Before Hudson attorney Margaret Kaiser had her first child, she and her spouse thought about how this was going to work, since both had full-time jobs. Kaiser and Dodgeville attorney Matthew Angel discuss how they adopted alternative schedules to balance work and life.

Sept. 21, 2016 – Before Hudson attorney Margaret Kaiser had her first child, she and her spouse thought about how this was going to work. Both worked full-time, traditional schedules. Dodgeville attorney Matthew Angel and his wife had the same thought.

Once children entered the picture, the nine-to-five (or six, or seven) work schedule became a challenge in these households, since both parents worked full-time.

And these families aren’t alone. According to a recent survey, both parents work full-time in almost half of two-parent families. That’s up from 31 percent in 1970.

Modern-day working parents want career satisfaction, but they also want to be there for their kids and cut child care costs where they can. According to recent reports, a year of child care can be more expensive than a year of college tuition in many states.

For Kaiser and Angel, who will speak about alternative work schedules at the State Bar of Wisconsin’s 2016 Wisconsin Solo & Small Firm Conference (WSSFC), Oct. 20-22 in Wisconsin Dells, going non-traditional provided the work-life balance they were seeking.

In this article, both attorneys talk about how they’re doing it, what to consider in the planning phase, and how technology can help you untether from traditional schedules.

Both maintain alternative schedules with children and child care costs in mind, but the concepts are equally applicable to single parents, lawyers who are helping elderly parents, or lawyers who simply want to break free from a traditional schedule.

Changing the Routine

After graduating from U.W. Law School in 2012, Kaiser worked on personal injury litigation at a law firm in New Richmond. About two years later, a newborn son arrived. She took maternity leave and started thinking about the work-life balance she wanted.

“I needed a little bit more flexibility in order to be the parent I wanted to be, and also to be the kind of attorney I wanted to be” said Kaiser, now a solo practitioner. “I just felt like I was spreading myself too thin while I was at a firm full-time.”

Last year, she opened Margaret Kaiser Law LLC. She does guardian ad litem work as well as social security disability appeals. She currently works from home, meets with clients in courthouse conference rooms, and does not work on Wednesdays.

“So I’m only away from my son in two-day increments,” she said. “And if he gets sick or needs to go to the doctor, as long as I’m not in court or have meetings, I’m able to do those things, which works well because my husband’s schedule is less flexible.”

Kaiser’s husband works a five-day week, but is off on Thursdays and Fridays. So their son only needs child care two days per week, since Kaiser is off Wednesdays. And she’s usually able to schedule court hearings around her alternative schedule.

Angel, a partner at Angel & Angel S.C., has worked an alternative schedule since 2008, when he and his wife had the first of three children. His wife Kathleen is a government lawyer. They met at U.W. Law School, both graduating in 2003.

Dodgeville attorney Matthew Angel has worked an alternative schedule since 2008, when he and his wife had the first of three children. His wife Kathleen is a government lawyer.

“We love our jobs but we also want to be there for our kids, so they can be picked up from school by one of us or one of us can stay home, that kind of thing,” Angel said.

Angel started altering his schedule to be more available. He took off one day a week but worked some nights and weekends to catch up if needed. He also changed the focus of his law practice in Dodgeville. He now focuses on real estate transactions, estate planning, and business law, in part because those practice areas allow more flexibility.

“I really like those areas but they also lend themselves better to an alternative schedule, more so than a litigation practice,” he said. “I’m not bound by the deadlines of litigation, and I can harness technology to work outside the office or during nonbusiness hours.”

Angel says it helps to have supportive law partners, his father and brother. When Angel made the decision to work fewer hours or work weekends or evenings instead of regular business hours, he had the backing of his partners to help out on urgent matters.

His wife also worked a reduced schedule when their first child was born, and with family members close by, they were able to save on the costs of outside child care.

