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I'm now 21 years into the practice of law.

Reputationally, I am a successful management-side employment attorney. I am known as one of the competent ones. On an internet review, I was described in terms of being a "best kept secret." I also have some nice legal decisions under my belt. I am proud of each of these achievements. By my own standards though, I am not a success because I have not brought in clients of my own.

Why has business development been such a challenge given my professional accomplishments? My struggle is not because I am a female or a working mother (although, at various points, each of these factors significantly impacted my career and my professional path). It is because, until lately, I never took the small but necessary steps to grow the professional relationships that would lead to generating business.

What Exactly Does It Mean to Invest in Your Career?

I understand now that, for me, investing in my career means fusing my personal and professional lives. In my younger years, I hated this concept. It reminded me of the yes-person who does anything and everything to get ahead, sacrificing their integrity and sometimes, their family. That would not be me.

I drew a stubborn line in the sand to separate work from my personal life. This line resulted from the long hours I worked out of law school at a large firm. The firm paid well, but as a young attorney, I refused to spend the extra time outside of my long workday on networking.  I was single. I had no constraints. I could have put the time in for business development, but I chose not to; I did not understand the importance of working toward my own book of business at that point in my career. If I had only realized it then, I would have taken a few hours each month to attend events where peers, clients, and professionals have access to one another. If I had done so, I could have formed the foundation for professional relationships that would last my career.

 Fusion

Today, the experienced me understands that fusion between my work and personal (and now family life) means something else. On a good day, these two worlds blend. I leave work early and take conference calls in the car while driving to school pick-up. I sit down at the kitchen table and figure out how to help an employer avoid litigation while my daughter finishes her homework. Fusion. Crazy fusion.

It is no longer an issue of work-life balance or separate work and personal time. This separation no longer exists.  The only way it works is to accept that both of these worlds join. How many times have we told our children that the phone calls and working after the business day ends pays for the beautiful vacation? On the flip side, my firm worked with me to come up with a schedule so that I can be more present in my daughter's life. It is not sacrifice of one for the other; it is a blending of the two. Working fathers have reached out to me to identify that they are trying to navigate these same work-life issues. This is when it hit home that it's not just us women anymore! Many of us live with this fusion as an inherent part of our process.

The question now becomes, can business development find a place in this mix? Can working parents do their job well and also take those extra steps to build their own book?

Children

I left my first big firm after I got married (one of those choices that I made as a female) to join another firm with a better work-life balance. Instead of networking however, I devoured everything I could to learn about employment law. Something inside me wanted to be the best at what I did. I wanted a challenge and I wanted to shine. I was accomplishing that. During this second stage of my career, I still paid little attention to business development. In my mind, a good attorney was one who won cases, not one who networked.

I thought clients would come to me because I was good at what I did. But, as I started to advance on my career track, I saw I faced limitations without even a small book of business. Given the hint of this realization, I made an attempt at some work functions, but I could never get past the awkwardness of standing alone at an event in a room full of strangers. I would stay for an obligatory half hour and leave. I did not understand how my peers did it.

Luckily, I was moving on to bigger and better things. In the middle of all of this, I shifted to the proudest moment in my two decades of practicing law—the birth of my daughter and the decision to take a hiatus from the practice of law. Unfortunately, this coincided with the end of my marriage.

Trying to re-enter the legal profession after taking a few years off to raise a baby is a harder task than building a book of business. I learned that the reputation that I was so proud of faded quickly. My journey to re-employment took me on a different path. This path was driven both by necessity and me being a working mother. I began to rebuild my career at a small firm that took a chance on a mother who had been out of the workforce, who somehow had to handle raising a toddler while getting work done.

I had my toddler, my new-found employment (at an hourly rate as opposed to that big-firm salary), and the struggles of balancing a child and rebuilding a career. Again, I passed up social and networking events. I could make myself look good and say this was a choice I made as a working mother. That would be a lie. I now see the missed opportunities. I could have written a few articles while my daughter was sleeping. I could have tried to reconnect with my colleagues. In other words, I should have taken small steps to get my name out there. (The importance of this stings, especially now as my daughter's college fund would have benefitted from the small efforts I should have made early on in my career.)

Getting It Right

We turn to the fusion between my professional and personal life. From that small firm, I was able to join a mid-sized firm. Today, I focus on counseling employers through complex employee issues to help them avoid or reduce the risk of litigation (all based on the skills that I prided myself on throughout my career). I do this through conference calls all day long. This practice area lends itself to a more regular schedule, one where I can eat dinner with my daughter almost every night. The grueling hours required in litigation would not have allowed for this type of flexibility. I am afforded the coveted half-day Friday schedule, where I work at home in the morning, pick my daughter up from school, and spend the rest of the day with her.  I am able on this day to feel like a mother and not a working mother.

My firm also continues to invest in me. They have given me the opportunity to expand my skills. I conduct trainings on discrimination that all employees nowadays attend. I am no longer the person that feels awkward in a room full of strangers. I got over that fast when forced to deal with it. These training sessions have now become one of the favorite parts of my job. I also have been given the task of acting as an investigator in high profile claims of discrimination and harassment. I love it.

But, as I enjoy my career and raise my daughter, I watch my younger colleagues make partner, while I remain counsel. This is because they have spent the time on business development and generate revenue from their own clients.

So, I am now doing what I should have started 20 years ago. But with time and age, I have found my own voice, my own method which allows me to be comfortable in this new endeavor. I write this from the perspective of someone who has also learned that she's smart enough not to waste any more time. For those of you beginning your career, for those of you that are in the middle and feel stuck, it is important to embrace this concept of fusion.

It is also important to embrace that the fusion may not immediately seem balanced, and your personal time may be limited by these extra-curricular networking efforts. But forward 20 years, you'll be grateful that you did it.

 

Brigette Eagan is counsel in the Human Resources Counseling & Compliance and Employment Law & Litigation Groups at Genova Burns in Newark. She advises human resources and in-house counsel on a broad range of employment issues.