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In the article “EEOC Recommends Employer “Best Practices” to Promote Work/Family Balance” by Joanna L. Grossman, the discuss the things companies should do in order to promote work/family balance and how important it is so recognize the difficulties women go through when trying to balance both. They also point out that not only is it mothers trying to take care of children, but it is also women trying to take care of aging parents or relatives with disabilities. In Gender on Trial, English says in order to get to an understanding between the balance of work and family, people have to stop disregarding part time lawyers and believe that they are just as good as full time lawyers. “There is a genuine confusion about how flexibility can work, for both sides. But there can’t be a real commitment to strengthening systems until the basic validity of a lawyer working different hours is accepted. So long as lawyers believe that full time is “the standard unit, and anything less than that is sub par,” there’s little motivation or zeal for revamping policies and procedures and enforcing systems rigorously.” (216) So, until everybody comes to a common understanding, people cannot move forward with the balance between work and family.


There are many reasons to consider what comes out of people balancing work and family, like part time schedules. Although part-time schedules seem to be a problem of balancing work and family, if you look at it from a positive angle you can see all the positive things that come out of it. High turnover and broad dissatisfaction in legal workplaces are causes of not being able to balance family and work life, so if schedules were more flexible that would not be a problem. Also, you would have more time to enjoy life, changing social trends, and with technology today, you could do more work at home and still be connected with the office.