Pitfalls of “Part-Time”

The legal profession is one of the few in which working a 50-hour week can still relegate someone to part-time status. With its rigid system of billable hours requirements, law firms are not known for being flexible workplaces. One group, the Project for Attorney Retention Project for Attorney Retention  (PAR) is trying to change that. They've identified non-stigmatized flexible work options as the most important practice to implement for a work atmosphere that is more flexible, more diverse, and more adept at promoting attorney retention. In the style of the  Diversity Call to Action , PAR has organized a Diversity and Flexibility Connection  (the Connection) in 2009 with twelve each of general counsels and law firm chairs. The Connection met to discuss the state of part-time work, and possibilities for creating the non-stigmatized flexible work options that many law firms sorely miss. 

There is a strong case for flexible hours programs. PAR's research shows that male and female attorneys would want to work fewer hours and would take salary cuts for more flexibility, but both groups would be "reluctant to reduce their hours if doing so is stigmatized and stalls upward career progression." High attrition, one outcome of high billable hours requirements, is expensive for clients, who must pay to sustain the train-and-drain talent cycle. Time is wastes when there is high turnover on a work matter and money is wasted when talent is lost. Besides the business case for flexibility, flexible hours is directly linked with retaining a diverse workforce. According to PAR, 95 percent of mothers aged 25-44 work fewer than 50 hours a week, and with 82 percent of American women having children, the numbers don't add up without some type of flexible hours option. One woman of color who did not have children noted high billable hours requirements also disadvantage childless women who were less likely than their male peers to have a home-maker partner. "The male associates all had stay-at-home wives who took care of all the everyday things... their dry cleaning was picked up, their dinner was cooked, their house was cleaned. And women have to do all that stuff on top of their work." Female lawyers, on the other hand, tell researchers that their schedules make it difficult for them to find life partners.

The traditional model of part-time work is unsustainable and filled with pit-falls. There is the "haircut" or the expectation that lawyers will work 80 percent of full-time hours at 60 percent of full-time wages. Then there's "uncontrolled schedule creep" meaning that under pressure from management, the "part-time" hours starts to resemble a full-time schedule more and more. Nevertheless, those who ask for part-time positions are stigmatized and taken off the partnership track.

After meeting to discuss these issues, the members of the Connection took a pledge to implement new policies for moving towards sustainable non-stigmatized balanced hours programs. Some of the practices they adopted include providing proportional pay (i.e. 80 percent pay for 80 percent hours), a track for promoting part-time attorneys to partner that is at least proportional in terms of hours, a mechanism for distributing and referring desirable work assignments equitably among part-time and full-time associates, and an initiative to de-stigmatize paternal leave for fathers.

PAR and the Connection further advocate having a professional Balanced Hours Coordinator, preferably a managing partner or someone with similar clout, who will track the distribution of work assignments, monitor against schedule creep, and advocate for the advancement of part-time associates.

Building a Better Legal Profession (BBLP) is an organization based at Stanford Law School.   BBLP is a national grassroots movement that seeks market-based workplace reforms in large private law firms. For more information, visit BBLP's Web site at www.betterlegalprofession.org.