Dive Brief:
- According to a recent piece in the New York Times on work/life balance for women in the law, women accounted for a mere 16.5% of law partners in 2013, according to the National Association for Law Placement. And that is despite graduating from law school in roughly equal numbers as men over the previous decade, according to the American Bar Association
- A 2007 report by the M.I.T. Workplace Center found that by far the most important reason women gave for deserting the law partnership track was “the difficulty of combining law firm work and caring for children in a system that requires long hours under high pressure with little or inconsistent support for flexible work arrangements.”
- Taking a highly family-friendly philosophical stance, the Geller Law Firm encourages employees to work from home and on their own schedules.
Dive Insight:
The New York Times article outlines the family friendly focus of the Geller Law Firm, which has 6 women lawyers and is demonstrating so far how the concept of work/life balance can be achieved with much thought and planning. However, the article notes, the Geller Law Firm structure does not work for everyone.
Bottom line, it points to the challenges professional women face in areas such as law and finance when it comes to balancing parenthood with career plans, especially partnership and other senior management positions.
“I think women can have it all. It’s just based on your paradigm of ‘all.’ ” Maria Simon, one of the two founding partners (the other is Rebecca Geller) of the Geller Law Firm, told the Times.
