Managing the Work-Life Balance in Big Law

It’s been almost 30 years since Working Mother magazine coined the term “work-life balance.” Since then, men as well as women have increasingly sought ways to practice law without the grueling hours.

Now Joan Williams, a professor at University of California Hastings College of the Law, has co-authored a report assessing “new models” of legal practice that have evolved since the 1990s to afford attorneys more control over their schedules and hopes of achieving that ever-elusive balance.

Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at Hastings, researched and wrote the report along with Aaron Platt and Jessica Lee. They ...