PT-LawMom

Susan Carter Liebel has a post today on going solo as an option for fathers who want to be around more for their children. As usual it is a very informative and thought-provoking piece.

I have to admit that going solo is an attractive, albeit scary, idea. I love the thought of working out of my home or a nearby office in my suburban community with the flexibility to attend school plays, be a field trip chaperone, etc. I’d also love to be able to practice the kind of hands-on law I’m interested in. That said, I’m a sicko. In the medical sense. I get the weird kind of tons-of-tests-and-they-still-don’t-know-what-it-is kind of diseases. All those organs you don’t actually need to live, I no longer have. Unless Chapin can get great coverage or our Congress decides to do something about the healthcare crisis, I need the kind of good medical benefits that a mid-to-large-sized firm can provide.

My classmate wants to go solo and thinks it can be done easily right out of school if you pick the right area. I’m more cautious. I have been reading Ms. Carter Liebel’s blog, among others (see blogroll), and am definitely keeping it in mind. I’d love to copy a firm I saw that has a team of 5 or 6 women attorneys who work completely virtually from home with a virtual assistant. They meet clients at the clients’ offices or at hotel conference rooms or restaurants. I would love to support women with that kind of model, but I think it may be necessary to put in a few years learning at a firm before venturing out on my own.

This article could explain why my husband has been waiting six months now for a citizenship oath date. He passed his exam and interview in January and yet we still have not heard from the USCIS. This is not the first time they’ve made us wait. While we patiently waited for his conditional green card and then his permanent green card, this time we thought we were home free when he passed his exam and the USCIS officer said, “You should be getting a letter soon with an oath date.” Ha! My father had to wait almost two years after his test to take the oath and then only because I was able to pull some strings to get a local appellate judge to conduct the ceremony in her chambers (with permission from the local USCIS office, of course).

The frustrating thing about both these cases is that they mirror the cases mentioned in today’s Washington Post. My Dad worked for a government agency with high-level security clearance and that didn’t help him. My husband has already been through an FBI background check due to the nature of his job (took six months, too!) and yet they don’t seem able to cross-reference those checks and clear him off the list. Can you say FRUSTRATING?!?! Then I read articles like this and it just makes it seem all the more likely that we’ll continue to wait, and wait, and wait. I just hope that whatever progress we’ve made isn’t negated by any legislative decisions made this year.

As fathers go, I think I got a choice pick. Although my mother now says that he was at a bit of a loss at what to do with me when I was an infant, I always remember him being there once I was old enough to converse with him. He picked me up from school when I was sick, coached my T-ball team, and attended every one of my school concerts and plays. He was always there with a camera to take pictures and I always knew he was proud of me.

My Dad was a scout and taught carpentry while getting his engineering degree. He was always building us something (a toy box or a bench), taking us camping, fixing the house or, later, teaching us all we could ever want to know about computers. When he was 16, he wrote a Letter to the Editor stating his conviction that the local girls should be allowed to form a rugby league. He was raised by a working mother and believed that women should be afforded equal rights, even back in the mid-1950’s when that letter must have been a bit hard to write.

Yes, he worked a lot. I always remember him bringing work home. But I also remember all the times he put the work down in order to help me with my homework or watch a little skit I’d come up with. I was a very lucky daughter who never had to question his love for me. On this Father’s Day, I’m proud to have such a smart, goofy, fun Dad who provides me with a great example to live up to as a Mother.

The third week of law school has passed and I feel like I’m on a roll and getting a study pattern down. I think my classmates are feeling similarly. Of course we’ve been dealing with pretty much the same topics for three weeks in each class so perhaps we’ll lose that comfortable feeling when we move on, but for now we’re all nodding our heads and smiling.

I’ve been listening in the car to the LEEWS (Legal Essay Exam Writing System) tapes and the author really break things down in an easy-to-understand fashion. I am hopeful that between LEEWS and Getting to Maybe, I will have some chance of doing well. I’ve heard from several current students that you should just “Do your best and try not to stress.” Ha. These people have never worked in law firms and seen the down and dirty side of recruiting discussions. I don’t necessarily want to work in BigLaw but I do know that, in order to be competitive, you need to at least be in the top 25% (top 15, really). So there is pressure to learn the skills quickly and to keep up.

I have a classmate who disagrees. She says she wants to be a solo so she’s not going to even attempt to write on to law review or do moot court. My theory is, “Why close doors?” You don’t want to spend four years on this educational path and then find out that your grades aren’t good enough and you should have participated more. If you have the grades and you have the activities then you will probably have more job options to choose from.

