"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
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Balance
By Alana Bassin
If you have seen any news in the last week, you can't avoid the hot discussion of Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In" book. Although I haven't read the very newly released book (like most of the other commentators), I've seen her TED talk, watched her interview on 60 Minutes and read (and blogged about) the debate stirred by Anne Marie Slaughter in the Atlantic Monthly last spring when she referred to Sheryl Sandberg's message as "rah, rah" feminism and suggested that women really can't have it all. read more
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By Sandra Giannone Ezell
None of the things that I do is, taken individually, hard to the point of overwhelming. Being a mom, being a wife, being a small business-owner, being a law partner, being a trial lawyer, being a firm leader, being a mentor, being a role model, being a trailblazer, being a friend, and being a blogger – all have challenges and rewards. Some are more challenging, some are more rewarding, and the balance between challenge and reward are consistently shifting as life marches forward. As with most women, however, I don't want to give up on any of them. They are the combination that makes up my life. The reality is, like most lawyers, most of those of you who follow this blog and, although not exclusively, disproportionately the senior women in the legal profession have lives that take up more time than there are hours in the day. Some call this work-life balance -- I just call it juggling. read more
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By Alana Bassin
In the July/August 2012 Atlantic Magazine, Anne Marie Slaughter wrote an op-ed entitled, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All," where she lamented her struggles trying to manage a high-level government job working for Hilary Clinton with family who lived hours away in Princeton, New Jersey. She discusses the real struggles of working long hours during the work week and trying to make it home to see her family for two days on the weekend.
Her message is multifold. read more
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By Suzanne Swaner  May 4, 2012, was a busy day for this Diva. First, it was the last weekday before the ninth birthday of our oldest son Jack, meaning I needed to bring a birthday treat to the school. Second, it was the day of the Kindergarten Mothers Day Tea for our middle son, Wyatt. It was one of those rare days this year where my home life dominated over work, for good reason. Given the fact that it has been a pretty busy year professionally (see prior post entitled Managing Expectations with Style and Substance), it was of critical importance that May 4 proceed without a hitch. You see, due to my aforementioned busy status, I had already negotiated a cash payment to Jack in exchange for an agreement to forego a formal birthday party once I realized it was too late to pull one together, even for a zealous social event planner such as myself. And while I did actually plan a birthday party for Wyatt (DOB 05/10/06), I inadvertently scheduled it for May 13, which is not only Mothers Day, but also the same weekend as the YMCA campout for half the Kindergarteners. Oh. Snap. (Don't worry. I have arranged for some stand-ins in the form of Jack's third grade friends.) read more
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By Suzanne Swaner
 Spring Break. To a teenaged girl in Prior Lake, Minnesota in the mid-1980s, those words signaled one thing – time to hit the tanning bed. It was an annual Rite of Spring for my girlfriends and me to purchase ten sessions from the local tanning salon (which, as an aside, was also a video store). There were two reasons to do so: (1) build up a base tan for an upcoming trip to Florida or Mexico to avoid the uncomfortable and unattractive burn and peel cycle of tanning; or (2) build up a sufficient base tan to make it appear as though we went to Florida or Mexico over Spring Break. You see, very little could top a mid-spring dark tan in the frozen tundra, especially one enhanced with big permed hair accented by Sun-In created highlights. (Sun-In, by the way, was another great invention for a Spring-Breaker, real or faux, as it worked by the heat of the real sun or the heat of the hair dryer.) The tan and the hair combined to create a look that was, like, totally awesome, at that time anyway.
