SCOTUS clerk became stay-at-home dad, noted 'raised eyebrows' when applying to law firms
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When Ryan Park ended his clerkship with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg this past summer, he took on another challenging role as a stay-at-home dad.
Park’s wife was busy with a pediatrics residency and his daughter, Caitlyn, was “a robust toddler with personality and character,” he writes in the Atlantic. He opted for a short break in his career to parent full-time. Above the Law notes the article by Park, who was initially hired by Justice David H. Souter.
“My deepest fear is that, decades from now, I will look back at the heart of my life and realize I made the wrong choices in favor of work,” Park writes. He notes a 2013 Pew study in which 60 percent of men surveyed described their childcare hours as “very meaningful,” compared to only 33 percent of men who put their paid work into that category. Nearly half the men in the study said they were dissatisfied with the amount of time they were able to spend with their children, twice the rate of women who said they were dissatisfied.
Yet men who take time away from work for family reasons apparently pay a price, Park says, citing research by Scott Coltrane of the University of Oregon. Coltrane found that men who took time off for family had a 26.4 percent reduction in future earnings, compared to a 23.2 percent reduction for women.
While clerking for Ginsburg, Park benefited from her advice on juggling career and child care. Referring to Ginsburg as “the Boss,” Park wrote that Ginsburg began law school shortly after her daughter’s first birthday.
The baby “occupied much of her free time,” Park wrote. “That free time became even scarcer after her husband Marty, also a Harvard Law student at the time, was diagnosed with cancer. Not only did the Boss care for and support Marty, she helped keep him up to speed in his coursework, taking his class notes and typing his papers—all the while rising to the very top of her class.”
Ginsburg’s best advice, Park says, was to “be a good partner” and “take breaks.” He quotes from Ginsburg’s interview with Katie Couric in which Ginsburg said: “You can’t have it all, all at once. “Who—man or woman—has it all, all at once? Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.”
Park recently began a new job at Boies, Schiller & Flexner. During his interviews with law firms, he made it a point to mention his daughter, his commitment to family and his wife’s demanding job. “This may well have cost me an offer or two,” Park writes.
“Most of the senior partners I met with responded stiffly, with raised eyebrows and a bemused remark on how times have changed. (Sometimes, though not often, this was accompanied by a wistful aside about the time they’d lost with their own, now-grown children.) Younger partners of both genders, however, usually responded with warmth, understanding, and even enthusiasm, based on their own experiences managing a dual-career household. …
“At the office, the encouraging reactions of the younger partners make me hopeful that a commitment to family won’t necessarily mean a future of depreciated income and stunted professional advancement,” he writes. “But if it does, I can live with that tradeoff. I’d far prefer it to a future of maximized career potential and personal regret.”
