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I hate this job. That is all.
I interviewed with Firm A months ago and accepted a position to start this upcoming fall. Group leader called me to offer the position back in November 2020. Besides interviewing with partners at the firms, and diligent follow ups notifying them of my interest to get started, no communication has transpired since.It turns out that I accepted a better offer w/ Firm B for personal reasons and won’t be going to Firm A. What is the best way to notify Firm A? Call/email group leader? Call/email HR?
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I’m married to a pilot and had two young kids while in BL. He was gone about 14-18 days of the month. We had a full time nanny (45hrs/week) for the first and second until youngest was 2ish, but oldest started going to preschool at 2yo and would stay with nanny after. Also had one of our parents come in for specially busy times that we knew of ahead of time/could plan for (we didn’t live near family at all) and also had a few babysitters we trusted if needed. I spent a lot of time WFH so I could see the kids in between work and my husband was 100% with them when home which was nice.
I moved in house when they were 4 and 2. I wish I would’ve done it earlier, but I timed it with a move to be closer to family so it worked out in the end. If I could re-do it, I wouldn’t have waited and would’ve gone in house after my second maternity leave.
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Don’t think it was super helpful honestly, and I don’t wish I did it before because of how long my mat leaves were at the firm (6ish months). I knew in house I was risking a much shorter leave unless I REALLY lucked out. My kids are less than 2 years apart so I only worked for less than a year and a half in between anyway.
I think the long mat leaves was worth the extra year+ I “had” to stay in.
Lawyer-lawyer couple. Was in BL for 7 years, and just recently transitioned to another practice area for better WLB. Had 3 kids, and honestly, couldn’t tell you how we all survived. It was really, really tough, and had I known how tough it would be, I wouldn’t have ever had so many kids, stayed so long in BL, married another lawyer (don’t tell my husband, haha), etc. I think it worked out for us because I worked international hours while my husband worked regular US hours. My mom lived with us and practically raised the first two. We had to hire a nanny for the third, but literally our next door neighbor (a stay at home mom) agreed to watch him until he was eligible for daycare so we got really lucky. My husband was going into the office, and I was fully remote. He’s now fully remote and handling most household and childcare responsibilities so that I can live out my dream. It’s definitely not easy, but it can be done. If you think about it too much though, you’re not going to ever muster up enough courage to do it (in my opinion). But this is the case with a lot of things, like having kids 🤷♀️ I want to say it’s better now that the kids are older, but it’s not. The kids get busier when they get older so it’s not much easier. It’s just different.
It doesn’t sound worth it if you wouldn’t have had so many kids if you had known how tough it would be 😕 I am in BL (associate) and just had my third, planning to have one more. Have been in BL for all of my kids. This take kinda scares me though!
Married to a surgeon, we have 3 kids, senior associate in BL lit. We have had a nanny who comes from 8-5 M-F. I work as hard/efficiently as I can during those hours, then block off kid time. After they go to sleep, I usually go back to work as needed. I try to keep the cutoff time around 2 am. Eldest just started school, which has added some complexity. I mostly work from home to maximize time. Unfortunately, can't rely on spouse for consistent childcare availability or assistance with running the household, since their schedule is more intense and unpredictable than mine. So that falls to me, and our standards are kept fairly low to accommodate the absolute lack of spare time we have.
Don't really recommend this course of action if you can avoid it, since you just don't sleep and you just feel like you are underwater in all facets of life. On the other hand, difficult, but doable if you have a concrete goal in mind and this is what is required to get you there.