Infobit: Since 1985, law schools have been graduating classes of new lawyers that are 40% or more female. Yet in 1996, only 14.2% of law firm partners were women, and in 2005, only 17.2% were women. (Note: this figure is for all partners; the number of equity partners is lower.) Source: Catalyst. At this rate of increase, women should make up half of law firm partners by the year 2115.

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I believe that a key to making a part-time arrangement work is being flexible and willing to switch your day off on occasion to accommodate the schedule of the clients or other attorneys on a matter and to be willing to take calls from home.  Flexible childcare arrangements and backup are also a plus.

If you think your clients will not respect you as much if they know you are working part-time, just don't tell them.  Instruct your secretary to say only that you are not in your office if you are at home (it is true!) and offer to track you down.  Always let your secretary know where you are and how to reach you.  Don't apologize if you can't make a meeting that a client schedules on your day off or at the end of the day -- plenty of full-time attorneys can't make it to meetings because of other commitments (travel, depositions, meetings).

Colleagues and partners will feel much more at ease with your schedule if they know they can count on you.  Be extra careful to meet deadlines, particularly at first.  Leave notes reminding them how to get a hold of you when you are out of the office, and check email and voice mail from home.

Keep your secretary and paralegal up to speed on all your cases -- who the key players are, what is happening, what you anticipate.  They will have better judgment about when to call you at home on your day off.

Have full-time childcare even if you are working part-time.  You'll have the flexibility to go into the office if you need to.  If you don't need to, you'll have time to run errands without dragging the kids along or you can get brownie points with your childcare provider by giving him/her some paid time off.

When you negotiate your part-time schedule, be sure to include time for non-billable work if your firm will let you.  Attorneys do more than bill hours, and if you want to make partner, you have to do bar work and develop business.  If your part-time schedule doesn't allow time for such things, you are setting yourself up not to make partner.  Also, don't forget time for pro bono work, CLE, and serving on firm committees.

Be organized and leave lists of what needs to be done and where important papers are at your office in case an emergency comes up and someone needs to cover for you.  

Use technology as much as you can.  Fax machines are cheap, cell phones are a must, and Blackberries are terrific.  Being able to access your firm's computer from home and being able to do research on Lexis or Westlaw from your home computer is a big plus.  Technology will help you respond to crises without having to go into the firm.  Make good friends with your firm's technical support department, if it has one, so you can get help when everything crashes.

If you are choosing a firm to move to where you can work part-time, be sure to talk to people who are working part-time and ask what their hours are and what types of work they did before and after they went part-time.  Some firms have good PR for their part-time programs, but you won't know what they are really like unless you talk to people who use them.  Also, see how many men and how many partners are working part-time -- the more there are, the better the firm is for part-timers.

I use my drive home to review in my head the status of all my projects.  As soon as I get home, before I go in the house, I use my cell phone to call the office if I find that I've forgotten anything.  It helps to put work behind me because I know I haven't forgotten anything.