My omp out of nowhere announced 5 days a week in the office starting Monday. While I believe in facetime, policies like these are so rough as a working mom. Even if you “come to an arrangement” it undermines your career. How are people managing with 5 days a week in office?

This is going to sound unkind, but as an older lawyer, everyone over forty did that for all of our childbearing years for our whole careers. The bigger issue is work life balance and sexist expectations of women generally, but tbh, being expected to show up at work five days a week probably isn’t the hill you want to die on. (Die on the hills of why women are treated so differently regarding assignments, feedback, advancement, business development, and those hills — not that you’re being expected to go to the office.)

I agree with most of what’s being said here in terms of it being BS and backwards. However, I would like to point out that these RTO policies are rough not just for working moms, but also women more generally whether or not they have a child.

Your post doesn’t say whether you are a junior or senior associate, I am going to presume senior, and that’s because I do think juniors need to be in the office more than others, but I don’t think anyone needs to be in 5 days a week (unless they are simply incapable of working from home). I didn’t even do 5 days a week in office 15 years ago. That said…as a mid-40s, female equity partner with children, group head, with a relatively large book…this is a slap in the face to working mothers, I hate it (I hate 4 too). The world changed, but the older generation can’t quite grasp that. They don’t give a shit about anyone but their own thought that you need to sit your ass in your office desk chair for some hours every day for a law firm to function. Most of the older men likely have wives that don’t work, and I’m not quite sure why the older women don’t realize this is a bs policy and undermines women. Let me say this, it does not undermine your career to come to an arrangement, so do what you need. Find someone in the firm who supports you. There is never going to be such a thing as work life balance, but my life quality improved with remote work for sure and it should completely be an option for everyone to have some hybrid schedule.

The martyrs at my office who do this to themselves have spouses who deal with daycare pickup and dropoff (and/or relatives who watch their kids for them), or they leave the office pretty promptly at 5 every day and sign back online after their kids go down.
I am firmly in the camp of working from home when I want. I have an amazing nanny that I trust on the 1-2 days I do go in to work, but on days I work from home while she watches my baby I really appreciate being able to pop in for little breaks while my baby’s awake.

Sorry. Unfortunately senior women leaders don’t want to fight for new moms. Once they’ve gone through the carousel they expect everyone to bear the same pain cause they did it. It’s a sad state of affairs but tells you a lot about the industry.

I agree RTO policies are anti mom and as someone who work with attorneys in different offices, there’s no benefit to coming in. I’m not saying this is a solution but our firm counts days in based on how long you’re plugged into the Ethernet (we also have a dashboard with our in office percentage). I come into the office in the morning do my minimum hours and leave around 1-2. Luckily I live not too far from the office so I can usually duck out at that time and be back online within the hour.