Work-Life Balance in Large Law Firms: A Case Study on Young Female and Male Lawyers

Work-life balance had become a major topic of research on organization studies and professions and also an aspect of concern to managers and directors. The combination of these two aspects had resulted in several discussions and conferences and opened a public debate in several countries around the world. The new generations of female and male lawyers are entering professional life with more awareness and information and so is particular relevant to know how they experience their transition. Do they understand work-life balance as a problem? What kind of strategies they develop in order to gain control on their life’s? Are they opened to the idea of sacrificing their private life’s in order to achieve professional goals? Young female and young male have different opinions about the subject?

To answer these questions, we developed nineteen biographical interviews with both men and women, all from large law firms with ages between 24 and 32 years old.
We focus our analysis on emotions, the words and expressions they use to describe the entrance in the profession, the socialization process and the expectations about being lawyers or moving out in the near future. In order to capture the richness of the testimonies we use breaking point events like having a child and/or getting married to explore the links between private and professional life.

The Portuguese case as some interest to the global community, although it’s a small country in the European Union as several large law firms, some of them global law firms. These firms work in a global context in particular with Portuguese speaking countries or regions in Africa and Asia (Macau) and Brazil.