PBCBA BAR BULLETINS pbcba_bulletin_March 2019 | Page 3

PRESIDENT’S M e s s a g e
A Personal Reflection on Parental Leave and
the Practice of Law
Gregory P. Huber
2018-19 PBCBA President
To address the question, I have received
from several of you- no, I am not
planning on having another child. My
January “resolution article” was written
in early December before Janson Eli
surprised us arriving a month early on
December 17th. After a rough start, he
is miraculously doing wonderful, and
we couldn’t be more blessed but NOPE
absolutely no plans for another one.
His early arrival did get me thinking
about the birth of my daughter, Jade,
many years ago and how different
things are now compared to then. While
I was worried sick about Janson whose
little lungs weren’t quite ready for his
early arrival, I felt truly blessed not to
have the additional stress of my work
obligations. I was able to have my office
find coverage and clear my schedule.
I was also able to spend all the time I
needed at the hospital while he was in
the NICU and when he could go home, I
was able to take time off work to spend
with him. After returning to work,
I’ve been able to modify my schedule
to limit early morning appointments
to help with the fatigue from the late
nights and have had the flexibility to
work from home. This has allowed
me to remain productive while also
spending precious time with my son.
This is a significant contrast to when
my daughter was born.
trial practice in Miami. I worked with
some truly wonderful attorneys who I
respect tremendously and will forever
be grateful to, but when my daughter
was born while there were lots of
congratulations, the celebration was
short-lived, and I was expected to return
to work almost immediately. There was
no discussion about taking time off to
spend with my new baby. There was
no suggestion that I should reduce my
12-hour work days or that I should stop
coming in on the weekends so I could
spend more time with my daughter.
I’m not even sure if paternity leave
was a thing back then but, I certainly
didn’t hear about it. I survived, but it
was an extremely challenging time
that I believe easily could have been
much more manageable had I been
encouraged to take part in some form
of paternity leave.
Reflecting on my two completely
different experiences made me wonder
what the current trends are in the legal
industry when it comes to parental
leave. Personally, I see it as a health
and wellness/work-life balance issue
and hope that the legal industry is
seeing it that way as well. When my
daughter was born, had paternity
leave been available I probably would
not have accepted it because I would
have been concerned that I would look
weak or that it might have a negative
Back then, I was a young associate impact on my long-term career given
getting my feet wet at a business civil
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the culture at that time. Hopefully, the
legal industry is moving away from
those antiquated ideas and realizing
that happier, healthy people make
better attorneys.