From the Editor: Today, we present the second column in our new National Law Journal series, "On the Rise: Voices from Young Lawyers." Josh Lindsay, one of our 2019 D.C. Rising Stars, and his wife Cristina, are Washington, D.C., attorneys raising two lively boys under the age of 5. They offer some solid tips for navigating work-life balance, which include setting boundaries at work. It's the latest installment in our series featuring leading young attorneys discussing their law firm work and lives in the district and beyond.  —Lisa Helem, editor-in-chief, The National Law Journal

Achieving ideal "work-life balance." For attorneys in particular, this goal often feels increasingly out of reach. Advancements in technology make it easier to do our jobs from anywhere, while making us easier to reach anywhere—and anytime. The global footprint of modern legal practice places lawyers several time zones away from their clients and often requires international travel.

Alongside these increased demands, lawyers are expected to accomplish more with smaller teams and fewer resources. Meanwhile, home life has grown considerably more hectic, too. Dual-lawyer families are common. Kids have more homework and extracurricular activities. And young parents often live farther from relatives who otherwise might help.

How are lawyers with families expected to juggle all of this? My wife Cristina and I ask ourselves this question often. We are both full-time practicing attorneys with two rambunctious little boys under the age of five and no nearby family. How do we give our boys—and ourselves—the quality of life that led us to pursue professional careers in the first place while continuing to nurture and grow those careers as well? 

Spoiler alert: we have not figured that out. 

But we have identified some practices that help us keep life in relative balance. These things work for us, and they may not work for everyone, but perhaps our ideas can inspire others to consider ways to better balance their practice and home life too. 

Plan Ahead and Be Flexible

Like walking a balance beam, achieving work-life balance requires constant attention, with frequent adjustments. For us, this means proactively managing both our work life and our home life. We both have the benefit of working with colleagues that place great value in supporting a healthy work-life balance. Still, the demanding nature of legal practice easily would intrude upon our personal life—if we allowed it.

In our law practices, we do our best to manage our time at work in order to protect our time at home. Lawyers are notoriously undertrained in project management, and busy practices leave lawyers little opportunity to manage their hectic schedules. All too often, busy lawyers jump from one deadline to another, leading to late nights and weekend work that consume family time. While this sometimes is unavoidable, every member of a legal team has the opportunity to "manage up"—that is, plan ahead, prepare drafts early, de-conflict schedules, and otherwise make it easier for clients and supervisors to avoid last-minute fire drills—something they will appreciate too.

Set Your Boundaries—and Stick to Them

Likewise, we establish work-life boundaries and clearly communicate them. We do not shy away from setting expectations concerning our availability, such as times when we may not be reachable for work, limits on the frequency or duration of travel, or flexibility around appointments during the workday. Equally though, our employers know that when we are available, they have our full attention. For example, I take one of our boys to school each morning. Cristina takes our younger son to a different school. My colleagues know that I am mostly unreachable between 7:30 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. each morning.

I plan around that window, which sometimes means speaking with overseas clients before the sun (and my children) are up. Protecting this hour each morning makes for a much smoother start to our days at home and gives my work colleagues predictability as to my schedule.

Maximize Your Downtime

When the best-intentioned planning and communication still fails to avoid conflicts between work and life, which it often does, we get creative by using "wasted time" to be productive. For example, taking calls during the commute to work or replying to emails during minutes of downtime. 

We do not suggest regularly filling every waking moment with work, but when life truly overwhelms, it is useful to realize that there actually are more hours (or at least minutes) in the day when you need there to be.

Help Your Partner and They'll Help You

We have also found that achieving an ideal work-life balance requires some management at home too, both to help each other ensure we meet our professional commitments at work and to ensure our family is getting the most from our time together at home. 

Above all, we learned early on that we both have to be fully devoted to running our home in order for us to balance careers with family. In a simplistic sense, this means that we both contribute equally to chores around the house. But in reality, this equal division of labor is constantly in flux, and both of us have to accept an unequal share of the load when the other's work demands increase.

To keep home life organized around two busy careers requires planning, which itself requires frequent and honest communication. As commonsense as that may seem, it takes effort to keep each other informed about our work schedules. I have a hard enough time keeping track of my own. 

It's not always easy to come home with news that I will be leaving Cristina alone with the kids while I travel overseas. But the earlier we talk about these things at home, the more opportunity we have to sort out any conflicts between our work commitments, plan to pick up the slack at home and set boundaries if necessary around our availability at work. 

Be Present for Family

We make a conscious effort to leave our work at work and avoid talking endlessly about our jobs when we could be focused on our family. This is not easy for two lawyers, who by nature love talking about their practice, but a conscious effort at least helps to sharpen the blurred line between work and home life.

Finally, and most importantly in our view, we have found that a healthy work-life balance greatly depends on the way we use our limited time when we both are away from work. Lawyers sometimes lament that they do not have hobbies because work and family commitments do not leave time for them. 

We tackled that challenge by finding a pursuit that we both truly enjoy and that involves our whole family. As crazy as it may sound, for us, this meant starting a small side business. Cristina, the boys and I all enjoy different aspects of the business. It only requires a few hours each week. And it offers an easy way to regularly spend time together, which greatly improves the quality of our lives in the work-life balance.

We may be on the path to achieving a healthy work-life balance, but we are not there yet, and new challenges arise every day. Currently we are discussing how to free up more time in our evenings, which increasingly are consumed with cooking, making school lunches, washing dishes, etc.—and very little quality time with our children. Would better planning help? Perhaps a prepared meal subscription? 

We have not figured out the solution yet, but importantly, we are thinking and talking about it. And we continue to make those adjustments needed to walk the balance beam between home life and legal practice.

Josh and Cristina Lindsay live in Washington, D.C., with their two boys, ages 4 and 1. Josh is a senior litigation associate with Squire Patton Boggs. Cristina is an attorney for the federal government. When not practicing law, they grow flowers and create floral arrangements through their business, Poppy Jar Flowers.

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