Dewey or Don't We? What is the Question...

Usually my chaos centers on the chaotic life of a SAHM with two small children, but that is not the only chaos in our lives.  We really do chaos here, seriously-and we are kaleidoscoping it up as much as we can.  To prove this point, today we are going to talk a little bit about Mama J’s (my spouse, Jocelyn) world.  She is a partner at the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf. 

As you know, we live in Washington, DC.  And as I said before, Jocelyn and I are both lawyers – pretty common for a Washington DC couple (even if we are a “same-sex” couple).  We met at a law firm – she worked for me – very scandalous, especially since she was the first woman I had ever dated – but that is a different post.

Jocelyn and I moved with a group of lawyers from a different firm to LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae on April 1, 2005.  We were officially publicly engaged in April 2006.  We had our religious ceremony and wedding party in March 2007.  In the fall of 2007, LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae merged with Dewey Ballentine to become the mega firm Dewey & LeBoeuf.  In January 2008, I made partner at Dewey & LeBoeuf – the first class of partners at the newly merged firm.  In March 2008, I took an unpaid leave of absence to go work on the Hillary Clinton campaign and when that ended I did election protection work until the 2008 election.  When I was ready to return to the firm, most the merger documents had been finalized and I faced a dilemma.  At Dewey & LeBoeuf (unlike at LeBoeuf, Lamb, Green & MacRae) no two partners of the firm could be married or in a relationship with each other.  If I returned to the firm and stayed, Jocelyn would not be able to be on partnership track.  After a long family discussion, I decided I would not return to the firm and Jocelyn would make a run for partner.  At the time I was trying to get pregnant and had been seriously considering going back to work as an attorney for the government.  It was a very hard decision, but one that I never regretted.  It all worked out, 2 months after I left the firm I got pregnant with Jonah and Jocelyn became a partner at Dewey & LeBoeuf on January 1, 2012. 

If you even remotely follow Big Law (as “they” call it) happenings, you will know where I am going with all this.  Just take a look at the recent New York Times headlines: 

At Dewey & LeBoeuf Notable Departures Continue

Dewey & LeBoeuf Partners Encouraged To Leave

Prosecutors Examing Former Dewey Chairman

There is a little bit of “chaos” going on where Jocelyn works.   For now there is a lot of uncertainty.  It will be what it will be.   Me being me, I figured it was time to take out that kaleidoscope. That is what I do.  I dressed the kids up in party clothes and drove to Jocelyn’s office this morning.  That is what kaleidoscoping chaos is all about. 

There are big questions about what has happened at Dewey & LeBoeuf and its future.  That will all be sorted out in the days, months or even years to come.  What I do know is that Dewey & LeBoeuf will always have a special place in the life of my family.  My kids are here because Jocelyn and I decided to work there and I decided to leave there.  At our wedding in 2007, there were at least 7 partners from the then LeBoeuf, Lamb Greene & MacRae firm sitting together at a table.  Who says that stodgy old law firms are behind the times, these guys and girls (all partners) sat at our same-sex wedding in Battery Park, Manhattan before it was trendy and before it was even legal – so there.  Not to mention all of the associates and staff who also came to our wedding.  It was a full house.  And people at the firm (and they know who they are) have loved and supported our family and our children from day one.  Whether it is Jocelyn’s assistant(s), the IT guys, the legal assistants, the receptionists, associates, mail room guys, copy room guys and even certain partners – they have been wonderful. 

The thing about working for Big Law and “making the run” for partner is that you have to really get married to the job or it just doesn’t work.  I know this because I did it.  I knew this would happen when Jocelyn made her run.  It means working all the time, any time.  It can mean missing vacations or date nights.  It means never seeing your kids go to bed and having to get up extra early to spend just a short time with them before you get on a conference call.  It means stopping in the firm's China office while on vacation in China.  It means taking conference calls while driving with your mom for her 60^th birthday in the fields of Ireland on the opposite side of the road.  I get it because I lived it and still do.  Jocelyn and I both understood the sacrifices her making a run for partner would require from the entire family.  It is the main reason we decided that I would stay home with the kids. It was our way of reconciling the many issues that surround this lifestyle.  There are many ways to make this work.  This is the way we chose.  But I digress. 

The thing is, when you spend so much time at work, the people you work with become part of your family – for better or for worse.  All the idle chatter and speculation aside, whatever ultimately happens at Dewey & LeBoeuf, a large part of our Dewey family has already split up.  And that is hard on both those who have left and those who remain.  The articles, blogs, and comments on blogs often forget just one thing: whatever one wants to say about the entity of Dewey & LeBoeuf or certain individuals, the majority of people there were (and are) good people just like you and me – people who got up every day, went to work and tried to do a good job.  So, today we went to the office to make some people smile that needed to smile.  I hope we did just that.

It may be that one day we will tell our kids, Mommy was in the first class of Dewey & LeBoeuf partners and Mama was in the last.  Or, maybe our kids will be visiting that gorgeous glass building for years to come and making too much noise in the hallways of a thriving law firm.  The law firm that enabled their moms to meet, to get together and to do so much.  Only time will tell. 

My wish is that everyone ends up in a place that works for them and makes them happy and that we keep in touch with those who have been so supportive of us.

so this is that place called "work"

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