Julie Schwartz Weber September 30th, 2009
While part-time work has been a viable option for many workers attempting to balance work and family lives, it has not, generally or traditionally, been available to most law partners. In fact, historically, working part-time in the law has been seen as professional suicide. However, a new study just released by The Project for Attorney Retention, Reduced Hours, Full Success: Part-Time Partners in U.S. Law Firms, demonstrates that there is evidence that providing part-time partners options to employees can be a “win-win” for employees and firms. More specifically, this report shows that law firms can successfully implement reduced-hour programs and that part-time lawyers and their law firms will prosper because of these programs.
The premise of the report is that part-time partners are “key to the law firms’ long-term financial health” and that providing part-time partnership options affords firms the opportunity to attract and retain excellent lawyers from a larger pool of applicants, including groups that value work-life balance (e.g., mothers and Generation Yers). This report also asserts that providing part-time partnership options helps firms “save recruiting costs by hiring fewer new lawyers, retain a diverse group of lawyers, reduce attrition costs, attract new clients, and increase the satisfaction of current clients.”
Some of the key findings of the report include the following:
- Part-time partners rarely work set schedules and their schedules are mainly driven by client needs (with many such partners regularly working more than 40 hours a week);
- Reduced hours programs attracted and retained many partners, and in fact, many lawyers were drawn to their firms because of the possibility of reduced hours;
- Client service is not compromised by part-time schedules, and in many cases, clients are unaware of the part-time schedule due to the responsiveness and availability of the partners;
- Many part-time partners are financially successful at their firms, and that, in fact, part-time lawyers generate significant revenue both from their own billable hours and from the origination of new business;
- Most part-time partners (60%) from the study reported they did not feel stigmatized because of their part-time status.
In addition to its main findings, the report also includes “Best Practices Recommendations for Law Firms,” which provides specific steps firms can take to invest in their part-time partners and thus their firm’s bottom line. Moreover, this new report includes “Recommendations for a Successful Part-Time Partnership,” drawn directly from respondents’ experiences and written for attorneys who are hoping to be successful part-time partners.
Karen Corday May 8th, 2009
New from the Network:
New, free work-family content on the web:
Judi Casey October 14th, 2008
Today marks the six-month anniversary of our Work and Family Blog and our 90th post! The Sloan Network bloggers have covered the gamut of topics from our first post on Paid Sick Leave to our most recent post on Take your Baby to Work. We have appreciated the opportunity to share our work-family thoughts with you, and we hope that the information has been useful to you in your work and lives. It’s great to hear your comments on our posts, so please, please give us as much feedback as possible.
In case you’ve missed these the first time, we have posted about our latest work-family Topic Pages, including Parents Caring for Children with Disabilities and Military Families. We have also covered a number of our existing focus areas in Family-Friendly Employers, Family Studies, Afterschool Care, Breastfeeding, Family Medical Leave Act, Gen Y, and those geared towards work, Overwork, Part-Time Work, Telework, Flexible Work Schedules in Small Businesses and Retirement.
A number of new issues have surfaced including an examination of the Pros and the Cons of a four-day work week. We reported on new trends for mothers, fathers, parents, grandparents and professors. We introduced an interactive entry with the Work-Life Quiz on Slide Share and linked to the highly useful Caregiver Database.
Politics is, of course, hot this year and we didn’t disappoint with a number of posts on the candidates, including work-family and work-life balance. We have blogged about our travels to many conferences including the National Conference of State Legislators and the WorldatWork Conference. We are privileged to have a number of guest bloggers, including A Better Balance: The Work & Family Legal Center, The Lattice Group, and The National Partnership for Women & Families. Thanks to all of the contributors!
And finally, we had 22 posts on What’s New in Work and Family, which covered over 100 articles and updates.
What’s coming up in the next six months from the Sloan Network? More exciting and relevant posts including a behind the scenes look at our social media efforts, including our new Facebook page. Thank you for reading our blog and do please continue to comment– we love your feedback. If you have suggestions for topics or are interested in guest blogging, please contact us.
- Afterschool Care , Breastfeeding , Dependent Care , Family Leave , Flexible Schedules , Gen X/Gen Y , Medical Leave , Mothers and Fathers , Older Workers , Overwork , Part-Time Work , Retirement , Sick Leave , Telework , Workplace
Karen Corday July 3rd, 2008
New from the Network:
New in Work and Family:
- Jeanne Fagnani writes about her chapter with Antoine Math, “Family Packages in European Countries: Multiple Approaches,” from the book Childhood: Changing Contexts.
- Nevenka Černigoj Sadar reports on Slovenia’s Young Mothers/Family Friendly Employment project, funded by the European Social Fund of the EU, aimed to “investigate the problems of young people and young parents looking for employment, learn about their workplace situations, sensitize the public about the problems young people, especially young mothers, have with balancing work and family life, inform employers and managers about work-family issues, and give suggestions for strategies to ease reconciliation of work and family demands.”
These as well as popular press articles from Korea, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the United States may be found in What’s New in Work and Family on our main site.
To those celebrating, Happy 4th of July!
Julie Schwartz Weber May 7th, 2008
It is not remarkable that today some families attempt to juggle work and family responsibilities by having one parent work part-time, while the other works full-time. While for many families the loss of income associated with part-time work is too great, a 2007 PEW study indicates that most working women believe part-time work to be ideal (6 out of 10). Which is why a recent study by the Beaton Group of over 11,920 women and men in Australia is newsworthy:
This report concludes that, at least for professional workers, part-time work does not allow them to achieve their balance goals.Specifically, the report finds that professionals working part-time are suffering both career burnout and family stress. Ultimately, part-time professionals lose out on income and long-term career opportunities while still struggling to find enough time for their families.
Any part-time workers out there want to chime in?
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