Law Firms Must Normalize Working Parenthood to Retain Talent

Supporting new parents in the legal profession starts with an excellent parental leave policy. But retaining new parents, especially mothers, requires far more.

Leopard Solutions’ 2022 Women Leaving the Law survey reports that the majority of women who left large law firms didn’t depart to stay home with children. Rather, most leave due to diminished work satisfaction, lack of flexibility to manage both work and non-work obligations, and an overall lack of support in the workplace.

This is striking—it’s clear many women aren’t leaving law firms for full-time caregiving, as some assume. Instead, many female lawyers simply find themselves in a rigid work environment where their personal and professional obligations can’t seem to coexist.

The exodus of women, including mothers, hurts the legal profession. It contributes to the disproportionately low number of women in equity partnership and highest-level legal leadership. Their exit also leaves few high-level female lawyers to mentor early-career female lawyers who seek to succeed both at work and in their personal lives.

Legal employers can start building the supportive environment sought by these lawyers by improving the return from parental leave experience. In doing so, legal employers communicate the value of these lawyers in the workplace and improve the reentry experience for all parents, not just mothers—potentially boosting retention.

Examine the Experience

The return from leave experience largely avoids scrutiny. Many leaders never directly experience the process themselves. Those who do may only experience it once or a handful of times in their career. Lack of leader-level exposure means the reentry experience stays as is, perhaps continuing indefinitely in a suboptimal state.

Leaders should gather perspectives from returning lawyers. They may discover that lawyers receive little guidance and are left to navigate the return experience alone. Others may find a disorganized process filled with unwritten rules. With this information, leaders can address pain points and make improvements. After identifying potential improvements, organizations should lead implementation rather than rely on returning parents to lead the charge.

Prepare Thoughtfully

Returning to practice after parental leave requires intense coordination. In my experience, before at my desk each sleep-deprived morning, I’d already planned feeding and pumping schedules, washed and sanitized an entire day’s worth of bottles, fed and cared for a baby who had other plans, coordinated child care, and commuted—and maybe even showered. I only occasionally had time to organize myself. Already stretched thin, navigating the return from leave process without clear guidance felt like too much.

Thoughtful preparation reduces the amount of task managing required of returning parents. Employers should consider developing a comprehensive checklist of administrative tasks required to reboard. If benefits such as postpartum health and wellness care, breastmilk shipping services, and lactation rooms exist, that information should be consolidated in a single place.

Unknown and inaccessible benefits and perks are simply window dressing. If managers must complete reboarding tasks, define and delegate those tasks well before the parent’s return. A smooth reboarding cultivates a culture of support and allows the returning lawyer to focus on the challenge of integrating work and parenthood.

Reestablish Relationships

For early-career lawyers, work often flows from close-knit workplace relationships. Absence disrupts these relationships and workflow channels. All too often, rebuilding these relationships falls on the shoulders of the already overburdened returning parent.

To interrupt this dynamic, legal employers should help reestablish these relationships. In my case, the formula included these essential components: communication, monitoring, and leader involvement.

It started with announcements to colleagues and clients that I’d returned. That announcement included information on whether new work should come directly to me or through another intake system. For months, I had follow-up discussions about my reintegration, capacity, and whether the type and volume of work was appropriate. Work was quickly redirected my way, reestablishing my position with clients and colleagues. It’s the same a formula I replicate today as a leader.

Don’t Assume

Each returning lawyer reenters work with a slightly different mindset. Some are hungry to reengage; others require a paced onramp. Many will fall somewhere in between as they juggle a new schedule, personal responsibilities, and their own and their child’s health considerations.

When I returned, I discovered first-hand that others made assumptions about my mindset. Some assumed I would be unwilling to accept stretch assignments or work requiring travel. For better or worse, I had to address assumptions directly before they evolved into decisions that affected my career path.

Leaders and managers should resist temptations to leap to conclusions about how a returning lawyer will approach work. Assumptions can spur leaders ill-informed decisions with unintended consequences. Instead, leaders should allow the returning lawyer to lead the way by having frequent, open conversations about the lawyer’s career needs and goals. Leaders should also understand that mindsets evolve as the challenges of new parenthood change.

Supporting Working Parents

Creating a supportive environment that retains parents—particularly new mothers—requires normalization of working parenthood from the start. This means empowering individuals to make decisions that support their own and their family’s well-being without repercussion or judgment. It means welcoming flexibility and allowing parents to exercise control over their schedules to make time for things like infant doctor’s appointments and easing into a childcare routine.

Spouses can do their part by also taking parental leave, signaling that parenthood isn’t simply a women’s issue and drawing further attention to the return from leave experience. It means that all lawyers, even those with older children, openly discuss parental responsibilities. Parenting aloud normalizes the experience for all and builds the supportive environment that so many lawyers seek.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law and Bloomberg Tax, or its owners.

Author Information

Brittany Johnson is director, corporate counsel, at Starbucks Corp. She and her team lead legal support for domestic and international expansion through brand licensing. Her views in this column don’t necessarily reflect those of her employer.