Moms-in-Law: Balancing Priorities in Parenting and Practicing Law

By Robin Madell (San Francisco)

Three years ago, Rachel Smith, employment attorney and partner in the Houston office of Baker Hostetler and mother of a then-one-year-old daughter, learned the hard way that her work/life balance was seriously out of whack.

Smith had been in the middle of another crazy week both at work and home: she was planning for her daughter’s first birthday party, family was in town, and work was exceptionally busy. To top it off, she had plans to travel with her husband to Puerto Rico for their first post-baby vacation—which meant doing double duty on the front end to clear the deck at the office.

But instead of waking up to the alarm with her husband to depart for the airport as scheduled that Sunday morning, Smith instead found herself compelled to drive back to the office late Saturday night, on the heels of her daughter’s birthday party, just to tie up a few more loose ends before leaving on vacation. The result of her midnight mission? A block away from her driveway, she fell asleep at the wheel of her SUV, wrecking her vehicle and totaling her neighbor’s car.

“I remember telling my admin mid-week that I would sleep when I was on the plane for Puerto Rico Sunday morning,” recalls Smith. “I had decided on Wednesday that I’d get sleep on Sunday—in retrospect, clearly crazy. But at the time, I felt like I had no other choice if I was going to accomplish everything I needed to get done at home and in the office before leaving on vacation.”

Wake-up Call

Though Smith emerged from the accident uninjured, she was not unchanged: she knew her current lifestyle—or more accurately “work style”—was no longer working. “What was clear was that there had to be a better way—I could not continue to operate as I had been,” says Smith.

“My sister who was in town for the birthday party, said, ‘If anyone asks, I’ll be sure they know you are a workaholic and not an alcoholic,’” adds Smith. “That said, it was clear that being a workaholic—which we many times esteem in our society, and in our profession in particular—can be just as dangerous as alcoholism.”

Yet a year later, nothing had changed. Smith found herself feeling just as frazzled and off-center as she had before her car crash. “I was flying back home for my daughter’s second birthday,” remembers Smith. “We had a flood and major water damage at home, and so my short trip home would be spent in an extended-stay hotel—not happy. Exhausted. Missing family. I was thinking, how is it that I am a year out from this ‘wake-up call,’ and I’m still just exhausted and frustrated, just as pulled in a million different directions, and operating nearly the same way I did the year prior?”

Group Think

Smith had finally had enough of this unsatisfying way of living. Yet she knew giving up either part of what mattered most to her—being a Supermom and a serious lawyer—was not the answer. So instead, she mustered the nerve to reach out to others with an idea: to create a group for women lawyers who were also moms that would provide networking, support, and encouragement for their shared challenges. And with that decision, “Moms-in-Law” was born.

Smith describes Moms-in-Law as a community of women lawyers seeking to candidly tackle tough issues in a forum that considers how best to navigate the dueling priorities of work and family—in light of the demands unique to the legal industry.

“The response by women eager to talk through these issues in a solution-oriented manner has been overwhelming,” says Smith. “It is important that as mothers who choose to be working professionals, we determine for ourselves, by being not only self-aware of our personal priorities and the very real demands attendant to our professions, what difficult sacrifices we are willing to make (or are unwilling to make) with respect to family and career.”

Changing the Game

With the support of the group, Smith can now say that she has made some necessary work-life changes, and reprioritized in a way that puts her top values front and center. “I’ve come a long way in the last few years, though I still have a long way to go in terms of determining how best to make it all work,” says Smith. “I have made the very personal decision that my family obligations as wife and mom will take priority over career, and I realize that they may come at a cost.”

While Smith says she may not move as fast through the ranks or make as much money as some of her peers due to her decisions, she’s comfortable with that trade-off. “I want to be intimately involved in family life, and that may mean that I accumulate a little slower,” she says. “There will be a time in my life when the demands of family may not be what they are today with a small child and a baby on the way. But for the present, I have to be creative about how best to deliver superior and consistent client service within the parameters of the priorities I have committed to as mom.”

Member Moms

When Rohini Krishnamachari first heard about Moms-in-Law from Smith, she was in law school completing her Master’s degree at the University of Houston’s LLM program and did not have children. Krishnamachari admits that although she thought that the group was a great idea, she could not yet relate to the issues concerning the degree to which babies change your life and priorities as a lawyer. “It was not until I got pregnant with my first child in August 2011 that I realized what Rachel was speaking about,” says Krishnamachari.

Now as a new mom and recent graduate, Krishnamachari, who initially practiced law in India, is looking to make the transition into both a U.S. practice and as a working mom for the first time. As such, she has found Moms-in-Law to be a welcome foothold to help her face the day-to-day challenges at work and home. “You feel at home being part of the group,” says Krishnamachari. “It provides the right amount of support and encouragement, and provides a wonderful platform to share your experience.”

Laura Gee works in the Office of General Counsel for Baker Botts L.L.P. As the mom of a nearly three-year-old daughter, Gee found the concept of Moms-in-Law as a networking/shoulder-to-lean-on group “too good to pass up.”

Gee’s career path has evolved in conjunction with changes in her family situation. Prior to having her child, she worked full-time in a large national firm, and has also worked in a small litigation firm. She describes her current position as a conflicts review lawyer at Baker Botts as somewhat of an “alternative career,” as she no longer represents outside clients. “My work is solely to assist with Office of General Counsel,” explains Gee. “As such, my working hours are more predictable (8:30 to 5). I chose this avenue as I truly felt that I was not meeting my own expectations for my roles as mom and wife.”

Gee identifies working hours, childcare responsibility, and potential feelings of guilt for being away from family in order to further career goals as challenges that lawyer moms share. She says that the group has helped her to learn new ways to achieve her own expectations for her multiple roles as mother, spouse, and lawyer.

“This group was created to support and educate working lawyer moms about ways to help us make our lives be everything we want and need them to be,” says Gee. “It’s here to help us find ways to have it all.”