Pregnancy as an associate Forum

[nothingtosee]

Ran a search, didn't see anything on the topic in general.

Obviously going into biglaw if you want to start a family is not the best option, but sometimes hands are tied.

What's the situation for a female associate who wants to/gets pregnant? Is there a difference between being a junior/senior associate?

I could see there being a soft hostility to it...if you're expected to bill X hours and you don't bill X hours I'm not sure the partners would be jumping up and down to get you maternity leave.

But I'd like to hear what experienced grads have to say.

Thanks!

[rayiner]

3L baby. Seriously, though, at least at my big NYC firm, everyone was really supportive when I took paternity leave almost immediately after starting work. I started with a second year who had just had a baby and everyone was also supportive of that. The big friction is what happens afterward. If you come back and need to run out at 6 every day to pick up the baby from daycare, that's different than if you come back ready to go. FWIW, I've met a number of women who made partner while having kids as associates.

[IAFG]

Who gives a shit if they're hostile to it.

Listen, no one wants to employ the pregnant chick. As long as they don't fire you, it doesn't matter. Take those mat leave benefits and exit.

[Power_of_Facing]

http://abovethelaw.com/2013/03/labor-la ... vers-baby/

[n1o2c3a4c5h6e7t]

Paternity leave is a thing? How much time do you get off?

[Jchance]

Paternity leave is a thing? How much time do you get off?

Depending on the firm, check NALP Directory under Compensation and Benefits

[NYSprague]

Firms don't care as long as you can manage everything after you have the baby.

[lawskool234]

Disclaimer: 0L here. I've spoken to associates at the firm I work at about this before (top biglaw), and the advice given to me was to either have your children early in your biglaw career (i.e. first couple of years) or later on (6th, 7th year, or as partner), the reasoning behind this being that after 3 or so years, you will be relied upon heavily to take on a large percentage of work in any given matter, whereas early on the work you are doing is more fluid and easily transferable, and later on you have the advantage as a senior associate/partner to pass your work on/dictate to lower-level associates (that, and you have already worked your a** off for several years so there is less pressure to "prove yourself"). In short: from years ~3-5, the most pressure is on you, so you probably don't want to disrupt any work flow with having a baby. I'm not sure what this means in terms of meeting billing requirements--my guess would be that you would just need to bill that much more to make up for it while you are not on maternity leave. Maybe a current associate could answer that better, though.

Also, I think that's advice largely geared towards people who are trying to make partner. If your goal is to leave biglaw after 5 years or so, then it may make more sense to start having your kids towards the end of your biglaw run. Or not. If you have kids at the begining, no one is going to fire you for it, I'd imagine you'd just need to make sure you make up for that lost billing time (which would make spending a lot of time with your new child after the fact very difficult). Extensive child care (i.e. around-the-clock nanny or close to it, stay at home parent, etc.) was mentioned as an absolute must in biglaw, though, so you'll want to take that into consideration as well.

[rayiner]

The thing about big law, especially outside New York, is that most partners and many senior associates have kids. Out of the various complaints I have about big law, being conceptually hostile to kids is not one of them. Now, obviously the level of work makes it hard to balance work and family life, so good child care is crucial. But, e.g., in many cases the senior associate that sends you e-mails at 11 pm do so because they left at 7-8 to have dinner with the family, then logged back on at 10 to do a bit more work. This is very common, and won't cause a lot of friction if you do it too.

[nothingtosee]

Paternity leave is a thing? How much time do you get off?

Depending on the firm, check NALP Directory under Compensation and Benefits

Looks like the standard maternal leave is 18 paid weeks.
Paternal varies from 6-18 with a lok of 12 (paid).