The Examiners on Work-Life Balance in Restructuring

As summer comes to a close and kids head back to school, we thought we’d ask our Examiners to look at an issue close to home: the challenge of juggling family and career.

Those who work to save troubled companies face crises that can arise at any time, long hours and frequent travel. Such demands can make it difficult for restructuring professionals to care for children or parents as well as to maintain relationships with friends and loved ones.

To be sure, it’s an issue that affects both men and women. However, the pressure to strive for work-life balance (an imperfect term, we know) seems greater for women, given the ongoing gender disparity in many law, consulting and other professional firms’ restructuring practices. The gender gap only widens the higher up the ranks one climbs. (Last year, for instance, Bankruptcy Beat counted only about a dozen female leaders of law firm restructuring practices at the nation’s 100 biggest law firms.)

There are many talented women leaders in restructuring, some of whom are on this panel, yet the gender gap remains an issue. We were curious as to why that it is as well as what restructuring firms are doing—or what our Examiners think they should be doing—to help close that gap and to help both men and women manage fulfilling careers and personal lives. Here is the question we posed to our expert panel:

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

We’ll be posting responses starting next week. In the meantime, please feel free to share your views in the comments section.

Follow Bankruptcy Beat on Twitter at @WSJBankruptcy.