Letters to the Editor

      MOMMY WARS
      I read August's cover story ["Mothers In Law"] with a smile on my face, as the description of the lawyer setting up a crib in her office brought back many memories. In 1971 I had my first daughter. I set up a crib in my office in a small firm and brought her to work with me. I took many phone calls with her sitting on my lap or drinking her bottle. I remember meeting with clients while the others in the office kept her busy. She even came to lunch with us daily in her little infant seat.
      After a while, she got too old to come, so I got a babysitter at the house. But as she and her younger sister got older, both used to come to the office to help out. They started by doing Xeroxing, moved on to inserting pocket parts, and by the time they were ten they were replacing the pages in CCH & Matthew Bender books.
      The daughter in the crib, Carol Elias Zolla, went on to become an estate planning lawyer. On the birth of her first child, in 2004, she set up a "Pack and Play" by her desk and continued the tradition.
      Judge Emilie H. Elias
      Los Angeles Superior Court
     
      Thank you for the article on lawyer-mothers. I am a baby boomer and have often consoled myself for the difficulties I had trying to balance motherhood and law practice by telling myself that it would get better.
      I am glad to see that it has gotten better, though with nearly half of law school graduates being women, firms have had no choice but to adapt. I am sure many are wondering why they didn't adapt earlier. I wonder, too.
      Susan E. Amerson
      Big Bear Lake
     
      Your article on mothers in law was written five years ago, right? I ask because I've read pretty much the same article every few years. Every so often you run an article with a headline or theme to the effect that "Women are changing the legal profession." By now you could reduce it to archetypes:
      The Women Starting Up Their Own Law Firm Because They're Disgusted with Male-Dominated Firms. (What would be really interesting is a survey of those female firms five years later, to see how many of them are still in business with the same ideals.)
      The Progressive Big Law Firm with a Token Program for Maternity Leave/Part-Time Work, with lots of optimistic, feel-good quotes. (Again, follow up five years later to determine who participating in that program was taken seriously, who overcame the stigma of that program, and who was eased out.)
      The Woman at the Top of Her Career Recounting the School of Hard Knocks. (Hey, this year you got a California Supreme Court justice to write it!)
      The Burned-Out Woman (Ex-) Lawyer Explaining that Changing Diapers Is Much More Interesting than Documenting a Merger. (Poll your readers on how many of us want to cheer her on vs. how many of us suspect that she's just complaining about the taste of the sour grapes.)
      The Tough Guy Who Bills 3,000 Hours Every Year and Expects All Associates to Do the Same Regardless of Gender. (I'd like to hear how many hours a year his wife and maid put in keeping him organized.)
      So why, if women are changing the face of the legal profession so much, do you still need to recycle the same article? Could it be that despite all those changes, things are just staying the same?
      Risa-Lee Miller
      Agoura Hills
     
      Well, I'll be! California Lawyer just can't wean itself from its addiction to "Women: 100 Proof."
      Just three months ago I had occasion to observe (and California Lawyer was gracious enough to print my observation) that you had published the standard article which made the standard claims that, in my words, "women are strong and good, and men are weak and bad; yet weak men somehow manage to persecute strong women and prevent them from succeeding."
      And now, you come out with the standard follow-up article?written by a different reporteress?which makes the standard follow-up claim that women practice law better than men do and are somehow changing the profession (for the better, of course) simply by virtue of being women.
      Well, shoot. I guess that male attorneys never have to agonize over the conflict between work and family. So your readers will wait a long time for an article which makes the plaintive observation that fathers have been practicing law for years without any persecution anxieties and without demanding special recognition or treatment for "paternity issues."
      Mark Sandstrom
      Fresno
     
      Your editors are obviously gender-biased feminists who refuse to give a balanced story on gender.
      Your August issue has yet another article, like all the others, on how women lawyers face inequality and are burdened with child rearing. What about men's burden of being the primary breadwinner and how they must work long, stressful, harmful hours to fulfill that burden? None of your biased articles on gender ever look at that side.
      You even printed a letter in the August issue from a woman who wants a male author to be slapped "upside his misogynistic head" by his mother. I wonder, would you print a similar letter from a man calling for a female author to be slapped upside her misandrist head?
      Edgar Pacas
      Monrovia
     
      I just finished reading the August cover story and am pleased to see that firms are making an effort to retain working moms in the legal field. One question, however: Why is there no concern for the paralegals and legal assistants who support these attorneys and often make it possible for them to be successful at working alternate schedules, telecommuting, etc.? I am a legal secretary and just returned from maternity leave. In comparison with the perks and benefits given to the attorneys (associates and partners), the "staff" receive nothing other than what California state law allows. No flexibility in schedule, no options?period. When is someone going to give consideration to others in the legal industry? Law firms do not succeed with attorneys alone.
      Lisa A. King
      Walnut Creek
     
      I hope that I live long enough to see the death of political correctness and the return to truth as a standard. I have personal knowledge of two women lawyers, one who graduated on scholarship from Harvard Law School, and one who attended a prestigious California school of law. Both practiced for two years, got married, had children, and never practiced law again.
      When women, or anyone else, get these hundreds of thousands of dollars of free training, there should be a repayment requirement when they do not repay the grantors by practicing their profession.
      Jerome J. Ghigliotti Jr.
      San Francisco
     
      Regarding your "Mothers In Law" article, I wanted to share a unique mom-and-law story that taught me how seemingly insignificant events may actually be key to what children learn about their culture. When I was pregnant with my second child, I attended a Women-in-Law meeting with my three-and-a-half-year-old daughter in tow because I'd heard that other toddlers would be there and thought she'd enjoy playing with them. It appears that the few children present while our large group of women attorneys attended to the business of the meeting may have observed more than we realized. A few months later, while my just-turned-four-year-old sat with me as I watched a television news report, a man was identified as an "attorney" by the reporter. At this news, my daughter turned to me and asked, with surprise in her voice, "Mom, men can be attorneys too?" I was surprised by her conclusion that only women could be attorneys until I realized that her exposure up to that point was mostly to female attorneys. It was hard for me to know how to begin my explanation.
      Maria Sanders
      Davis
     
      CORRECTION: Folger Levin & Kahn has more than 70 attorneys. An incorrect total was given in "Mothers In Law" [August]. California Lawyer regrets the error.
     
      CODE READ
      I was pleased to read in Howard Posner's August Legal Ease article ["Too Many Notes"] that he reads the [Business and Professions] Code. I too read the Code?mostly when I am having trouble sleeping. Besides helping my insomnia, I learn interesting things. For example, did you know that it's a misdemeanor offense punishable by jail time to have metallic balloons with metallic ribbons, clean a spot on your clothing with gasoline, or put foil in your window? It's true!
      Sheryl S. Graf
      El Cajon
     
      California Lawyer welcomes letters to the editor and publishes excerpts from as many as possible. Please include your phone number and city of residence. Write to us at 44 Montgomery St., Suite 250, San Francisco, CA 94104, fax 415/296-2482, or email letters_callaw@dailyjournal.com.
     

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