Massachusetts yesterday defeated the proposed constitutional amendment to restrict marriage to male/female unions. This is great news for several good friends of me and my family who live up there and have been in committed, faithful relationships for just as long as my parents’ 30-year marriage. They fight like old married couples, worship together, perform community work together, etc. Good for the legislators in Massachusetts who see that it’s a good thing when any couple chooses to be in a loving, stable, long-term relationship with the benefits the state provides.

I believe the basis for valid political action can only be the recognition that the true solution to our problems is not accessible to any one isolated party or nation but that all must arrive at it by working together.

–Thomas Merton

If I just had someone who would make the food to go in these and a GPS to make sure they actually return home at the end of our days at school and work, I would totally use them for Pumpkinhead’s lunch and mine (and maybe even Chapin’s). Ah, if only I was less lazy, more hip and a whole bunch more crunchy.

The New York Times posted a series of eight letters to the editor on immigration reform. They are all very good, but I think this one in particular expresses my thoughts:

To the Editor:

What is it about the notion of “amnesty” that riles so many on the issue of immigration reform? Is there not a long and revered tradition that requires forgiveness as an essential ingredient to solving problems?

The simple truth is that those who enter illegally work at jobs that are at the bottom of the wage scale; what is the benefit to them that is so onerous to us? They pay taxes, often overpaying because they are fearful of collecting refunds on bogus Social Security numbers.

They cut our lawns, our meat, they build our houses, clean them, take care of our children, and cook and serve us our fast-food meals.

Those who have sought legal entry into our country should not be disadvantaged by any immigration reform, but keep in mind that they are more likely to be better educated than the illegal immigrants, are more likely to have earned a decent wage in their home countries, and will earn far more than the illegal immigrants when they arrive here.

Surely there is a way to make a fair accommodation between illegal entries who have demonstrated good will and legal applications. Let us keep in mind the good example of South Africa’s truth and reconciliation program and stop using “amnesty” as a bad word.

Francis Day
Arlington, Va., June 10, 2007

Perhaps you recently caught a rerun of the 1987 Diane Keaton movie Baby Boom and thought, “Thank God times have changed and women are much more equal now.” Apparently not. Nataly Kogan, former managing director of a venture firm, recently launched the best working mother site I’ve seen in a long time, Work It, Mom. In yesterday’s Huffington Post, Ms. Kogan describes the disbelief and utter lack of enthusiasm she received from her male colleagues when they heard she was leaving the “real business world” to start a “Mommy business”.

If you need more proof that this is happening, read this article. I actually had something similar happen to the research scenario described in this article. When I was looking for my last job, my resume included a line about a group I had founded for working mothers. My headhunter took that line out and, boy, was I pissed! I told her that any company that didn’t want to hire a mother wasn’t a company where I wanted to work. I think we all need to include our motherhood as a part of the full package we offer (think of how good we are at multi-tasking!), but this study’s results gives me some pause…

As Ms. Kogan points out in her article, the U.S. has more than 30 million working moms. Advertisers know that we’re a HUGE demographic and they seem to be playing to us more and more. So why is it that Ms. Kogan’s venture capitalist partners laugh her off? I’d encourage all of you to visit Work It, Mom, read the insightful blogs and articles there, support the advertisers on the site and show Ms. Kogan’s naysayers that working mothers are looking for an outlet. A quote by Dilek Mir on the front page of the site says it best:

As women who balance professional careers and motherhood we need all the intelligent, wise support we can get and this site is right on. What a great blend of career and parenting content.

This article in the New York Times suggests that the immigration bill collapsed Friday because opponents of the bill were mobilized and angry while supporters were happy about the legislation but not making much noise since it seemed likely to pass.

I can understand the objections of some of those featured in this article. Here’s the thing. If you have been through the LEGAL immigration process and have seen how arbitrary, frustrating and drawn out it can be, you would understand the need for reform. You would also see the wonderful benefits this country has to offer to immigrants and you might appreciate that
the United States is a country founded by immigrants. So, yes, I support immigrants and want a smooth path for people to come to this country. But just like anything that provides a benefit, it can be abused. A lot of the talk is about actions of a very small minority. If only people could meet more of the wonderful immigrant families who came here to live the American Dream and worked hard to achieve it. It’s sad to see the racist sentiments expressed in this article, especially since it’s slanted heavily towards Hispanics. Perhaps it’s naive of me, but I think people need to have a little more faith that others’ intentions aren’t to cheat, steal and lie.

Rather than judging the actions of others, let’s work together to find a way for blue collar workers to provide necessary services here in a way that benefits both them and the United States? Let’s give pregnant women delivering in the U.S. the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps they were fleeing abuse or starvation in their homeland? The point is that we just don’t know and for every story of someone who came here to abuse the system in any way they could and commit crimes, there are probably 100 more stories of people who are good, honest, hard-working souls just looking to support their families.