Recession Forces More Stay-at-Home Moms Back to Work, Including Lawyers

The recession is pushing some highly educated stay-at-home moms back into the workplace, and lawyers are part of the phenomenon.

A New York Times story on the trend includes profiles of four lawyers who say the job hunt isn't easy. One has been out of the full-time work force for 16 years and plans to hang out her own shingle. A second, who hasn’t worked full-time for 20 years, found a job courtesy of an old friend. A third found a temporary job as temporary counsel for a company that oversees surgery centers. A fourth, who stayed at home for nine years, is looking for work and is now an unpaid intern at a law firm.

More women are re-entering the workforce as the recession takes a heavier toll on men, according to the story. Joan Williams, director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California at Hastings law school, says 78 percent of the people who lost their jobs in the recession are men.

“That has brought home to many families that having one income places you in a very vulnerable position,” Williams told the Times.

The Times cites several experts who say more women are apparently re-entering the workforce. It also refers to one more piece of “preliminary evidence”: A government labor statistic that found 78.4 percent of college-educated women aged 25 to 44 who are living with a spouse were working or looking for work in the first half of 2009. That’s a slight increase from two years ago, when the number working or looking for work was 76 percent.

One lawyer who went back to full-time work is Trudi Foutts Loh, who quit her job 20 years ago to care for her two children. During the time at home, she worked occasionally as a political consultant and writer. Now she works full-time, thanks to a law school friend who hired her to work at a law firm in Pasadena, Calif.

She told the Times she decided to go back to work because of investment losses “in the healthy six figures,” medical expenses for a family member, and the cost of having two daughters in college. “And then the value of our home and pension plan has taken a tumble,” she said.

Another lawyer, Lisa Hughes, decided to go back to work after her family moved from New Jersey to California so her husband could take a new job . A year later, he was laid off. Hughes last worked 16 years ago as a corporate lawyer. She told the Times she plans to start a solo practice because “it’s hard to find jobs after 16 years.”

A third lawyer, Karen Boon, is filling in for a lawyer on maternity leave for a company that oversees surgery centers. She was worried because of her family’s declining investments and fears her husband would be laid off.

Carolyn Bednarz, a former lawyer at Milbank & Tweed, is having difficulty finding a job after nine years at home. She ended up taking a position as an unpaid intern at a law firm in Marin County, Calif. “I probably applied for 30 jobs on Craigslist, and hardly anyone writes back,” she told the Times. “This is just the most humbling experience.”