Making a Comeback

by Sherry Karabin

San Francisco litigator Diane Duvall left the law in 2000 to spend more time with her family. Raising three kids, she'd given up on trying to juggle a busy practice, too. But that changed about a year ago when she read about a program called Opting Back In, which helps former attorneys reconnect with their careers. "It made me think I needed to go back and take another look, and explore whether I could find this balance," she says.

An initiative of UC Hastings College of the Law's Center for WorkLife Law, the program was created in part to help firms fully tap the female talent pool. Similar programs exist in New York and Washington, D.C. These efforts may be even more critical now because a recent study from the Center for Work-Life Policy, a think tank in New York, found that the economic downturn has made it more difficult for women to return to the workforce after taking time off. (Survey respondents who found new jobs reported taking a 16 percent pay cut, on average, and more than a fifth accepted a demotion.)

"Women often take the lion's share of the responsibility for raising children," says Joan C. Williams, a UC Hastings distinguished professor and director of the law school's Project for Attorney Retention (PAR). "However, it's extremely important that once they are ready to return, they know how to go about doing so. Otherwise, women bleed out of the legal profession, and that is something that PAR does not want to see happen."

Opting Back In provides former attorneys with structure and tools for getting their careers back in gear. Participants are assigned to a group that meets twice monthly via conference calls, led by a licensed psychologist and an expert on work-life balance.

"I ask the women" - and the occasional male participant - "to set realistic goals that can be obtained in 90 days," explains Ellen Ostrow, the psychologist who co-runs the program. "They have to craft a plan that includes the steps they have to take to achieve these goals, and then we break those steps down to very specific actions they can take."

The program, which costs $150 per month, also offers participants job-hunting resources, advice on balancing work and home life, and activities for refreshing their legal skills.

For Duvall, the process jump-started a new career as a mediator. "I'm still developing my career path, but it's opening up beautifully," she says.

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