Achieving success in law while building big family. Ep 69

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vanderkam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode sixty nine, which is first airing in late November. We'll be talking with our guest Kathleen Burns about making partner at a major law firm while raising a whole slew of small children. So looking forward to all we're going to learn from that. But lots of stuff going on in our lives. Big stuff going on in Sarah's life is that she is moving WOA, yes, yes, tell us about that. We not going that far. So this isn't one of those like exciting horizon changing moves across the ocean or something like that. So my husband has decided to pursue an opportunity in a different health system, which happens to be the house system where I work. He will not be at the same hospital where I am, but the location is such that they are both approximately thirty minutes north of where we currently live, and therefore it makes a lot more sense for us to live up there rather than down here. So up there is still quite south. We're thinking about the Fort Lauderdale suburb type of areas. We're not even sure where exactly at this juncture, but we are going to be moving away from Miami Beach, which is really a bittersweet. I mean, you know, there are some upsides. We will both have less commute. Well, he will actually probably have more commute because his current commute was like five minutes, but I will have significantly less commute. We will have more house for the money because it's this much cheaper real estate market. The communities are a bit less congested in a way, although I loved the walkability of where we currently are. On the downside, you know, we won't have family within a stone's throw like we currently do, so that's going to be really sad. You know, currently we could run into his aunt on a morning run and I see his dad walking the dog in the morning, and you know, it'll be really sad to lose that and being able to walk to family gatherings. And I'm also very sad to lose the school, the preschool where Annamel and Cameron were from ages like two to five. Gena. Peopleon't get to experience that place and it was really wonderful. So yeah, just a lot. Our current plan is that instead of listing our house while we're still living in it, so that we'd have the pressure of having to you know, get out frequently. We are uh, yes, there is background noise. Hold us a second. I'm like, she's like, you can hear that. Yeah, okay, where should I start from it? So why don't you just say, why don't you say, like lots of logistics or okay, they'll have to So whoever is splicing this, just splice this in with my ups and downs. Make it sound as smooth as you can. Thank you. So, lots of logistics. We are planning on moving in with my in laws for a few months. Uh probably we're like six months until the end of the school year, so our kids can finish school here and that way we don't have to live in them in our house while we're trying to sell it. So just a lot of unknowns. That is that is the worst is living in the house while you're trying to sell it. I mean, obviously you have to in some situations, most situations, probably, but trying to keep it clean, trying to like, you know, make it be like you're not there. It's just exactly having to get out of it, like potentially, like in the middle of Geneviev's nap okay, we have to vacate. Like so, I think this will be much better and we're very appreciative that this isn't an option for us. Josh, you guys are in a pretty good market. Like you said, it's a small contained area. Like if somebody wants to live in that area, there's only so many houses they can get. So if you're on the market, I think you're you're well placed, right, I guess. I mean it depends to anyone listening. Look to relocate to Miami Beach. Let me tell you my house is the best house. You can email me for details. It's yeah, exactly, Yeah, that's a well, it's moving is hard. I mean, I think it'd be nice to have more space. I know that's something you've been concerned about in terms of the kids sharing rooms. Not that that's a bad thing, but yeah, it worked out okay. But it's such a steep change in cost per square foot that we feel like it's probably worth just getting a room so Jenevieve can have a room and potentially even an office to allow for a little bit more focused work for my husband or me during you know, times of when all three kids are home. Yeah. Well, but just I mean thinking, I've been thinking about your schedule and in terms of when you're losing the pumping and you're gaining back half an hour on the commute, like life was just going to have this huge chunk of margin in it that it doesn't. It doesn't have. Now, it's kind of exciting to think about where this is hour a day we'll be going. That's a nice way of thinking about it. We will find out, I will update everyone. I'll have to do some pre and post time tracking. Yeah, no, it sounds great. Well, I think we're ready to transition to our guest. Well, we're very excited to have Kathleen Burns as our guest today. Kathleen is a partner at Nixon Peabody, which is a law firm. She is also the mom of four, so a lot going on in her life. So, Kathleen, thanks for being on. Could you introduce yourself to our listeners. