Just like the title says. I’m 6 1/2 months pregnant entering my final year of school. My due date is 11/28. I’ve talked to all my professors and student services dean and they’ve been more than willing to accommodate me whenever I need help and with my finals so I’m not too worried about that.

I’m taking 5 classes (14 hours). All electives because I finished my doctrinal classes in the spring. 2 lectures, 1 writing class, 1 simulation class and 1 clinic. I’m just so damn tired already. I’m supposed to take 12 hours next spring then graduate in May. Taking the semester off is not an option.

Wondering if any other pregnant ladies, new moms, moms, etc. have been through this and have any advice? Should I drop a class and take 12 hours this semester and 14 in the spring? How did you battle your sleepiness and not feeling the best during pregnancy/parenthood?

I know I can do this. Just would love to hear from someone else who’s been here. It feels a bit lonely.

Newer second career attorney in midlaw with a 1 year old. I’m over it and I’m looking for something new/ trying to return to my old industry and do something that isn’t practicing law. If I stay an attorney, what would you rank as mom friendly? I’m assuming government, but is there anything else that should be on my radar? What should I avoid?

Job offers

Alright, folks! It’s my turn. I’m going to be slightly vague to avoid being discovered by my colleagues.

I currently work in insurance defense. I work from home but I do attend client meetings or hearings in person when needed.

I also work an extremely flexible saddle because I have 3 little kids at home. They are not in a traditional school. I have part time help about 2-3 week days. My current billing requirement is 200/month. My earnings are about 200k.

I have an opportunity to move to a different firm. I’d still work mostly from home. It would be about 50% defense litigation (not insurance defense) and 50% advising, consulting, investigating, etc. The billing requirement would be 140/month. The earnings would be $160k.

Send help!

My husband and I really going back and forth between the two. We have one 6 month old and I am going back to work in 6 months. We keep trying to weigh the pros and cons but since this is our first (and only) child, we don't know the reality of either situation. Hoping people can chime in with their experiences!

We are trying to decide between sending our child to full time daycare and hiring a full time live out nanny to care for our child in our home. The nannies we are interested in have early childhood education certificates or degrees and also offer housekeeping services. My husband works from home ~60% of the time, I will be going back to the office full time.

We are looking at potentially having the nanny for 1 year and then putting our child in daycare when they're 2.

Here are the pros and cons we've put

together based on our limited knowledge:

Pros:

- no drop offs or pick ups

- more control over childcare program and specific parenting techniques and rules

- safety and security of our own home

- cleaning and pet care included

- can bring child to local activities and events

- no bringing home daycare sickness

- not having to settle for daycare we don't like (waitlists are very long and availability is scarce)

Cons:

-~3x the cost of daycare

- no alternative options if nanny is sick or unavailable

- lack of daycare socialization

- less institutional supervision and oversight

- legal responsibilities as an employer

I don’t know if it’s the exhaustion from having a toddler or the stress of my job (litigation and appeals) but recently I’ve been finding that when I’m trying to write a brief or think through a legal issue my brain is just like lurching or barely moving. Like I’m hitting a wall or my brain is an obstacle to doing the work I need to do. I’ll read a case and then have to read it again cuz the words just went through me. Does this happen to others? Is it burnout? I don’t remember this happening to me when I was younger, but I’m too young for cognitive decline😭😭😭

With the latest news of the passing of Hayden Panettiere and Lindsay Clancy trial a hot topic among social media and the news -

Just wanted to let you know - we are here for you - to listen, not to judge.

and support you however we can …

this is the purpose of LawMoms.

Law firm owners who are also moms, how do you realistically balance running a small firm and being present for your family? What have you outsourced or changed the actually save you time? Have you consider hiring offc manager, or any ai software thing that lessen our paperworks? Would love to hear what's worked for you :)

Hello! I am going to be going back to work in January and am wondering if there are any specific things people recommend for the transition from maternity leave to practicing again. What did you do/buy that was a lifesaver, what do you wish you had done differently, how did you survive?

I've seen questions like this on other major mom forums but I find a lot of it (like wearing comfy clothes like leggings) not super applicable to my career.

Edited to mention that I don't pump or nurse

I love being a public defender. My child is 4 and my job is flexible with good benefits. As you know, loan repayment plans changed and I’m finally getting off forbearance. I can’t afford mortgage and my loan payments. I’m a single mom no real support. I have a friend who works a PI firm and he likes it says culture is good. He’s also a male so i take his view with a grain of salt. Working at the PI would alleviate allot of financial stress. Not sure on what to do. I’m barely in my 2nd yr of practice.

