Emily Long

I attribute my success to a lot of things. Professionally, I was very fortunate to land at a firm with mentors that really helped reduce what we often call the motherhood penalty for me. I started as a receptionist at a law firm and quickly moved into a paralegal role from there, largely due to female management seeing potential in me that I'm not sure would have been seen the same way if not for them being very aware that someone in my shoes is not looking to stay a receptionist forever. I got very lucky and have had wonderful mentors throughout my career thus far. But on the personal side, I had a wonderful village that I inherited mainly from my husband's side of the family, as well as my mom. I don't come from a very big family at all, just me and my mom. So my husband's family was everything for me. To date, my favorite cup of coffee is still the one that my mother-in-law made in the Keurig when I would drop my toddler off in the morning before I get on the bus to go to work. That's still my favorite cup of coffee, because it was 5 o'clock in the morning and she was waking up with enough love in her heart to make sure that I had some caffeine for my trip. I've had a great village for my son and for myself, and that has helped me finish college, helped me get through another degree, helped me get through everything thus far, so I attribute that to them a lot.

I think women in law, in general, is an excellent avenue to take for people who are very conscious about justice and want to try to participate and mold the way the legal system functions and works. Getting female voices into that is important - we have made great strides, with women making up the majority of law school class populations now and increasing in law firm participation. But I would say that the girl boss mentality can be very detrimental if that's all you hold onto. I know a lot of women who've entered, especially the attorney track, feeling like they're constantly delaying wanting to have kids even when they want to have kids. The system in these firms and the culture around it was not built with women in mind. Taking advantage of any female mentorships, taking advantage of whatever kind of initiatives that you can make within these systems, even if it's just talking to people on a regular basis about how some of these things impact you - things like caregiving, being a mom, wanting to prioritize work and family balance - is really important. The legal industry used to be very heavily dominated by men who were chronic workaholics, and the thought of family-life balance was not really on their mind. So shifting that culture and being aware that you're entering something that you're kind of always going to need to push against the tides for is something to be aware of. Just being very mindful about trying to create a career that is better suited to align with how you want your personal life to go. I was raised to establish my career first and then start a family, which is something I did not do because I got pregnant in college and had my son before I even started a career. What I found is that trying to align both worlds as best as possible and keeping that in mind, and not trying to do one first and then the other necessarily, is important. That's very difficult to try to overlay the family side when you're already in such a high-stress career that you can't necessarily taper back on in your 30s, which is when a lot of women in the field want to start families. You end up at this crossroad that really impacts a lot of people. The system as it was originally built was not really built with us in mind, and keeping that in your pocket while you navigate it is really important, because that's how we change it.