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here chatting with you guys. So, yeah, as you mentioned that, I am the mom of four. I have. My kids are seven, five, three, and one. I have three boys and a girl. My daughter is the three year old. And I am a lawyer at Nixon PB SO. We are a global one hundred firm. We have sixteen offices all over the US and abroad. I am based in the Boston office, which is our firm's largest office, and I am a partner in the Complex Commercial Disputes Group, which means that I am a litigator. So I spend a lot of my time working with clients who are involved in lawsuits in state and federal court related to their businesses. And I also spend a lot of my time with clients who do not want to get involved in lawsuits, counseling them about disputes or challenges that they might have with respect to their business or any government investigations and work with them so that they do not end up in the courtroom. Well, I am absolutely impressed with all of that, particularly the fact that you've managed to do all this while having so many children in such a short time. So, I mean, I'm sure our read our listeners are curious as well, so a lot of our questions are going to center around that. But let's just pause. We have twenty months to seven years. So that was four children within a six year timeframe. Five and a half year, Yeah, six and a half, I think. Yeah, my oldest was six and a half, five and a half when my youngest was born, Yeah, five and a half when my youngest. Wow, yeah, and you grew up at a big family yourself, right, I did. Yeah. So I am the oldest of six kids. And it's funny. I always knew that I wanted to be to have a big family. I loved being part of a big family, you know, for the most part. But it's funny. I thought that as the oldest of six, I kind of thought of myself as like a second mom. I thought I did such a great job taking care of my siblings and helping my mom out. And it's funny that now I realize the totally overestimated how helpful I was and how much I did help my mom, because I think, you know, it's only when you become a parent you realize how much work it is to be a parent. So now I have a real appreciation for everything that my mom did while we were growing up. But even you know, still I just I love being part of a big family. I love that chaos, you know, something that makes me happy. So I'm thrilled that I've been able to have these four kids and that I've been able to keep working while I've been doing it. And did you know you always wanted to be a lawyer as well? Or did that develop later? I did. I don't know that I knew exactly what kind of law I wanted to practice or what specifically I wanted to do. But there's a lot of lawyers in my family. My grandfather was a lawyer. He was sort of your classic small town lawyer in a little town in New York that everybody knew, everybody really respected him. I used to go into his office with him. My uncles are lawyers, so that was something I was always interested in, and so everybody I knew in college said well, you should try it before you actually go to law school. So I decided to work as a paralegal when I graduated from college. I did that for a year and I said, Yep, this is it, this is what I want to do, despite all the people who I worked with who told me, are you sure you really want to be a lawyer and do you want to think about something else? But I did that for a year and I really liked it, so I went on to law school after that. Why do you think that is I mean, why do you think people were really telling you think hard about this? Because we've had questions about this in the past where people who are considering going to law school, and I know a lot of people are wary of But why do you think that is? Well, I think, you know, I think a lot of it is loans. I think that a lot of people take out huge amounts of money to go to law school, and the question is how long has that take you? How long is that going to take to pay those loans back? But I think it's also just this perception that people have of the profession as being one where you have to work tons and tons of hours and part of that, I think is that traditionally lawyers feel by the hour, and so the more hours you build all the more money they make traditionally, and I think that that is really changing. Companies are doing a lot of different billing models, a lot of different arrangements besides that billing model, the hourly billing. But I think that is something that really discourages some people from going to law school or becoming a lawyer because they just pict sure those long hours, which you know can be true in some cases but not necessarily in all cases. And did you go straight to your firm out of law school or did you move around? I did know. I am a lifer. I have been here. I did an internship at Nixon Peavity when I was in law school. So most law firms will take on a big class of summer associates, they call them their second year after law school, and then at the end of that summer they decide to make offers to those summer associates to become full time associates. So that's what I did. I've been here. I graduated law school in two thousand and seven and I've been here since then. Well that's really really cool. But you know, I know that your firm has definitely been working on electing more women partners, but I'm guessing when you started there, there were probably fewer than there are now, and maybe not as many examples as one might you know, want to see, and particularly women with lots of children. And so I'm curious, did you wonder whether it would be possible to make partner if this was something that's going to be really difficult, Like how did you view that when you were first starting out. I did. I definitely wondered if this was something that would be possible. And we do have a great number there are some really great women partners at this firm. A bunch of them have small children. There's a lot of male partners here who have small children, and of course a lot of people who remember what it was like to have small children. But that's definitely something that I thought about a lot, especially as I started having kids of my own, and you know, I wondered, what is the best path for me. So one of the things I think our firm does a great job with is