Small Law Firms

Litigating In My Pajamas

How pivoting to virtual court appearances during COVID-19 leveled the playing field for working parents.

By Sarah Feldman Horowitz  
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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 Sarah Feldman Horowitz back to our pages. Click here if you’d like to donate to MothersEsquire.

I had always intended to be a litigator. I took trial advocacy in law school. I participated in my law school’s family law clinic, which focused on litigation skills. And after graduating, I even worked for a judge in a trial court, with the intention of observing trial lawyers at work so that I could learn from their experience in real time.

After finishing law school I received two job offers — one was litigation-focused, for which I would be in court day in and day out, and the other was a counsel position for a government agency. Despite the fact that the litigation job was more in line with my interests and even offered a higher salary, I ended up turning it down. I knew that I wanted to start a family, and even though I didn’t know exactly what the experience of motherhood would be like, I imagined that having to be in court at a specific time each day would be stressful when trying to balance work and family life. So, ultimately, I took the more flexible position with the government, which ended up fitting well with the beginning of my motherhood journey.

Fast forward nine years and four kids later, I now have my own law practice, which I started out of my desire to have more control over my life while continuing to develop professionally. I purposely chose to focus my law practice on estate planning, an area that did not require litigation, so that I could work on my own time and terms. This choice served me well in my parenthood journey, and continues to do so during the transition to parenting during the COVID-19 pandemic. But my desire to be a lawyer in a courtroom never really went away.

Because of the importance that I placed on building a family, I always thought that it would be fulfilling to represent parents who were seeking to grow their family through adoption. However, I always hesitated moving forward with this practice area because an in-person hearing is required to finalize adoptions in the jurisdictions where I practice. One day, I was contacted by a potential estate-planning client who was also seeking a second-parent adoption. I contacted a prominent adoption attorney in my neighborhood with whom I had grabbed coffee several years ago to learn more about becoming an adoption attorney, and she offered to mentor me if I took the case. I was excited for the opportunity to dip my toe into this new area of law, and to have my first-ever court appearance before a judge. But at the same time, I was nervous about the demands that the appearance schedule would have on my weekly childcare and family logistics.

Then came the all too well known pandemic. Courts needed to adapt to virtual technology if they didn’t want to fall years behind with the docket. When my adoption hearing was eventually scheduled to be held virtually, I was relieved that this normally time-consuming experience could be seamlessly integrated into my day, requiring only a 10-minute break from my childcare duties. Instead of waking up early (likely after a night of interrupted sleep), getting dressed for court, commuting to the court house, meeting my clients early, waiting for the Judge to call our case, etc., I simply put on a suit jacket and kept on my pajama bottoms, locked my bedroom door for 10 minutes, and was able to successfully represent my clients in the same time it would have taken me to jump out of bed and shower.  Likewise, my clients were happy that the hearing didn’t impact their young child’s naptime routine (a sacred and respected hour as any parent of young kids will tell you).

Now that the courts know how to operate virtually, I hope that this digital option persists long after COVID-19 is no longer a concern. The ability to appear in court virtually is a benefit to both attorneys and clients who are parents of young children, and may enable more parents to opt for a litigation career, instead of shying away because of work-life balance concerns. The time that is saved for attorneys by representing clients virtually may also enable legal representation to be less expensive for clients, as lawyers typically charge clients by the hour. It may have taken a global pandemic to make this shift, but I hope that when things go back to “normal” the court leadership can appreciate the benefits virtual appearances provide to attorneys who are trying to advance their careers while simultaneously growing and caring for young children.

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Sarah Feldman Horowitz is a mother, lawyer, and “momtrepreneur” in Chevy Chase, Maryland. After completing a judicial clerkship and working at the FDA for 6 years, she decided to start her own mobile estate planning law practice, with the goal of making it easy for parents to cross estate planning off their to-do lists. When she is not child rearing or lawyering, she enjoys hiking, trail running, yoga, and biking. For more information about her law practice, please visit www.sarahhorowitzlaw.com, or e-mail Sarah directly at sarah@sarahhorowitzlaw.com.  

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