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“Life Balance Resource Guide: Policies, Ideas and Strategies for Parental Leave and Alternative Work Arrangements” Note: The following is an excerpt from The Life Balance Resource Guide introduction. The Guide is available for purchase through MWL for $25.00 (plus postage, if applicable). Please contact MWL for information on ordering a copy. I. Introduction: Life balance issues are abound in the legal profession as well as in the business world generally. Achieving life balance involves a delicate weighing of work, family and other interests and demands in our lives. Finding this balance is critical for our mental, physical and emotional health, as well as our happiness and the happiness of those around us. Law firms and legal employers, large and small, continue to struggle with the need to provide work alternatives for their lawyers, while staying mindful of ever-present economic considerations and retention issues. Because each lawyer's needs are as individual as the lawyer herself, flexibility is critical when providing alternatives. Julie Ritz-Schlaifer provided the initial seed for the Life Balance Task Force in early 1999 while she was President of MWL. Her desire to establish the committee arose in part from the many requests MWL received for sample part-time and parental leave policies or for assistance in approaching an employer with a request for a flexible work schedule. Julie's successor, Jacqueline A. Mrachek, continued to support the work of the Task Force. The primary contributors to this report, Raquel Briskin, formerly of Dorsey & Whitney, Beth McGraw Reiskytl of Fredrikson & Byron, Sara Schwebs of Wagner, Falconer & Judd, and Debra Pexa of Minnesota Women Lawyers. The Taskforce members combined their experiences and contacts in the legal community to create a resource for others in the profession. We hope this report will provide tools for women in the legal profession who desire to address life balance issues in their lives with a workable parental leave or alternative work schedule arrangement. Additionally, we hope that this guide will provide tools for firms and other legal employers when drafting parental leave or other alternative work arrangement policies. Lastly, we hope it provides ideas and encouragement to those lawyers who seek arrangements that are either outside of existing policies or where no policies exist. The report contains six sections. Sections A-F contain sample policies from various law firms and other legal employers and sources in the Twin Cities. The policies are arranged by the type of legal employer. To honor any confidentiality concerns, we are providing such policies anonymously. We have also included model policies provided by various association entities to round out our collection. In Section G, individuals who have utilized alternative work arrangements share their experiences, describing the hurdles faced and advantages gained. Section H contains a summary of information obtained from the National Association of Legal Placement (NALP) that highlights in general terms what some law firms locally and nationwide are currently offering in terms of parental leave and alternative work practices. To assist lawyers in thinking through the issues of an alternative work arrangement, we discuss considerations and arguments in support of such arrangements in Section I. This section highlights the key issues involved in negotiating and working under these arrangements. The final two sections of the report provide additional resources, with Section J listing people who are willing to talk to others about their experiences relating to part-time work and other arrangements, and Section K containing general articles, internet sites and other materials related to the subject. Our sincere desire is that this resource makes a difference in the professional and personal lives of lawyers across Minnesota. We also want to emphasize that we view this report as a “work in progress.” We hope everyone who uses the report will communicate his or her experience to MWL and we encourage you to send MWL any additional policies or other resources for a possible annual or biannual update. In completing this resource guide, we recognize certain limitations in our scope. The MWL Life Balance Task Force did not gather this information for the purpose of our analysis, endorsement or recommendation. Rather, we have provided a wide sampling of what is currently being done across the Minnesota legal community. Our intent is for MWL members to examine current practices and determine, for themselves, what best fits into their lives. |
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