Conflict Between Professional Engagement and Temporal Regimes of Lawyers: The Challenge of Work-Life Permeability

Abstract

Studies indicate that women lawyers often have difficulty in gaining access to the top of law firms, and sometimes simply to remain in large law firms, due to a conflict between work and family life, a challenge related to temporal regimes of the profession, which can lead to abandon the profession. As the feminization of the legal profession progresses, we wanted to determine if it is possible to reconcile the time commitment required of professional lawyers, mostly in large offices, with the time demands of family life. We interviewed 17 men and 29 women for a total of 46 lawyers, in various settings. Our research shows that there are still challenges to reconcile a legal career and family life, and that this results in a high permeability of social time, and even a spillover of work into private and family life. Despite changes in society in terms of gender equality and the importance given to issues of work-life balance, major law firms often have, even today, a negative effect for lawyers, especially lawyers who wish to combine family and work life. Some women turn to self-employment, but it is not always an ideal solution. Given the strong and growing percentage of women in the profession (more than 60% of law students are women), large offices should probably be review their practices if they want to attract the best talent, male and female, because at the moment it seems to be mostly individual men and women who adapt themselves, and many actually leave the firm.

Keywords

• work-family balance
• social times
• temporalities
• temporal regimes
• lawyers