Leap of faith for balance
Two high-flying female lawyers denied promotion left the corporate nest for a better life, writes Fiona Smith.
WHEN PEOPLE flee the corporate world, it is often because their bosses expect them to work as if their families have no claim on their time and attention.
But Jane Wright and Lauren Barel thought they had that sorted. The two lawyers had broken new ground as job-sharing senior associates, working three days a week each at big law firm Herbert Smith Freehills.
For five years, and with five children between them, they were the ‘‘poster girls’’ for workplace flexibility. That is, until they decided to go for promotion.
Wright and Barel, with ambitions to become the firm’s first job-sharing partners, were told they could only apply for promotion separately and that they had to compete against each other for it.
‘‘It changed my whole idea,’’ said Wright.
That was the push they needed to use their expertise in workplace law to start up their own firm, Work dynamic Australia.
With the addition of Wright’s brother, Jonathan Wright, who left Minter Ellison so he could spend more time with his young family, the workplace investigations firm has experienced rapid growth since launching in April last year. Already they have about 40 clients, have hired four extra lawyers and are close to A$2 million in revenue for the year.
‘‘We are all top-tier refugees,’’ Wright said.
Before they resigned, the women had identified a gap in the workplace investigations field. As lawyers, they had been struggling to find people who could investigate such issues as bullying and harassment and provide reports that could withstand legal scrutiny.
When they let their interest in the area be known, one of their main clients, the University of Sydney, was keen to be the new business’s keystone customer.
‘‘They were prepared to hire us the next day,’’ Wright said. That gave the lawyers the security of knowing they would have an income.
The university originally wanted the pair to work fulltime, but the women pushed back to work two days each on the account. The founders were determined to be their own bosses. ‘‘We didn’t want to be employed by someone,’’ Wright said.
The team invested about A$7000 in set-up costs, with everyone working from home but with access to a ‘‘virtual’’ office in Sydney’s CBD.
As employment lawyers, hiring people was a cinch. Other than their latest recruit, all were people
‘We are all top-tier refugees.’
they already knew who approached them looking for a better work-life balance.
One thing the founders were determined to do was build flexibility into the firm’s structure. Barel works four days a week, Wright does three and her brother Jonathan works fulltime. He is able to work from home and manages his hours better than in a corporate job. Of the employees, all lawyers, only one works fulltime and the rest are part-time.
‘‘By having a structure that is different from the standard law firm, offering people true flexibility when we give people the ability to work from home, we get a really high calibre of applicant,’’ Wright said.
‘‘We don’t require employees to work within any sort of hours, we don’t require them to turn up to an office at all, we just give them work and a deadline and we pay them for the work that they do.
‘‘So they can work at two in the morning if they want to and they can do it wherever, whenever they want to do it. We have had a lot of feedback that it has been extremely positive from their perspective, especially if they have young children.’’
Wright said employees get a premium payment, above their hourly rate, if it is of a quality that can be billed to a client. ‘‘So, it is as if we have created little entrepreneurs of our employees.’’
The employees are being paid about the same or more than they would have been in their corporate jobs – and they are being paid for every hour of work they do. In a law firm, there are large slabs of work that is unpaid because it is not ‘‘billable’’.