By:  Inna Maister

 

Nowadays it is difficult for women to be an excellent worker and mother at the same time. Especially it relates to women, who work in sphere of law.

It is commonly known that government job is not rigorously from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. So, sometime it is very difficult to build your schedule including childcare and housework. There are main points women have to pay attention searching for a work – life balance:

• Working in a big low firm or as a sole practitioner
• Working environment
• Full – time job or part – time job
• Which type of childcare to choose

Working in a big low firm or as a sole practitioner

Definitely, an important factor on which work – life balance depends is type of work women have. There is a big difference in working in law firm or as a sole practitioner. In law firm it is almost impossible to build schedule in accordance with your plans and needs. There are tons of work and it should be done due determined period of time. So, being a sole practitioner is much more flexible than working in the office. You may shorter you business day of make it off at all.

Working environment

Colleagues in law firm play important role in your possibility to leave the workplace earlier or take a day off in case when they have family and children, accordingly. Often such an understanding between employees is just a human factor and not all women in law are fortunate to have the opportunity to work in such pleasant working environment.

Full – time job or part – time job

Part – time job is excellent option for women who are searching for time to deal with childcare and household chores. But it should be mentioned concerning salary reduction. Also it may be difficult to “pour” in the previous busy workflow after curtailing of clients.

Full – time job limits women in their family obligations and as a result they need to seek for other options.

Which type of childcare to choose

Main option for busy moms is hiring a nanny. Another option is less expensive one – daycare. Daycare is not the best solution for childcare problem, as its business hours do not refer to your working hours and there is no individual approach in caring for your child.

Actually, work – life balance is not only women’s issue, but as usual only mothers attend parent-teacher interviews and take parental leaves as well. Almost all men do not want even to consider parental leave question.

In my opinion, children play the most important role in our life. So that, every woman in law must be very organized to be able to perform all necessary tasks and remain successful in legal career. Working day must be no longer than till 5 p.m. and the rest of the day and weekends have to be spent with family. This is the best work – life balance.