I don't feel bad about how i spent my time in quarantine. You shouldn't either.

​So what if I’ve been using this pandemic as an excuse to spend more time with my kids and not work as much? 

So what if I’ve used the quarantine as an excuse to spend my mornings running outside, walking with my kids in the afternoons, or walking my dog 6 times a day instead of sitting in front of my computer in a cold office for 7 hours straight? 

So what if I’ve spent 45 minutes searching online for the perfect baked cinnamon apple recipe, and then actually made it, randomly, on a Thursday afternoon, instead of spending an hour doing research or additional work for a client who probably doesn’t want to pay for my time anyways?

My point is: SO WHAT? I have enjoyed my time at home during the last couple of months in this pandemic in ways I never expected.

Stretching outside with my 3 year old & 9 month old

I have always loved working and as a lawyer, I feel a genuine thrill when I accomplish a great result for a client in a case. After all, its the #1 reason law students cite to when you ask them, “why do you want to become a lawyer?” - “To help people”. When that wish is actually fulfilled, its extremely gratifying and rewarding, and reassures me that I made the right decision in my career choice. 

The reality, though, is that the practice of law can become as tedious and debilitating as any other profession. We face all kinds of hurdles and they vary depending on what kind of law firm we work in. The “Big Law” attorneys struggle with billing an exorbitant amount of minimum hours per month (or else), the state attorneys/“DA”s are overworked and underpaid, and the solo practitioner and small law firm owners (like myself) face constant issues in navigating the unknown territories of administrative, billing, and collections, client management, and marketing. We won’t even get into the differences we face depending on what kind of law we practice.

Those genuine moments of “I helped someone today” become few and far between, and the haze of the daily struggles we face blurs our actual successes from the otherwise failed attempts to succeed. 

So yes, I have enjoyed taking a minor “break” from all of that. Whether we realize it or not, the incessant arguing, adversarial nature to our profession, and overall bad attitude most attorneys have, for no reason and without cause, by the way, takes a toll on the mind, body, and soul. Instead of recognizing how these interactions are negatively impacting us, and inevitably trickling down into our personal lives, social lives, and to our families, we continue working and billing and taking on another toxic client or daunting case because we say “Well, this is what a lawyer is supposed to do so I guess this is my life”. 

Until a global pandemic hits that literally FORCES you to stay at home with your family and put work on the back burner for a bit. Guess what? Your work is still there, your boss is still probably complaining about something, and your clients haven’t gone anywhere. I hope you, like me, took advantage of this time to go outside, enjoy the sunlight, discover a new hobby, and played with your kids. Really, truly played with them. I hope you made robots out of cardboard boxes, danced barefoot in the kitchen, and built gigantic lego castles with them. I hope you had an outdoor picnic outside with your spouse, took long walks with your kids in the middle of the day, and rubbed your dog’s belly on the couch. I hope you re-discovered your love for running, biking, rollerblading, or hula-hooping, and that you reminded your body what it felt like to move and sweat.  However you spent your extra time during this lockdown, I hope you spent it doing something that nourished your mind, body, and soul, because lord knows, we needed it. 

I don’t feel bad or ashamed about choosing my kids over my work - and you shouldn’t either.  If this quarantine has taught me anything, it’s that I never want to choose work over my kids again. What has this quarantine taught you?