identifying, you know, the circumstances or the environment that each attorney will will succeed in and so there's a lot of different paths. Not necessarily, you know, you've got to work for X number of years and then you either become a partner or you leave. Right, We have a lot of different paths or attorneys to be successful. And there was a time when I had, you know, probably two kids in life was getting pretty crazy that I wondered, you know, is my path going to be one towards partnership or is my path going to be one that's on a different track. And there are a lot of people here who have some really interesting arrangements and do some really interesting work, and I thought maybe that was something I might be better suited to. But you know, the more I thought about it, I thought I can do this. I can do what these partners are doing, maybe with just fewer clients. And so I talked with my men, and I talked with the leadership here and they were really, really supportive. So I was able to work on a part time schedule with a flex time schedule, and you know, it's been possible, and I think it's been a really successful arrangement. So you were able to be part time while still remaining on the partnership track. Yes, yep, Is that unusual from the firm or is that actually something that's happening more. You know, I think it's happening more. I have some friends at other firms who have done a similar thing. But it's definitely the reaction that I get is yours as Wow, I didn't know that that was an option, And honestly, I don't know if I really knew if it was an option starting out. It was something that I had to ask about. And there are other people at our firm who have done it. It's not just me. There's other people that have had part time arrangements who have made partner while on that part time track. So other people have definitely done it and been successful in a variety of models. But I do think it's something that people are doing more and more. But I also hear that surprise from others at other firms that that is something that our firm has been really amenable to, because I think people are curious about the practicalities of it, because I mean, one of the things in any service firm that making partner is about is showing that you can bring in clients and bring in a certain book of business that will sustain the firm, and I say, I imagine people are like, well, how are you making those numbers if you're not billing the full quantity of time? So how does that practically work? Is there a different level of what you need to bring in or is there a sort of different expectation if you're on a part time tract? Just how does that work? Yeah? So I am currently at a seventy five percent schedule. So what that means is that my requirements or my goals for how many hours I bill and how much business I'm bringing in or seventy five percent of your typical full time part and my compensation is then seventy percent of that full time compensation. So as a practical matter, really it means that I just take on fewer cases. It's not something that's easily quantifiable by you know, a number of hours in the office or days of the week that I work, although there's a certain you know, there's certain parameters that I try to work around. But as a practical matter, it just means that I work on fewer cases and that I my goals for bringing in business are are slightly reduced than those of somebody who's working full time. That makes sense from my perspective, since I do something sort of similar in medicine. But I'm very curious how you do. I mean, I think our listeners are be interested to in the details of like, so what does that mean? Do you take one full day off? Do you plan on leaving early? And with law I would expect it's not something that's all that easily compartmentalizable. So I'm very curious about how you kind of protect yourself from bleeding, you know, seventy to eighty to nine. Oops, I'm working full time or more again, Yeah, it's funny that you say that. I think when I first came back from my first maternity leave, I had this view that my life and my work would be very compartmentalized, and I tried a number of different schedules, like come in early and leave early so that I could spend time with my son in the afternoons. I was off on Fridays. I sort of tried a number of different, more rigid schedules, and I think part of that was due to the fact that I was junior. I was a fourth year associate at that point in time, so I had a little bit less control over my schedule and now I think it's really a lot more fluid. So I'll give you an example of a typical week for you know, to the extent that any week is typical. But what I'll do is I will try to go in super early on Monday morning and come home, you know, in time for dinner and bedtime and bedtime and all of that. I will work generally a full long day on Tuesday. This is an idea that my friend Kelly gave me to really load up on a really long day at the beginning of the week that I can just kind of power through all of my work that requires, you know, big chunks of concentration and focus. So I'll take a really long day on Tuesday. Wednesday, I'll try to work from home, and I will try to save tasks that are you know, can be done in smaller time periods, so it's responding to emails getting smaller things done, so I can also participate in dropping off my kids and picking up the kids, getting them off the bus, things like that, and then I'll be in the office again for a full day. I think generally a long day on Thursday where I kind of wrap everything up and then I try to be home and primarily with the kids on Friday. So you know, of course it never really works out exactly like that, and you know, things bleed into one another, but in a perfect you know, in a typical week, that's sort