Do Reduced-Hour Workloads Derail Partnership-Track Careers?

Work-life balance is always a hot topic among our readers, but this month our podcast guests were the ones fired up in a heated discussion about the realities of practicing law, raising children and making it all work.

ABA Journal Podcast moderator Stephanie Francis Ward led our guests through a frank debate examining whether reduced-hour workloads derail partner-track careers; how female attorneys can gain more power over their schedules; and whether computer software that simulates client interactions adequately prepares students and underutilized associates to practice law.

Business of law reporter Rachel Zahorsky (@LawScribbler) tweeted their conversation live using the Twitter hashtag #ABAJchat.

Listen to the Podcast

In This Podcast:

Stephanie Francis Ward, Rachel M. Zahorsky
Stephanie Kimbro, MA, JD, has operated a Web-based virtual law office in North Carolina since 2006 and delivers estate planning and small-business law to clients online. She is the recipient of the 2009 ABA Keane Award for Excellence in eLawyering and the author of Virtual Law Practice: How to Deliver Legal Services Online, ABA/LPM publishing 2010. In addition to her law practice and writing, she is the proud and busy mother of two young children.

Will Meyerhofer, JD, LMSW, is a psychotherapist in private practice in New York City. He holds degrees from Harvard, New York University School of Law and The Hunter College School of Social Work. Meyerhofer is a licensed and registered master of social work in New York state. His private practice website is A Quiet Room. He is the author of a blog, The People’s Therapist, reflecting a psychotherapist’s take on the world around us, and he writes a weekly column, “In-house Counseling” for the blog Above the Law. His new book, Life is a Brief Opportunity for Joy, will be available this month.

Jacquelyn Slotkin is professor of law and director of the LLM program for foreign lawyers at California Western School of Law. She is a former legal research and writing professor and the legal skills program director at California Western. Before returning to teaching 23 years ago, Slotkin spent five years in private practice. She has studied women since the 1970s beginning with her doctoral research on role conflict among college-educated women. Her first book, It’s Harder in Heels: Essays by Women Lawyers Achieving Work-Life Balance, written and edited with her lawyer-daughter, was published in late 2007. Their second book, Sharing the Pants: Essays on Work-Life Balance by Men Married to Lawyers was published in December 2009.

Joan C. Williams is a professor at University of California Hastings College of the Law, in San Francisco. A large part of her research focuses on gender, class, and work-family issues. She’s also founding director of the Center for WorkLife Law and is the co-founder of the center’s Project for Attorney Retention.