A new-and-improved track for working parents

The alarm clock goes off early at Jan-Willem de Tombe’s and Marloes Diepenbach’s house. The lawyers arise by 6:15 a.m. so Jan-Willem can get their sons, Joris and Pieter, fed and ready for school while Marloes attends to their 8-month-old daughter, Philien.

Once the nanny arrives, Jan-Willem takes the boys, ages 3 and 5, to school and Marloes leaves for the office, arriving by 8:30 a.m. so she can get her work done to return home in time to put the boys to bed. Jan-Willem arrives at the office at 9:30 a.m. and returns home around 7:30 p.m. to eat dinner and spend a few hours returning emails and placing calls to clients in the US.

It’s a juggling act performed every day by working parents around the world, but one that is easier for Jan-Willem and Marloes for one reason: they work for Baker & McKenzie, named best Dutch law firm for working parents by Lof Magazine in 2009.

“In our profession, technology gives us the opportunity to do our work anywhere,” says Jan-Willem, who like Marloes, always has his laptop and Blackberry close by. “It’s not about always being in the office, it’s about helping clients.”

When Jan-Willem and Marloes met as junior associates in the Firm’s Amsterdam office 10 years ago, neither of them thought about things like flexible hours, work/life balance or working from home. But when their first child was born five years ago, those benefits suddenly became very important.

While Jan-Willem became a partner in the Firm’s tax practice, Marloes opted to become a legal director, a position a step above senior associate the office created for young parents who may not be able to manage the demands of being a partner yet.

As a legal director in the Labor Practice, Marloes has clients, but is more focused on mentoring associates than Jan-Willem, who manages his practice by focusing more on client development. Like many of her female colleagues in the Labor Practice, Marloes works four days a week for a prorated 80 percent salary, which also includes a bonus scheme.

“Most women quit when they have children,” she says. “But our firm is very keen on keeping the good lawyers even when they have children.”

The benefits offered to Amsterdam lawyers are not necessarily available throughout the Firm’s 70 offices around the world. In keeping with Baker & McKenzie’s commitment to cultural diversity, each office has the freedom to tailor benefits to the needs of its local lawyers.

For Marloes and Jan-Willem and the 200 other lawyers in the Amsterdam office, that means no one has to put their career on hold to attend to runny noses.