of what it looks like. I love that. I love that you've kind of over time honed a basic and then template that you know will help you not be tempted to work eighty and then also keep that fluidity in case, you know, on Tuesday you end up having something that you really want to go to with one of your kids, then you swap it or that sounds that sounds fantastic exactly. Also, I like the idea a lot of trial and art. Yeah, we always talk about thinking in terms of one hundred and sixty eight hours, not twenty four, right that you know, having two really long days can be helpful for that because then you have three more reasonable days, right, right, But even being off and I also try to take you know, sort of a weekly view and also a monthly view of you know, sometimes I have a really busy month this year, unfortunately it was July, and I had a lot of depositions and just really busy intensive work going on, and I knew that that was time limited. I knew that I had a deadline in a case that was going to come to a close at the end of July, so I knew that that was time limited. And then in August, my schedule got really light and I was able to spend a lot more time at home. I was able to do some work from home days and early in the afternoon spend some time at the pool at the beach. So, you know, I look at it in terms of the week, but I also try to look at it in terms of the month and just sort of, you know, adjust the pieces where they need to be adjusted. Do you track your time so that you can, because I'm impressed that you're able to say, okay, July was heavier and or is it just you just kind of remember, oh yeah, no, So I track my time, you guys, I think Laura would be impressed. Instead of thirty minute increments, lawyers, we do six minute increments, and so we bill our time in six minute increments. So if I spend two point two hours working on something for a client, I have to record that point too, So I'm always very aware of the number of hours that I'm working a week, and you sort of track your personal time outside of that, or you like tracking fatigue and not in six minute increments. I bet increments. I think that would be really sad to see how many six minutes I spend, you know, picking up and doing other mindless things. But yeah, I try to That's generally more by feel, I think, And I have an idea for sure. I haven't idea of you know, my buckets of time. I like to think of them as and you know, if I'm low on spending time with my older kids or my younger kids, or if you know I'm low on time around the house, you know, I try to compensate for that, certainly, not one for one, but you know, in kind of a rough justice sort of way. Well, let's talk about your support system because your husband also is also working, and so you got a two career family with the four kids. What sort of a support system makes us work on the home front. Yeah, so we have an amazing nanny. She was with us starting when I think we had our second child, and then she actually decided to take a break and wanted to work a little bit less. So we actually got an au pair for two years around the time that my fourth child was born, so that was a lot of extra support that we had at that really busy time. And now we have our same nanny. She's back again. We have her, she's excellent, and my husband and I we really trade off. You know, we are rarely both at home on any given evening during the week. We try to look at our schedules in advance and say, okay, well, I've got these really busy things going on this day, this day is lighter, I'm able to get home, and so we really sort of try to trade off. And you know, sometimes that works great and sometimes it doesn't, and we both have to travel or we both have a big meeting on any given day, and then you know, we rely on our nanny, who's amazing, as well as our extended family, our neighbors. You know, we have a whole crew of people that we carpool with and that we share driving responsibilities with. My in laws live about an hour away, so they'll jump in sometimes when we both have to travel, and you know, we kind of piece it together. I'm kind of curious from the perspective of I guess with your oldest big seven, maybe you're not quite in the thick of the after school activities so much. One of the challenges we've had is like three people going in different directions in the hours between say three point thirty and six. Have you had any of that. I'm curious how you think you'll wind up handling that. Oh my gosh, yes. I spend so much time on family logistics. I sometimes feel like it's that riddle with the box and the boat and the grain going across the river, that we've got to make all those pieces work. And like you said, yeah, my oldest is seven, so we don't have a ton of activities, but we do have kids at multiple different schools doing multiple different things. And so right now we're able to cover with a lot of carpooling and me being home generally two days a week, so between my nanny and I we can kind of divide and conquer. But I do think that might require some additional schedule modifications. Maybe in the future when they get a little bit older. There's always uber. We haven't quite tried that yet, but maybe one of those swait a couple of years. Because I'm not kidding some of them, my patients families have told me that that is not a completely out of the out there solution for your thirteen fourteen sent Yeah. Right, So, Kathleen, I mean you're One thing that we've heard from other people in professional service front is the idea of timing your children in your career journey, and a number of people who have to leap through a certain hoop for their work, whether it's you know, making partner, getting ten year all that decide to start their families after they have been through that. Now, obviously, you from what