Fast forward 25 years. These days, use of a tanning bed not only gives me pause, the concept of Spring Break does as well. (No comment on the highlights, although my colorist, known here only as hairsaviour, does use much-improved technology.) At the outset, I am fully aware I should be precluded from complaining about Spring Break at all. Every year our school district sends out proposed school calendars and solicits a vote before adopting the final schedule. Because they do not offer an option without Spring Break, I never vote. Perhaps next year (or the year after, since next year's calendar is probably already set) I will launch a write-in campaign to eliminate Spring Break and give everyone an extra week of summer, or to have Spring Break anytime other than spring, which also happens to be the peak of Litigation Season. read more
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By Sandra Giannone Ezell
 One of our fellow divas is always quick to remind me that one role can define her completely—be it an attorney, mother or otherwise. And, now that you have come to know her better through her posts, I am sure you can see why Diva Alana Bassin is a complex and fascinating woman, lawyer, mom, law partner, mentor, student, teacher, role model and so many other things. A local Minneapolis magazine, however, couldn't resist profiling her, and if you take a look at the article you will understand why. Recently, the unique cacophony that is her family machine, composed of her significant other, David, their four children, Talia, Solomon, Ari and Judah, and "Mama Bear" Alana herself were included in an article titled "The Kid Cities," in the February issue of Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine.
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By Suzanne Swaner
 I was recently at the dentist when I found myself with a few minutes of down time while the numbing agent took effect. "Grab a magazine. I'll be right back," the dentist said. I got out of the chair and flipped through the choices in the Lucite magazine rack on the wall. Field and Stream? Uh, no thanks. Parents? Only as a last resort. MORE? What is MORE? Reading more closely, I saw the complete title. MORE For Women of Style and Substance. Hmmmm. Style? I looked down. A navy Lily Pulitzer blouse and scarf, semi-cool jeans, and navy blue patent leather Tory Burch heels. A lot of blue, admittedly, but I am proud of those shoes. So, for that day and perhaps that day only, an enthusiastic "yes" on Style. Substance? I think so, although candidly I am not above the occasional idle chit chat a/k/a gossip if there is something newsworthy that requires vetting among friends. So "yes" on Substance, albeit with slight pause. I picked up the magazine and turned around to head back to the dental chair. As if to somehow validate my magazine selection, I made a pit stop at my purse and applied some Laura Mercier lip gloss (Style) and checked my iPhone for an important email I was waiting on for work (Substance). Satisfied with the legitimacy of my choice, I sat down and started reading.
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By Alana Bassin
 It has taken me a while to blog because I was trying to find an interesting article and I find that so many articles are re-run on themes related to women: women attrition in the work force, the world needs more women leaders etc. Sadly, I have not been any more original . . . I have blogged about these exact topics. And then an article from The Daily Beast came across my desk entitled "Don't Call Me a Mom: Why It's Time for Women to Drop That Identity" by writer Amy Reiter where she essentially writes that once she became a mother, much of her identity in how she was perceived by others became the fact that she was a mom and no longer a writer. Separate and apart from the fact that this article created an extensive amount of discussion – women who agreed that this was a problem and women who were offended by the same - this article caught my eye.
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By Suzanne Swaner
 I had planned on making my debut as the newest Courtroom Diva with an introductory post, but then came something much more important than the back-fill on me, my life, and how I got here. We will get to all that later. For now, while I hate to be the bearer of any bad news, especially with my first post, the results of a recent study are a little concerning and worth disseminating as widely as possible.
