Mommy, J.D.

I’ve wanted to be a lawyer for as long as I can remember. I don’t come from a family of lawyers, and I don’t particularly recall knowing any lawyers growing up. I truly think it came from my parent’s keen ability to identify their children’s strengths and steer their children into a profession that would capitalize on those talents. But either way, I always wanted to be a lawyer.

I’ve also always wanted to be a mom. I think like many little girls, I grew up taking it as a given that someday I would grow up and get married and have babies.

But I never really thought about how those two dreams would work together. Pursuing my career was a given: a million different things could have prevented me from having children – or caused me to need to support myself and my children. So wanting to have children someday would not have prevented me from going to law school. And having children (or at least trying) was a given. By the time I started my Big Law job at the tender age of 24 I was engaged to my now husband and we had every plan to share our love with a baby. Having a law career wasn’t going to prevent me from having a family.

So here I am, seven years later: Mommy, J.D.

Being a mom lawyer hasn’t been easy. My husband, my kids and I have all had to make sacrifices to get where we are today. And even that is far from perfect. But being a mommy lawyer means sacrifice. It means short-changing work to attend soccer. Missing bedtime to prepare for trial. It means routinely working until midnight and effectively ostracizing all non-working mommy friends (and sometimes my own husband). It means feeling guilt that I can’t pick my child up from school. And guilt for leaving work right. at. 5. Being a working mom means a lifetime of chasing the ever-elusive work-life balance. But for me, it also means living my dreams. 

Karen