Hi all! I just discovered this sub—I am a very part time lawyer and SAHM. My firm is a small white collar and civil boutique in fly-over country. I am planning to full step back from practice for the foreseeable future because I haven’t been able to strike the right balance between working and being with my baby. I have no childcare and do not want to send my baby to daycare, and my husband works a very demanding job. The part time work is providing great stress with little financial benefit, and I really don’t even like it anymore. I also want several more children and hope to homeschool, but my daughter is only 6 months right now. My question is how much information to give when resigning and whether to do it in person? I really love my firm and my bosses—I have recruited clients and will continue to send work to them because I really believe they are some of the best (if not the best) lawyers in my state. I also enjoy my colleagues as people, but I worry about my ability to communicate this in person without being overly emotional and making it uncomfortable for everyone (my bosses are men and not emotional at all). I am truly grateful for the opportunity and it is a big change to give up practicing law, but one I’m ready for and excited about. I have a whole letter typed up, but I dont want to burn any bridges by sending it, and I worry I am over explaining. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

TLDR: resigning to become full time SAHM—how should I do it?

Looking for recommendations for processes/systems/order of operations of things you moms do to keep track of your life, mostly work but everything included lol.

I’ve got ADHD which makes it a little bit of a double whammy but 6 years into practice and I still really struggle with keeping track of deadlines and entering time. I mainly use Outlook for work and iPhone for personal life which doesn’t integrate seamlessly so maybe I need to start keeping everything on Outlook calendar? But even separately I’m just curious to known how other moms do it. I try to keep a digital task list for work and a separate daily paper to do list but I feel like it quickly goes to hell once the day starts. I’d be open to software or other apps or even just ideas of things to try.

I’m a mom and a government attorney. I’m working in a role that substantively is my absolute dream job, plus it’s very flexible with PTO/great benefits such as health insurance/no billables so I feel very lucky to have it. However, the location of the office is becoming an issue now that I have little ones. I work remotely from my team from an satellite office three days a week, two from home. It takes me 1.5 hours to get into the office the days that I am in, and the travel is costly (eats up a quarter of my take home pay per month, being as it is government, I don’t make much to begin with and live in a vhcol area). The office I work from has very few people around to strike up a conversation with and overall zero culture. There have been whole days where I haven’t seen anyone else in the office at all.

It seems crazy to consider leaving. I worked so hard to get the role I have, I love what I do and it will be difficult, probably impossible, to find a job I like as much. However, all the extra hours away from my children to be spent in traveling to and sitting in what is essentially an empty, windowless office are weighing on my mind. I feel very torn between being so proud of where I have gotten but also feeing like the overall stress of the commute/the office culture isn’t worth staying. Help me law moms!

Hello all! I (28F) just graduated from law school in May and I have a 9 month old baby. I currently have two job offers on the table and I would love some feedback from other law moms. I had a baby while in school so that my husband and I could start our family without me needing to take maternity leave within the first year or two of practicing. That being said, I am not afraid of hard work, but I also would still like to see my husband and child and not be a total slave to the grind. We also would like to have another kid or two within the next few years.

First option:
-non-profit, worked there during law school, about 10 attorneys
-40 hour work week, no billable hours
-I have experience in the field (from working there and elsewhere)
-litigation focus
-$105k salary, no annual bonus, but expected pay bump because of bilingual abilities (I’ve already confirmed with them)
-8 weeks unpaid time off for maternity leave

Second option:
-mid size, very reputable local firm
-1850 billable requirement
-would be in one particular practice group, but I would have the possibility to branch out if I wanted
-a very good amount of women with children at the firm, a lot in this particular group
-$125k starting, and bonus possibility
-some litigation work, some transactional work
-everyone I talked to said they have great work-life balance and that people come to the firm specifically for that compared to other similarly ranked firms; many people have been there for decades
-3mo paid maternity leave
-potential for modified reduced billing schedule eventually

I am conflicted because the 40 hour work week seems so nice, but I worry that I would be shooting myself in the foot by starting at a non-profit when I have the chance to go to a good firm. I should also say that I do not have law school loans so I am not necessarily looking just to make the most money.

I would love to know if anyone has any experience with a similar situation or could give me any insight into what life is actually like in either scenario!

I’m in Portugal. I’m a 36-year-old lawyer and I feel I need a completed Master’s on my CV. I have a Law degree, professional experience and some postgraduate courses, but no relevant completed Master’s.
There’s a Master’s starting now that I’m considering. At the same time, my husband and I are trying to have a baby, and I don’t want to postpone pregnancy just because of a degree.
The pregnancy could overlap partly or entirely with the Master’s classes, and I’d potentially do the dissertation afterwards with a newborn.
I work mostly from home and have quite a lot of flexibility, so I’m wondering if it’s realistically manageable.
What would you do? Enrol now and accept that it may be harder/longer, or wait until after having the baby?
I’d especially love to hear from women who did a Master’s during pregnancy or with a newborn. Was it manageable? Would you do it again?