An article recently appeared in the National Law Journal entitled, "Opportunities diminishing for women at large law firms, study finds." A study conducted by the National Association of Women Lawyers ("NAWL") reportedly found the percentage of female attorneys entering the country's 200 largest law firms dropped compared to last year, from 48 percent to 47 percent. This is, apparently, the first time that has happened in five years. One percent does not seem like a big deal, in and of itself. But when considered in conjunction with the apparent downslide in the numbers of women even entering law school, a fact also noted in the article, that downward trend could become downright scary. And then, when layered the fact that women tend to leave large firms more quickly than men, the numbers of female lawyers on the horizon at big firms could appear even more grim. read more
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 Increasingly, organizations and governments are recognizing the import role women play in achieving sustainable economic improvement. According to the Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GBC), evidence shows that investing in the health and education of girls and women yields a substantially high return on investment for their communities. Some of the evidence cited on the GBC’s website: “women re-invest more than twice as much of their earned income back into their families as men do. And an extra year of secondary school raises a girl’s lifetime wages by up to 25 percent.” read more
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 I just read an article called, Confessions of a Juggler, by Tina Fey, written in The New Yorker, February 14 and 21, 2011 edition. In the beginning of the article, it becomes clear that the "juggling" she refers to is about juggling work and kids (yes, we know it's hard) but then the article turns into a very real discussion about adding to the family: how many pregnancies/kids can this job take without something giving. Granted Tina Fey grapples with issues in the entertainment world that we don't necessarily grapple with in the legal profession such as timing out when you are 40 (harder to get roles) and going off set to have a child with 200 people counting on you for a job. But, even though the legal arena has its differences, much of what she discusses transfers and she raises very good points that we don't commonly discuss. Are we having multiple kids for the right reasons and, if so, can our career sustain it? I have to admit, I know a lot of successful senior women lawyers who have no kids or stopped at one. read more
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I am Canadian, and while I work in Metropolitan Detroit, I commute home each evening across the Ambassador Bridge to Windsor, Ontario. Given my somewhat unique cross-border lifestyle, I often find myself comparing and contrasting the various legal and political systems on both sides of the border. For example, instead of the customary six weeks here in the USA, Canadian mothers receive almost a full year of partially paid maternity leave. Perhaps as a result of this and other “progressive” advances in Canadian society, the Law Society of Upper Canada (Ontario’s state bar) has spent several years encouraging law firms to adopt flexible work arrangements and working with the legal profession to improve the retention of women in private practice. read more
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 Ladies, admit it, many of us suffer from the "I can be everything to everybody" complex. We pride ourselves in our versatility, our ability to master many roles. Our theme song is Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman"! We are astute career women, attentive mothers, doting daughters, loving wives, supportive sisters and friends, PTA volunteers, soccer moms, bake sale captains, church members, community association leaders, committee members in professional associations, and the list goes on and on . . . and on. There is no doubt that the tasks on our To-Do List continue to grow. At the end of the day, instead of feeling a sense of completion, we feel more frustrated and anxious about these growing number of tasks. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that in the midst of all of our daily plans to conquer the world, we tend to fail miserably at taking care of ourselves. How many times do we put ourselves on the back burner because there are more "important" things that need to be done? Or even still, how many times have we said or thought: "I do not have time to go to the doctor?" As a single mother of a five year-old with a busy litigation practice, I am definitely guilty. read more
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Shortly after I posted my last blog which raised the concept that the more senior I became in my job, the easier it was to survive with kids because with seniority came flexibility, I read an article about a study on women that basically suggests that "flexible" jobs are not the answer because it means a woman's work is never done. Granted, this study pertained to women entrepreneurs and not lawyers, but I have heard the same argument applied in the legal context. My thoughts are short and simple on this. Nobody ever said flexible meant working less. It just means flexible. To me, flexibility allows women to continue their career and still participate in other areas of their life, such as parenting. It enables someone to make the 4 pm soccer game or stay home with a sick child. But it still means the work has to get done. If you want to be successful in your career - no matter what you do - you need to work hard. You cannot escape that. read more
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.JPG) The recent article A Labor Market Punishing to Mothers by DAVID LEONHARDT discusses the concept that although women have come a long way in the work force, men seem to be able to do it despite family life and women don't. Attrition is still very high for women in the work force, including law (in particularly, women with children). And there appears to be a pattern, or at least anecdotal evidence, that the women who are most successful don't have children. Take for example, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Janet Napolitano and Condoleezza Rice, among others. Although the article concedes many other successful women (including Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg) have children, it suggests that those women have beat the odds that were stacked against them. Bottom line, the article notes, "Women do almost as well as men today, as long as they don't have children." read more
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 We all think we know what we need to know about ourselves and then we live and grow and experience and realize that while we knew some things, there were far more things that we did not know. Brad Paisley, noted country music singer-songwriter, has a song about a man describing the letter he would write to his younger self, entitled, “If I Could Write a Letter to Me”. In her recent book, What I Know Now About Success: Letters from Extraordinary Women to Their Younger Selves, Ellyn Spragins documents the letters that many extraordinarily successful women would write to their younger selves. They are fascinating and inspirational as well as educational. read more
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