I recall, you got the announcement that you had been elected, like while you right when you were pregnant with number four? Right? Is that how that works? So you built your family before this, and what led you to that decision? And what would you advise other people who are building legal careers? Oh gosh, you know, I think it's hard. I think that everybody has their different thing that works for them, and I just I have to say, I just never considered holding off on having kids so that I could accomplish any particular goal at work. I always thought that it would be something that I would try to do at the same time. And I think that is one thing that's really hard for women in particular at a lot of firms like this is the years that you're supposed to be really you know, putting in your time and working super hard and proving yourself are also the years that many women have just gotten married and start having kids. So it is it's a really it's a really hard thing to navigate, and I just, you know, I don't know that I have any advice for anybody else except to do what works for them at that particular time in their lives. You know. It's funny, I knew, well, I thought that it might impact you know, my maternity leaves. It took four six month maternity leaves, and so I thought that that might impact my paths to partnership or my experience, and the firm here has really been great. I think I was, you know, right within the zone of when people typically make partner definitely, you know a little bit later than maybe some of my peers who did not have all of that parental leave time. But it's something that I just never thought about. I guess i'd say I never really thought about the timing all that carefully. I just kind of thought that I could do it and make it work. And it's funny. I do remember getting that call from my practice group leader who said, so, I got some exciting news for you, and I said, hey, I gots an exciting news for you. We both have exciting for each other. He just laughed and he said, you know, you did it with three. I'm sure you'll do it with four. You know, I don't think it's going to be a big deal. So it was great. Yeah, I was really happy to be supportive. Yeah, and that is amazing. But that's I mean, that's great that it was supportive. And I would definitely like to hear of you because we have a lot of listeners who are in law firms, and many law firms out there at least talk a good game that they would like to have a more diverse partnership, more more women stick it out to that level. What can they do to make sure that more women feel like this is a track they can be on, that this is something that they can build their careers and do. What can what can law firms practically do? Yeah, I think it's something that's really important that a lot of law firms are looking at right now. And I think one of the most important things that they can do is have really strong mentorship programs. I think that, and I think it's important to have a couple kind of mentors. I think it's important to have mentors who do have small children, who are going through that same stage of life that younger associates are going through. I think that's really important. I also think it's really important to have somebody who's later in their career, who's been successful, who's brought in a lot of business, who has that long view and can explain that, you know, different periods in your career and different periods in your life are are you know, their seasons and they change. So I think that mentorship is really important and that those montors are spence excuse me, those mentors are sponsors as well. I think is really important that it's not just somebody teaching you and telling you what to do, but really, you know, talking you up and getting your name out there. And I've been really lucky to have excellent mentors and sponsor sponsors, both moms with young kids and you know, older men who have been in the profession for a while who've given me a lot of guidance. And then I think the other thing is to have really great parental leave policies. And one thing that our firm just instituted that I have to say I wish that they had when I was an associated having kids is our ramp up policy. So a lot of law firms offer extended leave, which I think is great because life as a lawyer at a big firm is really busy, and so you know, coming back at a time before you know that four or five or six month period I think is really true key. And I think that longer time off sort of prepares, you know, helps you sort of get a little bit better situated before you're you're right back in it. And so I think when I was an associated was probably an informal, unwritten policy that you weren't held to the exact same standards as everybody else upon returning from maternity. But now it's been formalized, and so associates returning from parental leave have three months I believe it is where they are held to about eighty percent of their typical billable hour requirements, but they're still paid at full at their full rate, and so it's sort of a ramp up period that allows them to feel like they're meeting their goals and to do what they're supposed to be doing, you know, while getting that time to readjust to be a great pumping allowed all those last hours are like okay, well there's my twenty percent right there. I'm sorry, God, I was just going to say, I'm always marveling and it must have to just do with the market for different people in different professions. But it still shocks me that medicine is like none of the supplies, like none of it. And I don't know why or how long it's going to take, but I'm really happy to hear that in another professional fields, that there are companies really doing the right thing and amazing things for women, because to my ears, all that