Work/life or work/work? Corporate legal practice in the twenty-first century

Abstract

This article problematises the rhetorical phrase of the moment—work/life balance (WLB)—with particular regard to large corporate law firms, many of which have recently become global conglomerates as a result of amalgamation. The principals and partners of these firms, like their corporate clients, are more concerned with cutting costs and maximising profits than whether the lawyers they employ are able to attain a ‘good life’. While flexible work has been sought by women lawyers for some time as the essential prerequisite to effecting gender equality, the reality has proved to be somewhat disappointing. Indeed, both men and women are stigmatised for seeking to work flexibly which poses a dilemma for the prospect of gender equality. Drawing on responses to a web-based survey and follow-up interviews with male and female lawyers in Australia in 2012–13, it is argued that, far from flexible work constituting a solution, it may not only entrench the masculinist identity of the ideal lawyer but it may also contribute to the dissolution of the boundary between law and life.