“Once our third child was born, things got a little more complicated. We relied more on outside child care and have a part-time babysitter to help out,” said Angel, who currently works about 30 hours per week. “My wife and I have found ways to make it work.”

Planning, Screening, and Communication are Key

As with any major decision, Angel said the key is planning. Lawyers are busy people without much room for reducing hours. Planned right, he said, it can work.

“Talk to your partners. Ask about allocating work to them if needed,” he said. “For me, it was having the support of partners and looking at my practice areas.”

When Angel looked for areas to reduce his workload, he started cutting from the work he didn’t particularly enjoy, and focused on the work he liked much better. In addition, he began to screen potential clients more closely.

“Be careful what you take, and not just in terms of workload,” he said. “Screen your clients well, because when you are working a reduced schedule you want to make sure you get paid for the work. So you have to be careful about what you take on.”

“If anything, the process increased my work satisfaction because I’m doing the things I want to do and working with great clients,” he said. “I’m more careful about what I take.”

Angel also started increasing efficiencies to maximize his time. For instance, he developed client questionnaires to gather information before initial meetings. And he’s using technology, like cloud-based document sharing, to move matters more quickly.

“It’s all there in the file so I can hit the ground running,” Angel said. “That saves time and it saves the client money, so that makes the client happy too.”

Because Angel is not in the office as regularly, he encourages clients to communicate by email and cell phone. That way he doesn’t need to be in the office to respond.

“In high-conflict practice areas, like family law, it may not be wise to be available by cell phone. But I give my cell number out to most who want it,” he said. “That sometimes results in me getting work I might not otherwise get for projects that need immediate attention. I might take a project on Saturday if I have nothing else going on.”

Can I Really Do This?

Working fewer hours means fewer hours billed, and less income. But does that mean you are saving on child care costs? How do you value your time away from the office?

“For us, it’s more of a financial benefit because we don’t need to pay for child care five days a week,” said Kaiser, noting her husband works five days a week, but he’s off Thursdays and Fridays. He watches their son those days while she works from home.

“It would probably be difficult to be a personal injury litigator and always take off Wednesdays,” she said. “It would be hard with that type of schedule. It really has more to do with the area of law you practice in than with your personality type.”

Margaret Kaiser says that one of the biggest keys to her success in adopting an alternative work schedule has been setting expectations with clients.

One of the biggest keys to Kaiser’s success has been setting expectations with clients. They know that she won’t be available on Wednesdays, and she makes that clear.

“I state my office hours on my voicemail,” she said. “If people call me on a Tuesday, they know they are not going to hear back from me until Thursday. I also make a point to respond quickly to emails or phone calls so clients don’t feel like they’re getting subpar service because I’m not working full time.”

Kaiser also learned a lot about the maternity leave process, which she will focus on in her presentation at the WSSFC. “I attended a CLE presentation by attorney Danielle Schroder when I was pregnant, and it was really invaluable.”

“She’s allowed me to build on her materials, which discuss all of the things you need to take care of before you go on maternity or paternity leave. I created a checklist for parental leave with her sample letter to clients. I’m hoping people walk out of the program with concrete ideas of how to take leave in a smooth and effective way.”

Some of those ideas include notifying professional contacts, arranging for mail collection and review of urgent and important documents, and payroll if you have employees.

“One of the best parts of our program is that Tison Rhine is on the panel. I’m hoping that he can give concrete solutions, like cloud-based programs and different phone services that you can do to facilitate working in a nontraditional schedule,” Kaiser said.

Rhine manages the State Bar of Wisconsin’s Law Office Management Assistance Program (Practice 411). Technology has opened many doors for alternative schedules for those attorneys who take the time to learn what’s out there, he says.

“There’s a lot of software and cloud-based solutions that give attorneys and other professionals the option to untether from a 9-to-5 office schedule,” Rhine said. “It’s just a matter of understanding yourself and how you work best, and then familiarizing yourself with those solutions to make them work for you.”