the law is no exception. Most law firms, especially large ones, are built on a business model that puts women, especially mothers, at a disadvantage. Work assignments inside the firm, work I relied on as a young partner without a large book of business, dried up. No one wanted to give work to the new mom who was regularly at doctors’ and therapy appointments for her new child. Never mind that I still got the work done. The perception was that a young mom with a needy child couldn’t keep up, and perception is reality. I started feeling pressure, both in the sense of feeling like I didn’t belong anymore and in the sense of declining compensation. My compensation took a nosedive after becoming a mom, even though I was working the same number of hours.
It was hard to admit to myself how wrong I was. My physical and mental health were suffering because I felt pressure at work and at home, and I was taking out the stress on my long-suffering husband. Even though I knew I had to make a change, it took me over two years to admit to myself change had to happen. It was clear to me that women who had given up on the Biglaw life weren’t sellouts or failures, but for some reason it wasn’t obvious to me that I wasn’t a sellout or failure if I stepped back for a bit. I couldn’t extend myself the grace I now extended to the lawyer-mothers who came before me. The idea that it was all on me to save woman lawyer-kind was a part of my identity since law school, and if I were honest with myself, even before law school. How could I jettison such a fundamental part of my working identity? How could I become part of the statistic I abhorred? I couldn’t be just another working lawyer mom who quit law firm life.
Even when it was obvious a change needed to happen, I couldn’t make it without internally deeming my whole law career a failure and seeking a total career change. I obviously had to leave the law altogether since I was a failure. I took a part-time position with a mid-sized firm and planned to get a master’s in social work. But, once I started that part-time position, it started to dawn on me that maybe the world didn’t have to be on my shoulders. I slowly began to forgive myself and realized that I hadn’t failed anyone, whether myself or other women lawyers. That was a fantasy. I began to see there was a way forward in law practice that didn’t make me a martyr. More importantly, I began to enjoy practicing law again.
It’s been almost exactly eight years since I left my first law firm, feeling like I’d failed myself and other women lawyers. Giving up that burden is the best thing that ever happened to me. I rediscovered a joy for law practice, and I adjusted my expectations. I can contribute and be an example of a working lawyer and mom, but I know now the burden is not only on my shoulders. It can’t be and shouldn’t be. I can still contribute to the greater profession. In fact, I’m finishing up my sixth year as a member of our state’s unified bar association, and I’m planning on running for an officer position in the fall. I’m back to full-time work and I’m a partner in a small law firm that gives me the flexibility I need as a mom. I’m not living the life and career I thought I would when I got out of law school, but that’s okay. I’ve got something better, and I’m not a statistic.
Amy D. Cubbage is a member of the Louisville firm Ackerson & Yann and practices litigation in the areas of complex business and commercial litigation as well as Constitutional litigation. She is a frequent speaker on law and technology issues as well as attorney ethics issues. Ms. Cubbage is a 4th Supreme Court District Representative on the KBA Board of Governors where she sits on various Board committees and task forces, including the Rules, Budget and Finance, Audit, and Diversity Committees, the Task Forces on Judicial Evaluation and on Law Practice, and the Commission on the Future of Law Practice in Kentucky.
