The American Bar Association Journal recently published an opinion article by Susan Smith Blakely based upon the thesis that being a lawyer-mom has significant impacts on a woman’s professional upward mobility in a law firm. In it, the author colors the lawyer-mom as a perfectionist who cannot help but “sacrifice good performance on the altar of perfectionists,” is a mediocre team player, skips lunches, and fails to idle the day away by conversing with colleagues, developing clients, or attending firm social functions, all of which could propel her to the coveted equity-partner position.
In 2024 our law firm underwent a collaborative and strategic restructuring, and we have now become Guerra LLP! So, while this post applied to our previous namesake, some things will never change, like our unrelenting work ethic. With decades of experience on our staff that you are familiar with, our team is remaining steadfast in our mission to continue to fight the good fight for our current and future clients.
I am a mom and now a grandmother, a lawyer who is an income partner in a law firm, and to be honest I resemble some of Ms. Smith Blakely’s generalizations. For instance, I can count on one hand the number of lunch outings and firm social events in which I willingly participated during my career; I do not have, nor do I attempt to make time for meaningless chatter with colleagues during the workday, and I have been known to focus — a bit obsessively — on details, especially when it comes to deals with lawyers whom I know have a propensity to throw in what would otherwise be deal-breakers once a deal is closing or just being “papered.”
I have also noticed, during the pandemic phase of my practice, an uptick in lawyer, mediator, and judicial use of the buzzword phrase, “don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” So often so, that Ms. Smith Blakely’s references in the article immediately brought this phrase to mind. In my experience, the point made is to encourage someone to overlook a flaw that everyone recognizes but knows would require effort they are unwilling to expend to fix. Ms. Smith Blakely promotes it in the context that it is “better to do well than to obsess overdoing the job to perfection.”
I have a different perspective. If law firm advancement for a woman, who is also a mom, means she must blindly participate in antiquated and stale practices that rarely included or benefited women, then I say let perfect be the enemy. Seriously. It is not a big leap and there are other paths to take. My mentor was a woman lawyer who took her kids to school, focused on work when she was there, and family or other important life matters when she was not. She skipped the out-of-office lunch as often as possible. She helped the firm reimagine some of the social events around families, instead of golf outings, or alcohol-laden social events where children were not welcome. When travel was required, she brought along her children if she could. We once got stranded in Dallas on a flight and took the overnight bus into Houston just so she could be there to take the kids to school the next morning.
I believe that the described “pitfalls” of participation in non-traditional events that exclude certain lawyer groups in a firm can be spread around among these different lawyers and that it need not be a diversity issue. My mentor was not estranged from her spouse or children, or unable to meet client needs. She did not suffer from being unable to garner the equity she wanted to meet the needs of her family or their expectations over the long road that spanned her career until she died from an aggressive cancer. Neither was she judgmental of colleagues without spouses or children, or colleagues with spouses or children. In short, she was as perfect as a mentor as she was a lawyer and a mom, and she did not sacrifice any part of who she was to someone else’s opinion about the proper way to advance to equity partner in the law firm.
Any focus on pitfalls that destine lawyer-moms to suffer a career on the alleged lower rung of the mommy-track allows some firms and managers to justify these antiquated practices. It would help if the corporate world and law firms generally put more women at the top so new norms, and ideas about how to achieve common goals across disparate groups of lawyers, could be established. It should not be difficult to select more mothers to be Managing Partners, Section Leaders, or the one with the General Counsel job. When the choice about outside counsel or advancement within a firm is based upon the quality of the lawyer and not upon her status as a mom, or as a potential mom, then the quantity of lunch outings, whether she answers your email within seconds after hours, whether she schmoozes would-be clients at the golf club on weekends or is the first and last participant at that social event that requires she choose the firm over the family is not important. This is also where being a member of a team can truly be beneficial – firms and businesses in litigation can require that the team of lawyers selected to represent them includes that pesky perfectionist who is available during lunch, and is as content with her family status as with who she is as a lawyer.
Read about our Guerra LLP Lawyers who just so happen to mothers and how they balance their careers successfully here.
***Written by
WATTS GUERRA, LLP
Four Dominion Drive, Bldg. Three, Suite 100
San Antonio, Texas 78257
Phone: (210) 447-0500
Email: ssanford@guerrallp.com
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