Oh my goodness, my heart is melting. I’m sitting in my dining room and I can hear Pumpkinhead in the other room singing all the words to the Little Einsteins theme song. He sounds so precious!

My lunch with the partner went really, really well yesterday. She’s a real inspiration. Several kids and a thriving career! We talked a lot about labor and employment law as a career choice. She encouraged me to get the best grades I can so that I have the option to work at a larger firm. I thought I didn’t want that (and I’m still not sure), but she thinks that it’s important to do 2-3 years at a large firm so that you can transition in-house or to other firms. She said she has friends who have left our large firm and gone part-time on the plaintiff side. They still make 6 figures, but work much less. The in-house side is also more friendly. They tend to do less litigation (because they farm it out) and do more on the ERISA/benefits/HR side, which interests me.

The partner did talk a lot about the importance of having a strong sense of priorities and a realistic understanding of what a legal career demands. She said that a lot of women without children come into the field and flounder because they just don’t know how they will feel once they have kids. She said I’m ahead of the game because I am doing so much right now and know how much face time I need with my child. She also said that could change for me as he goes into school and starts activities. It’s important to have a supportive spouse (hers is a stay-at-home Dad) and extended family. She admitted that she has missed some things, but she thinks she has a pretty good balance.

I felt very encouraged by our talk. She thought my summer grades were good and encouraged me to continue to strive for B+ and up. She said grades are the most important thing (gee, thanks), but the important thing to remember is that she has only ever worked for one large firm. Still, she said it’s vital not to shut doors by not focusing enough on grades. I am hopeful that I can pull it together health-wise to concentrate and do well this semester. I’m a bit concerned…

Health-wise, I was pretty nauseated last night and just now writing this, I realize I forgot to take my Cymbalta. Supposed to be one night on, one off and Thursday night was my one off. Sigh… I might take one this morning so that this day isn’t a wash. I really think the nausea is coming from that because my “one on” days haven’t been as nauseated, just dizzy and tired. I was wicked dizzy yesterday — barely made it to my car cause I thought I was going to pass out. Ack. I really, really hope this med takes effect soon and stops causing me all of these problems. I got almost nothing done at work yesterday, just sat there dopey. Fortunately I managed to pull it together during lunch thanks to a double-shot latte and some Tylenol.

Today I have to get off the couch and take Pumpkinhead out to a birthday party for one of his classmates. I think I’m going to get along famously with the kid’s mother. She called me Wednesday to invite us to this party. Yep, she’s about as disorganized as me these days! Hopefully other kids from school will show up. She’s having it at one of the local pizza party places (ugh!) so they’ll probably have a blast. It’s at 11 a.m. so I’d better get going. Still have to hit the toy store to find a gift and every part of my body hurts right now so I should probably take a shower to try to relax things before we get going.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 10th, 2007 at 10:20 am and is filed under Law School, Mommy stuff, Women in Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.