Dean Edward J. McCaffery will host a panel of USC Law graduates at the next “Conversations with the Dean” event, scheduled for Tuesday, March 20. The panel will discuss “Balancing Work and Life: Is it possible?”
The event will be held from noon to 1:30 p.m. at Town and Gown. RSVPs are required; click here to email the events office with your RSVP, or call (213) 740-3841.
“As a lawyer, educator, husband and father, I am personally very concerned about the challenges our graduates and others face in the effort to balance demanding, fulfilling careers with equally demanding and fulfilling family and home lives,” McCaffery said. “It’s an issue that matters to just about everyone I talk to — students, alumni, professors, lawyers. I think it’s far past time for law schools to begin a serious discussion about the challenges our graduates face and how we might make things better.”
The event’s panel includes Harvey Silberman ’92, a commissioner at the Superior Court; Katheryn McCarthy ’00, who works part-time at Sidley Austin; Amy Forbes ’84, a partner at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher; Pegine Grayson ’87, former executive director of Western Center on Law and Poverty, and her husband Kerry Bensinger ’87, in private practice; USC Law Clinical Professor Carrie Hempel; John Peterson ’95, a partner in his own firm; and Priya Sridharan, director of career services at USC Law. Many other USC Law graduates are expected to attend.
Dean McCaffery says the event is just the beginning of a long-term effort to explore work/life balance issues.
“This truly is intended to be a conversation among friends, a starting point for what I hope will be a larger effort to address the issues related to work/life balance,” McCaffery said. “From this event, we hope to generate working groups of alumni and students who are interested in studying particular aspects of the issues raised in this conversation. And with those working groups, we hope to develop plans for a major symposium on these issues in Spring 2008.
“Our goal,” McCaffery added, “is to raise awareness of the problems our graduates and students face in balancing work and life and the ways in which these struggles are compounded by, and impact, the legal profession, and to develop meaningful strategies for helping people cope with these challenges and for changing the system.”
The Women’s Law Association, which is co-sponsoring the event, is also developing a project to examine and publicize family-friendly practices at California law firms.
For more information or to participate in a working group or the work/life balance planning committee, contact Melinda Vaughn, executive director of public relations, at [email protected].
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