March is Women's History Month, a time to honor and reflect on the remarkable contributions and achievements of women throughout history. This month highlights the significant roles women play in shaping our society. Fennemore supports the women attorneys and legal professionals who are instrumental in driving our firm's success and work to make us stronger.
Last March, we had a conversation with Courtney Miller O'Mara, a director in our Reno office, in which she shared her experiences as a woman in the legal profession and offered advice to young female attorneys balancing their personal and professional responsibilities. This month, we had the pleasure of revisiting our conversation and hearing her additional insights on navigating work and family life:
You previously mentioned the need for formal rules regarding litigation deadlines to accommodate family leave. How do you think the legal profession can better advocate for such changes?
Florida has enacted rules regarding presumptive continuances for lead attorneys taking parental leave for birth or adoption. I understand it to be a 90-day presumptive continuance. I like this idea because by making it presumptive, the attorney does not need to feel like they are asking for an indulgent favor. Accommodating attorneys welcoming a new baby to their home should be seen as common decency, not an inconvenient burden to the profession or the legal system. We all started as babies! I think a bar that supports and encourages parents to be present for their families during these important life transitions sends the message that parents are welcome in this profession. Neither mothers or fathers should feel pressure to sacrifice their family life to continue their career as an attorney.
I am also aware that in the last year, Minnesota rolled out a two-year pilot program for presumptive personal leave. That program appears to cover not just presumptive leave for new parents, but also for unplanned adverse life events, like a chronic illness or a sudden death in the family. We should want a culture that supports babies and parents, none of us is guaranteed a life without unexpected crises like illness or the loss of a family member. I wish we didn't need to consider formal rules for such decisions, but sometimes putting what should be common decency into a formal rule could make all the difference. Personally, I could have made use of such a rule over the last year. I'm lucky that I had many able colleagues from Fennemore who stepped in to help while I was unavailable, but not every firm has as deep a bench as Fennemore.
What steps can law firms or bar associations take to push for these accommodations?
Normalizing parental leave for mothers and fathers is the first step. If only women are granted leave or encouraged (explicitly or implicitly) to take leave, or if men are shamed or shunned for taking parental leave, there remains a stigma that parental leave is “just for women” and a concomitant risk that there will be some (perhaps unconscious) bias against women who take leave. Large firms like Fennemore already typically offer generous family leave policies for both men and women. I think it might be easier for smaller firms to follow suit if the male or female attorneys taking the leave were able to get the type of presumptive continuances discussed above.
I am not currently active in the leadership of any bar associations, but I think those who are in such positions have an opportunity to help shape the norms for our profession through formal programs and advocacy for rule-making, which signal to the rest of the bar what the default standards are. I am friends with women just a generation or so older than me who were the first in their firms to request maternity leave, or who had to cope with a bench baffled or even nervous at the sight of a heavily pregnant attorney appearing in court. Just a generation later, the culture is very different for working mothers and also as to how involved working fathers are in child-rearing. The profession must change to reflect that. Parental leave is not just a women's issue!
How have you personally mentored young women in the legal profession, especially those who are balancing the demands of family life with their professional responsibilities?
Mentoring can be both formal and informal, and I'm honored to have helped guide multiple young women in those regards. One way to encourage people is to be an example of someone who has already done what looks impossible to you now. With respect to balancing family life, I do not keep it a secret that I have five minor children; they are between the ages of three and 14 now. But did I know I could do it before I did? No. I remember expecting my fourth child, being nervous about how I would manage, and then thinking of a woman lawyer whose career I admired and who already had four: “She can do it, so can I!” Then, when I was expecting my fifth, thinking of our own Kim Arana, who was then serving on the management committee: “If Kim built her career with five kids, so can I!”
The truth is, navigating law practice with a large family and a spouse with his own legal career is not always simple, so I do not sugarcoat that. But what I do share with women (or men!) who ask is that it is doable and that you don't have to give up your dream of parenthood to succeed at a law firm. You do have to look at how you can still accomplish the work that the clients need while giving your family what they need, too. One of the favorite tips I have passed on to others I got from Jann Chubb of Kaempfer Crowell. Years ago we were both members of a small group organized by the Northern Nevada Women Lawyers Association. Jann shared with me that when her kids were young, she often preferred to work late nights once or twice a week as opposed to working weekends. I implemented that advice years ago. Working weekends made me feel sad and like I was missing precious family time with my young kids. Working late one weeknight often gave me just as many extra hours to finish my work tasks without the same family sacrifice. I still use working late on a weeknight as a strategy, and I don't think my family suffers for it.
I also want to normalize that families with two working parents can have involved moms and involved dads when it comes to childcare issues. My husband and I take turns covering medical or dental visits for the kids; it does not all fall on me.
You also previously emphasized the importance of developing business to gain more autonomy. What advice do you have for young female attorneys who are just starting to build their own client base and manage business development?
Earlier in my career, I sometimes felt that attending to billable work conflicted with following up on new business opportunities, so I would sometimes postpone following up on business development opportunities because I had pressing billable work to attend to. But you should flip that. You should hit pause on your billable work and return calls from potential new clients ASAP. My practice is to return the call as soon as I can, or even have my assistant or an associate return the call if I cannot, get some limited non-confidential details to determine if it is even a fit for Fennemore, and then run conflicts. Not every call results in a new matter; far from it. I have returned potential new client calls from vacation, while on parental leave, and at night after a long day in court.
The other piece of advice I received long ago is something I think of as a business development proverb: “You don't throw seeds in the ground when you're hungry.” You must give time and attention to your relationships before they are going to bear fruit, and then once they bear fruit, you have to keep tending to them. That is going to look different for different practice areas, and you will need to adjust, but you can't neglect the tending. You don't wait for an empty queue of work before you try to develop more.
What advice do you have for other working parents in the legal field when it comes to creating a support network that ensures both your career and family life can thrive?
My husband and I are lucky to live near both our families. That is not an accident. But we also spend quite a lot on childcare and other services that make managing home life a little easier. We have an au pair, pay for other childcare, and make liberal use of services like Instacart and laundry delivery. Do not underspend on childcare! You probably need to build in at least some degree of redundancy. And do not be afraid to ask for help. We are so thankful for the help from our local family, but we also have networks of local friends who help. My family participates in plenty of sports carpools. God bless all the sports parents who help shuttle our kids to and from practices and games!
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