Ed. note: This article is part of Parental Leave & The Legal Profession, a special series for Above the Law that explores the realities of parental leave and return-to-work in law firms. From planning leave to reintegration, from the role of managers to the mental load of Biglaw parents, these articles bring research, clinical insight, and practical strategies to help lawyers and the firms that employ them navigate one of the most critical transitions of their careers.
Biglaw has been aware for years that women leave the profession at higher rates than men. The data are well known. Attrition remains stubbornly gendered. Leadership remains disproportionately male.
Too often, however, the explanations offered for this pattern point back at women themselves. They focus on confidence, ambition, preferences, or “choices.” They ask why women pull back, opt out, or stop raising their hands — rather than asking what conditions shape those decisions in the first place.
What’s missing from the conversation is an honest look at context. In our last article we explored why firms cannot afford to ignore working parents. That article highlighted firmwide context. Another important part actually sits partially outside the firm’s walls — and yet it directly affects what happens inside them.
Work and home are not separate domains. They are overlapping systems. You cannot fully understand women’s career trajectories in law without looking at what is happening at home — and how the invisible labor of running a household collides with a billable-hour model that rewards the perception of constant availability and uninterrupted focus.
This matters because women, across professions, are still far more likely to be default caregivers in their households. Not because they lack ambition, but because they are more likely to carry responsibility for making life run smoothly for those in their homes: anticipating needs, coordinating schedules, managing logistics, and absorbing disruptions.
The problem is not the dishes. The problem is who is responsible for making sure the dishes get done — and what that responsibility quietly costs.
Mental Load, Cognitive Labor, and Emotional Labor — What We’re Talking About
“Mental load” is often used as shorthand, but it’s helpful to be more precise.
Cognitive labor is the work of anticipating, planning, tracking, and coordinating. It’s holding the running list of what needs to happen next — and noticing problems before they surface.
Mental load is the ongoing responsibility for that system. It’s being the person who ensures nothing falls apart.
Emotional labor is the work of regulating emotions — your own and others’ — smoothing relationships, managing conflict, and maintaining stability so systems keep functioning.
These forms of labor are invisible, constant, and rarely recognized. And across both home and work, they are still disproportionately carried by women.
At home, this looks like managing school communications, homework, childcare logistics, medical appointments, family schedules, social networks, and contingency plans. Even in dual-career households where tasks are divided, women are more likely to be the ones maintaining the system.
At work, it shows up differently but just as powerfully. Women lawyers disproportionately do the invisible labor of the firm: managing client anxiety, smoothing team conflict, mentoring junior colleagues, remembering context, tracking interpersonal dynamics, and regulating emotion in high-stress, highly matrixed environments.
None of this is captured by billable hours. All of it is essential.
What the Research on the Motherhood Penalty in Law Shows
Research examining the motherhood penalty in legal careers makes this imbalance visible.
Data highlighted through a Harvard Law School panel on parenting and legal careers showed that women lawyers are significantly more likely than men to be responsible for day-to-day caregiving tasks, including school communication and homework help — even when both partners work full time.
At the same time, mothers were far more likely than fathers to report being perceived as less committed or less competent after becoming parents. Roughly 60 percent of mothers reported this perception, compared with about 25 percent of fathers.
This gap matters because perception shapes opportunity.
When caregiving is assumed to limit availability — and invisible labor goes uncounted — women are more likely to be passed over for high-visibility assignments, not because they can’t do the work, but because others assume they shouldn’t be asked.
The Invisible Tax on Women Lawyers
This dynamic creates an invisible tax.
Women in Biglaw are often doing two kinds of unrecognized work at once: carrying more of the mental and emotional load at home, and doing more of the emotional and relational labor at work while being given fewer opportunities to excel.
This does not mean women are less capable. In fact, many of these skills — anticipation, emotional regulation, systems thinking — are part of what makes them strong lawyers and leaders.
The problem is that the system rewards visible output while quietly relying on invisible labor.
The billable-hour model does not account for the cost of holding everything together.
And it doesn’t address the fact that women doing this invisible work potentially gets in the way of doing higher profile work.
Over time, that tax shows up as exhaustion, reduced recovery time, fewer opportunities to say yes to “one more thing,” and a growing gap between effort and recognition.
A Leadership Pipeline Issue, Not an Individual One
This is how gender gaps in leadership are built — not through lack of ambition, but through unequal load. And the impact is not just on her, but on the firm as a whole. They lose out on leadership talent and potential client relationships.
Consider a composite example drawn from work with a dual-career couple in law.
Both partners are ambitious. Both want to advance. Both receive strong reviews.
At home, however, she carries more of the cognitive and mental load. She tracks school logistics, manages childcare coordination, anticipates disruptions, and absorbs the emotional fallout when plans fall apart. He helps — but she is the one holding the system.
When a high-stakes matter arises requiring extended availability, he takes it on. She declines, already operating at capacity.
The outcome is predictable but rarely named. He is praised for commitment and leadership. She is quietly categorized as less available.
Same ambition. Same talent. Different outcomes.
This is not a personal failing. It is a structural one.
Why Generous Leave Isn’t Enough
Many firms now offer generous parental leave. That matters — and it is a critical foundation.
What most firms do not offer is ongoing structural support for working parents once leave ends. There is often little guidance around return-to-work expectations, workload management, or how responsibilities should evolve over time.
Mental load does not end when leave does. Cognitive labor does not disappear when children get older. Emotional labor at work often increases as women become more senior.
Without changes to work design, expectations, and the value given to invisible labor, even well-intentioned policies leave parents — especially mothers — vulnerable to burnout.
What Actually Helps
This is a fixable problem — but not with platitudes.
If firms want to close gender gaps in leadership, they cannot treat household labor as a private issue. The division of labor at home directly shapes who has time, energy, and flexibility at work.
Helping men and women understand mental load — and redistribute it more equitably — is not a personal favor. It is a leadership intervention.
Effective firm investments include:
- Workshops and facilitated conversations (such as Fair Play-based approaches) that help employees and their partners make invisible labor visible and shared.
- Manager training to recognize invisible and emotional labor at work and ensure high-impact assignments are equitably distributed.
- Ongoing working-parent coaching — not just leave and return support — to address boundaries, expectations, and sustainability over time.
- Supportive benefits that outsource cognitive load at home, such as household logistics or virtual assistant services, reducing the background burden that disproportionately falls on women.
- Clear and evidence-based norms around urgency and availability, so commitment is not measured by constant responsiveness and face time, recognizing that flexibility around when and where work is done can allow working parents to be more efficient.
Seeing the Invisible Is the Work
We cannot talk honestly about women in leadership without talking about the division of labor at home.
And when firms — not just individual women — initiate that conversation, everything changes.
It shifts the burden from private negotiation to shared responsibility. It reframes caregiving not as a liability, but as a reality that must be designed for. And it keeps talent from leaking out of the pipeline under the weight of invisible work.
Mental load is not a women’s issue. It is a design issue. And in Biglaw, addressing it may be one of the most powerful levers firms have to retain women, strengthen leadership pipelines, and build careers that are demanding and sustainable.
Marny Requa, JD is an academic, coach, and consultant with global experience and gender equity expertise. Dr. Anne Welsh is a clinical psychologist, executive coach, and consultant with a specialization in supporting working parents in law. Both are certified RETAIN Parental Leave Coaches, engaging a research-backed methodology to support and retain employees as they grow their families.
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