sounds just like a dream. Yeah, Kathleen, I was going to ask you with that. I mean, this is almost going to segue into our listener question that we definitely want to have you addressed because you're kind of the expert on this, which which is that one of the things that I'll get to the question in a minute. But what I imagine that eighty percent billables but one hundred percent pay allows you to do is kind of re established have time to re establish those client relationships, because I know one of the tricky things in a client facing industry like law, is when you disappear for six months, you know your clients are working with other people, and owning that relationship is often a big part of people's currency within their firms. Is that part of what's going on there? Yeah, exactly, and that's exactly it. And I think the policy recognizes that doing you know, facilitating a responsible transition is really important. And I don't know that it doesn't really help anybody if you're working one hundred percent up until the moment you give birth right and then just kind of dropping off the face of the earth. And similarly, you know it's not the best thing for the client if when you get back from leave day one you just jump right back in. There's definitely that period where you need to reacquaint yourself with what's been happening, and a lot of that is not time that you do build to the client, it's just sort of working time. So I think the policy recognizes that having a really good, effective, responsible transition is something that takes time, and so I do. Yeah, I think it's the policy is really important for that. Great well. Our listener question this week is about week Oh sorry, I want to skip. I don't want to ask her. I don't want to skip your question about the running and like and we kind of heard the logistics. I guess we don't need a full day because we heard about her week. But I really Laura had written in her notes where do you fit in running? So if you know that she runs, I need that answer before we move on to our qu And I Kathleen, when do you run? Oh my gosh, it's possible. But I run on as early as I can in the mornings. I got a treadmill this year, which has been a game changer. And then sometimes I don't run, and the days that I don't run, this is really sad. I do the seven Minute workout app and I take seven minutes while the kids are watching TV in the morning, and I do that to sort of sort of help me start my day. But yeah, I try to do my runs on the weekends, on the days that I work from home, so that I can go through my day and my sweaty running clothes and I don't have to worry about getting into the office. And it's always a better day when I am able to fit it in. But there's many many days when I can't exactly such as life. Thank you for fitting that question now. So our listener question this week is from a woman who lives in the UK and is having her first child. She is expecting her first child, ending work around Christmas, having the baby right around that time. This is actually a woman who is married to another woman, so there's you know, non traditional things there right there. So they canceive their child through IVF and a donor and all that. Anyway, she has a pretty big job, she says. She's the communications director for a nationwide NGO. She loves her job. It's stressful, challenging, all this great stuff. The thought of going off on maternity leave and leaving my job, even if only for a while, is scary. She's got great people working for her. She's sorting out her team's plans and budgets and individual objectives for the next year, you know, before she goes. But she's still very anxious about leaving them. So first she wants to know what should I do to prepare for my maternity leave and an intense job like that, you know, she says, I know on some level it'll be fun and I'll focus on the baby. It's great it's just the next two months that are worrying to her. And then she also asked the question of what can you say to reassure me that I'll still be me when I come back to work. I keep feeling paranoid that I'll come back and not be the same ambitious, sharp, creative person. So you know, she's obviously very excited about her baby and doesn't know exactly how that'll change life, but knows it will, but she also still wants to have her big career. So I want to hear from you a what you do to prepare for a longer maternity leave, especially when you've got people reporting to you, clients, things like that, and also knowing that you'll be the same person coming back and then you'll still care about your career. Oh gosh. Yeah. So this is something that I have been through four times, and every time it did get a little bit easier. But I have to say, in terms of preparation, it is there's a lot of uncertainty and you have a lot of questions about how things will go. But on the flip side, I actually think it's a great opportunity for number one organization and number two team buildings so I was very deliberate about the process of transitioning clients. So I identified all of my cases and matters that I had going on and worked with those teams and those clients to bring in somebody who could handle the work that I had been handling it. Sometimes that would be just one person, sometimes it would be a number of people. And what I thought was really helpful is to bring those people in early, so start, you know, see seeing them on emails, start bringing them to meetings so that they can get familiar with those issues. And then before I actually went out. Unfortunately, all my children were born very late, none of them were early, so we didn't have that dramatic you know, dropping off the face of the earth and leaving on maternity leave. But so a few weeks before I would try to sort of hand it over to them and let