The Examiners: Sharon Levine on Setting Boundaries

What factors can make restructuring a difficult field in which to balance work and family obligations, and what should professional firms be doing to help employees? 

Restructuring work is typically fast-paced, fluid and unpredictable (other than its unpredictability), with serious issues arising on a moment’s notice. Therefore, restructuring professionals are never “off the clock,” and many issues cannot wait until tomorrow. And if we are being honest, restructuring professionals often choose the work because the speed and seriousness of the consequences make the work more interesting and exciting than the same corporate transaction or litigation that develops at a slower, perhaps more rational, pace. However, being an “adrenaline junkie” in a practice where speed to a solution is often an important component of the solution itself, does not, simply put, lend itself to a lifestyle that caters to personal time or health goals.

Historically, how to balance work and life has often fallen to the individual. If you selected a schedule or set boundaries that carve out personal time and, importantly, communicated these limitations to your firm (part-time, flex-time, down time) and organized to meet these goals, then these choices impact the professional’s opportunities. Realistically, the professional called on to help with the interesting crisis that arises after or outside of those hours or that requires working through down time will not be the professional setting these limits. Individuals have their own sense of what is important to them and must make professional choices guided by those priorities. However, what is interesting is that regardless of whether the professional chooses full-time (which in restructuring can often be full-time-plus), part-time or even leaving the profession for personal reasons, there is often doubt about those decisions. As a working mother with friends who chose to work part-time or to break from their careers, the common theme is that full-time professionals wonder if they are taking too much time from the other aspects of their lives, part-time professionals often feel that they’re doing neither work nor the other aspects of their lives justice, and professionals who chose to take a break or leave the profession often wonder if they truly gave it up for the “right reasons.”

While, particularly in restructuring, there is no solution to these conflicts, firms, including mine, seem to be getting much better at accommodating boundaries and even expressly offering part-time, flex-time and sabbatical opportunities that include good (or at least improving) communications about how these choices will impact the individual’s career and professional opportunities. At a minimum, while these choices have consequences, better understanding these consequences and matching the firm and professionals’ expectations of the opportunities and limitations that flow from making these choices helps everyone. With the right support network in place both at and outside of work, a semblance of balance can be achieved.

Sharon Levine is vice chair of Lowenstein Sandler LLP’s national bankruptcy, financial reorganization and creditors’ rights practice. Follow her on Twitter at @LevineSharon.