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Supreme Court justices: they’re just like us! They also find Biglaw soul sucking!
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s new memoir, Lovely One, is out and it contains some all-too-relatable tidbits. Like many legal luminaries, Jackson’s legal career included a stint (two, actually) in Biglaw. She describes returning to work at Goodwin Proctor after the birth of her first child as “wrenching,” writing she “drastically underestimated the challenges of new motherhood.”
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Jackson became pregnant while clerking for Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, meaning she had to break the “inconvenient news” of her soon-to-be parenthood to the firm that gave her “hefty signing bonus.” Showing up to Biglaw six months pregnant was “low-grade anxiety”-inducing. But that was nothing compared with having to go back to the office after maternity leave. She says, “I can honestly say that going back into the office as a new mother, and returning to the cadence and pressures of Big Law, was the stuff of nightmares.” As reported by Bloomberg Law:
She describes the challenges of commuting, breastfeeding, and having to slip out of the office apologetically “at the unspeakably early hour of five P.M. each workday.” And in particular, she details the isolation and lack of motivation she felt of returning to Goodwin Procter after four months of maternity leave.
For “me, there was a hollowness to the corporate law enterprise,” Jackson wrote.
Couple that “hollowness” with mom guilt, and you’ve got a terrible situation.
Coupled with the burdens of finding a secure place to store her milk while at work and the guilt of leaving her baby, Jackson said she found working at a firm as a new mother untenable.
It “ripped another piece of my heart out to know that I would miss the giggles and coos, first shimmies across the carpet, and other glorious developmental milestones,” Jackson said.
“I made it to year two,” Jackson said, eventually moving to a smaller practice.
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To be clear, Jackson’s whole schtick is hard work, as she told Stephen Colbert last night (you can watch below). And still, trying to navigate Biglaw as a parent was a real challenge. Shout out to all those currently navigating that gauntlet. Know that Ketanji Brown Jackson feels your pain.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @[email protected].