them take the reins and do what they were supposed to be doing while I was kind of in an observing role. So that really helped make for a smooth transition and really helped sort of make both the clients feel that they had a solid team in place, and then also helped the people at the firm who were working on that matter field, that you know everything was covered and that you know there was a good team handling that. In terms of return for maternity leave, I know it's it's hard. I think that it's a really tough transition to come back to work. And on the one hand, I think, you know, of course you're the same person. Of course I'm the same person. I want to work hard, I want to do well. I want to help my clients solve their problems. I want to be successful. I want to be a contributing member of my firm. But on the flip side, I think there is a really big difference and that I don't think I had any real time constraints before I had kids. I mean I had time constraints. I had other things that I wanted to do personally, but no you know, hard stops. No, no absolute deadlines that I had to be out of the office for or you know, really be mindful of on a daily basis. And so I would say, on the one hand, you know, of course you're going to be the same You're going to be the same hard worker and the same person. But on the other hand, I would say, embrace the changes. I found that I am so much more efficient now than I had been previously. And I think it's, you know, sometimes not the best thing in the world when you do have all the time that you could ever think of to answer a question right. Sometimes it's helpful to have those constraints. And so I would say, you know, you're definitely going to be the same person, but also embrace those changes and some of the differences and the different perspectives that you bring when you do return sounds like I love that, Yeah, you are the maternity lead something long enough and how many times you do it eventually hopefully you figure it out. Yeah. No, I think our listeners should should know that she will be the same person in the sense of, if you are really fine meeting in your career before, you probably still will after. And I think, you know, especially if she has the support system in place to make it it's entirely doable. And that's one of our goals with Best of both Worlds is to help people see that it is. Yeah, and I will add that I also agree about you know that you will not change person at all. And I actually find that going back to work was one of the things that kind of I enjoyed feeling more like my quote unquote former self. When I go back, like there's something magical about that office environment and getting back to what you were doing before. That kind of reminds you that you can, you know, you can still do that and you can still be your own person even when you're there for your family, And I think that can actually be like again, like another positive spin on what can be a tough situation. Agree with that well, Kathleen. We always end our episodes with our love of the Week section, or we talk about something that's cool in our lives. This week doesn't have to be related to anything we've talked about before, so hopefully you'll be able to share one with us that we can go first so that you have a minute or two to think of it. Sarah, what are you loving this week? I am loving my cheap fifteen dollars earbuds Inspire three hundred headphones because I lost them. I tend to lose them like every year. Maybe sometimes they break. I don't know, this is like my third pair, but it's not. It's generally my own faults, like either I've done something terrible to them, like left them out in the rain or lost them and they're the only ones that fit in my ears, and they're so easily replaceable. So I love that you have their literature that they are specifically designed for smaller ears. Well, I think they're really like they were trying to get the woman audience and I was looking on the package and it said specifically designed for smaller ears. So yeah, and I can't. And by the way, anybody who's like, well, why aren't you using wireless, I've tried like three types. They all fall out of my ears. I think I have just bad years, bad ears. They knew, who knew? Well, mine is this is? This is you know, since I am spending a lot of time driving my four small children around various activities, the seat warmer funk in my car. I love to turn this on in the winter that you know, you have the heater in your seat and for some reason, just you know, it's nice to have a toasty seat while you're driving around in the cold and rain, bringing everyone everywhere. So that's kind of, you know, my little treat in the winter. Kathleen, how about you, what's what's good for you right now? I also love my seat warmers, especially as the weather getting older. But it's really simple but I have been loving my kindle lately. I have been trying to spend a little bit more time reading, and I think I've been trying to use my commute time in particular too, instead of just emailing constantly the whole time are scrolling through my phone and been trying to read my kindle instead. And I find that when I take that thirty minutes on my little kindle, which I can bring everywhere with me, whether it's on my commute or in a doctor's office or when I have downtime, I find that if I use that couple of minutes to read a book, I just feel like it's actually give me time, some rest time, and I really enjoy it. So I've been loving my Kindle lately. That's awesome. We love our kindles as well. Well. Thank you so much, Kathy. We really appreciate your being. Thank you so much for having me. It was great chatting with you. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds. Podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together.