The LawFuel Mother’s Day Lawyers List

Mother’s Day sees us look at some leading lawyers who are also mothers and have had to address that perceived conflict between being a mother and being a successful lawyer.

Many reports and surveys indicate that women lawyers who are also mothers are advancing more slowly than their male colleagues. Social media posts ask the question about the difficulties about being a mom and lawyer. A recent major survey among women lawyers in Seattle once again affirmed this sad truth with most domestic duties still being handled by women, as shown:

An ABA report last year shows that mothers are far more likely than fathers to face negative comments or experiences at work, as well as lower compensation and fewer opportunities to reach partnership.

The same outcomes apply in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere in the law profession.

The balance may be hard to achieve, but many have done so and many more are doing so.

As the number of women lawyers grow in all Western jurisdictions, with over 40 percent of lawyers in the United States being women, for instance, then so too will the number of working mothers increase.

Consider some of the LawFuel Mother’s Day ‘Mothers In Law’ – mothers we selected in no particular order or jurisdiction but rather as examples of how women can successfully embrace two great careers – at work and at home (sometimes being one and the same).

A leading trusts and estates lawyer with McDermott Will & Emery, Toni Ann Kruse knew that the typical game plan for women making partner in a big law firm was to work endless hours and never see your children. Her desire to succeed is matched only by her desire to build a decent family life, as she explained in a Forbes interview.

 “I received a coaching stipend through our Gender Diversity Committee my second year as a partner. So I had a coach and support during a crucial time in my career. The firm hosts a Women’s Summit where all the women partners of the firm get together once a year and talk about these issues. I think the firm tries to do things to make sure that women are not feeling alone” – Forbes.

Leena Yousefi, founder of the largest female-lead law firm in Canada, YLaw, and family lawyer has had to handle her entrepreneurial development of the firm as well as build a stellar family law practice, while embracing motherhood.

“In my company, the biggest asset is women who have small children … If you’ve been a mother, you’ve already proven how efficient you can be. I wanted to bring that to my business, instead of pushing them out.

“All of our lawyers and staff gather, and have coffee, and play with her. Everyone gets a mental break from our practice; I still breastfeed her, then kiss her goodbye and she goes home.” 

President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Sherrilyn Ifill is one of America’s leading civil rights lawyers.

“Because whether in love or in work, passion is the essential element to true and lasting commitment. And it is passion that brings a sense of excitement and purpose to our lives. It is passion, in the end, that I have found the most sustaining in my own life as a wife and mother and work as a civil rights lawyer.” TIME

Indiana attorney DawnMarie White focuses her practice on family law, criminal law, juvenile law matters and has written in AbovetheLaw about her life as a super lawyer, super Mom and super-exhausted someone for everyone.

“As a Type-A, perfection-seeking lawyer mom, that’s hard to accept. But with a supportive community surrounding me and reminding me, I’m able to thrive in all my roles. Being my child’s mother is deeply satisfying and gives my life profound meaning. So does my challenging, fast-paced role as an advocate. Without either of these things, my life would be out of balance and incomplete.“

Arizona-based Kierman Law is a successful law practice founded by Allison Kierman after working 16 hour days as a partner in a practice. The goal was to create a specialized firm that also permitted more family time.

“The joke is as a way to spend more time with my family, I started my own practice.

“I do the work at home, at night and on the weekends. But I am definitely more present both physically and mentally in the lives of my children.” AZJewishLife

Stacey Shortall worked for Paul Weiss in New York before moving back home to New Zealand where she is a corporate partner with MinterEllisonRuddWatts and a major social contributor through her charitable work with lower-income school children and women prisoners.

A busy lawyer with five children, she makes time for a multitude of professional and personal activities, combined with her successful charitable endeavors.

“I have always wanted a big family. I am from a big Catholic family myself. I always thought I’d have kids and I had in my mind that if I hadn’t met the right man at 35 who I wanted to have a family with then I wasn’t going to miss out. So I got to 35 and I decided to make my family by myself.”

Divorce lawyer Ayesha Vardag, who had her forth child at 50, head the famous and eponymous law firm and her flamboyant success, worldwide homes and profile cases mean she is well able to hire personal staff to help the ‘mothering’ process. However, the success is also built upon hard graft and smarts – and an attitude towards building a successful family as well as a successful business.

“Firms don’t want to hire women because they know that they’re going to be dropping off, so there’s no point in investing in them relative to men, whereas we end up hiring more women — although we have no preference, we just hire on merit.

“From the moment that women start having children — or display any interest in having children — quite often they get ‘mummy-tracked’ unless they demonstrate they’re coming back in a very full-on way. They don’t get promoted or recognised. I had a lot of this nonsense when I had children before.” The Times

Former Freshfields partner Megan Gray has been at the forefront of pushing for change among the legal profession after leaving Freshfields due to a reluctance by the firm to accommodate female partners, a position that has altered with their appointment of the first female senior partner. Gray now co-chairs the Womens Network, advancing women in law and authored the book  Enjoy Your Life: Thoughts for Awakened Daughters from Conscious Mothers.

“Our system isn’t “broken” but rather designed to work for someone who benefits from significant domestic labor at home. It’s not designed for someone who needs time and energy for the very real work of caring for and raising a child—i.e., mothers. There’s a reason why the gender pay gap is mainly a motherhood pay gap, with the gap being larger between mothers and women without children, than it is between men and women without children. Imposter syndrome has become a neat way to discount a woman’s valid feelings arising from being in a structure not built for women.” Bloomberg Law

It may seem somewhat gratuitous having the wife of a global celebrity, with attendant personal and professional staff on hand, to include her in a ‘mother in law’ List, but Amal Clooney’s influence upon the law and motherhood is profound.

Apart from her work as an advocate and activist in the human rights arena she has also played a significant role in advancing the role and position of women – in both the third world and the firstl.

“Women’s rights are human rights. They don’t just affect women, they affect everyone. Holding back women is holding back half of every country in the world and stifles progress for all of us. So these are rights that we must all fight for.”

The demands of being a lawyer multiply exponentially when you add the responsibility of caring for a child with special needs as Jessica Bulos know, having a son with Angelman Syndrome (deletion-positive variation). Jessica Bulos is a lawyer with boutique law firm Stotler Hayes Group.

“Don’t be afraid to reach out to other women lawyers with special needs children for advice and shared experiences. A colleague at my Firm is one of my most significant sources of advice and shared experiences. The “Law Moms of Kids with Disabilities” Facebook group is a fantastic resource and source of solace.” JD Supra

Litigation partner with London-based Hodge Jones & Allen, Chun Wong is a litigator handling civil claims,often against other professionals, as well as admin and mentoring work within the firm.

“It’s a constant balancing act where you feel you can never be the best at both a solicitor and a mother, so the feelings of guilt never go away. But you do somehow manage, day in and day out. You sleep with a clear conscious knowing you are doing a good job for your clients. Your children are healthy and happy and every else is secondary. It’s about quality not quantity. It’s a compromise – you can’t attend everything at school or work so you pick the important ones and send someone else to the others.“

“It’s become clear to me that the role of my generation of professionals is to think about what the heck it is we are trying to do in our professional lives, and calling out the unacceptable and unsustainable practices which don’t work anymore.

It’s a tough gig – but gee, won’t it look better on the other side.” SBS News