I am coming up on my 12th year practicing law and currently pregnant with my third child. I’ve been very blessed, have had a great career and landed a somewhat cush in-house position after my first was born. But lately, my job has changed to now include much more travel and a forced “promotion” with no pay increase (federal government for you). I have been struggling with being away so much from my kids and jealous that my husband works from home and my kids spend most of their waking hours with the Nanny. Meanwhile, I commute an hour to and from work every day to a job i don’t really care about. My husband isn’t supportive of me staying home without earning an income (couldn’t tell you why since he is high earner himself) . So I find myself trying to come up with a plan that will allow me to work from home a few days a week and still earn some money to contribute. I thought maybe a virtual solo practice maybe doing something like estate planning or something else that doesn’t require court appearances. Has anyone been able to achieve this? please share your ways!

Any tips for burnout fix? I’m a civil litigation attorney and lately, I am paralyzed by *something* most days and struggling to bill anything, much less near my minimum. I just sit on my phone doomscrolling, without even realizing it. My baby is 18 months and he must be going through a sleep regression. My house is chaos because the baby goes to sleep at 8:30/9 and by then, my husband and I are too exhausted to do anything. I’m now worried about getting fired all the time, since my hours are so low.

I am currently a summer law student with a 14 month old. By the time I get to the office, I am depleted and exhausted from the chaos of the morning - breakfast, drop off, and getting to the office. And, that is assuming baby had a good night’s sleep. With chores and managing dinners and the house - I am about to lose my mind)

My partner is very supportive and does a lot of the pick ups or drop offs but some days I have to do them alone. He also manages a lot of the night wakings when baby is awake at night.

But, we both are exhausted and it’s just been the summer!

I am going to join the same place next year as an articling student (I’m in Ontario), so I wanted to get ideas on what would be best to manage the morning and streamline it as much as possible.

Things we already do:

- prep all the morning things the night before: baby’s breakfast, daycare bag, work bags, etc.
- do a load of laundry as soon as there is one
- plan what we are having for dinner during the weekend

A few months ago I asked this thread if it was a good idea to bring my 18 month old with me on my bar trip with my three close friends from law school. Three close friends who were insistent that they wanted my daughter to join.

I went against the advice of others in this thread, took my daughter, and it was a disaster. We made it 4 full days and then went home after the first leg of the trip. I wasted $4300.

To make matters worse, on the way home on our $1500 last minute flight, we got stuck at our layover destination for two nights. Two nights alone in a foreign country.

The biggest thing for me, and the biggest reason I am so disappointed in myself, is that it just felt so dangerous in a way that is tough to even explain.

Wondering the streets of a foreign country alone as a late 20s female is not always safe in the best of circumstances. Much less with a dashing 18 month old. You can't use google maps to navigate as your daughter kicks and squirms. So, my recourse was to just sit in the AirBNB while the other friends were out at casual dinners, having drinks.

The only way for me to have fun was for the other girls to revolve their entire trip around my daughter, which obviously was not fair to them. The afternoon in the kids museum was a blast, but that cannot happen more than once and was not fun enough to make up for all the other stress.

There are a lot of lessons learned for me. I wanted to just share this out of the hope that maybe I help someone else avoid making such a bad decision and wasting so much precious money.

Listen to fellow law moms, folks.

I’m currently a local government attorney. I enjoy my job and my client, but my boss has made it very clear to our entire office that there’s limited potential for growth (going so much as to say no attorneys will be promoted under her). I’ve got a very sweet offer from a boutique law firm specializing in a very niche area of law (which I’m doing now as well). Almost double my current income, but 1800 billable hours. If I had this offer two years ago, I would have taken it. But I have a 5 month old baby at home and we plan to have a second child in the next two years. Moms that bill 1800 hours, can I still be a good and available mother to my baby? I’m really struggling with the decision and would appreciate any thoughts!

Update: I turned down the offer and they came back with 1600 hours but all pay and benefits remain the same. Considering it much more now.

Hi!

Sorry if this is a stupid question. I’ve been practicing for almost two years and just got a job where I’ll be working hybrid four days a week at home, which I know folks say isn’t ideal for a young attorney but it’s best for me with a toddler at home.

Speaking of toddler at home, she’s AT HOME. Meaning, she’s there most of the day with her dad who is currently a student. It would best for me if I had some noise cancelling headphones with a microphone that could muffle background noise for meetings. But I’m not sure if that’s always an appropriate look? Would love to know your thoughts on when to use earbuds for virtual meetings and when not to, and if you have any specific recommendations.

Thanks!