My work travel goes in waves. Sometimes I travel quite a bit (once a month or so) and sometimes it is less frequent than that. Over the years though, I’ve taken a lot of trips and built up a good deal of ”travel” knowledge. So, here are my top 5 (plus one for good measure) travel tips (for when you are without child in tow):

2.  Spend some time on the flight doing non-work stuff. I know, you have A LOT of work to get done, but take at least a little time to read that book you’ve been meaning to get to, listen to your iPod or watch a movie. (Good excuse to get an iPad.) And drink a lot of water on the flight. I know people say that all the time, but I swear, it really does make a difference.

3.  If you can avoid it, don’t rent a car. It adds a lot more stress to the trip – getting to the rental place and then trying to navigate a new place on your own. Take public transportation if you can. It’s often easy, and it usually enables you to see the sights and get to act like a local.

4.  Arrive the night before your meeting or closing. Sometimes, this is just impossible (and I’m very guilty of not following this rule), but when you can do it, it makes everything much easier. You get a decent night’s sleep, you don’t have to get up at the crack of dawn and sometimes you even get to sample a little of the local food and culture.

5.  Try to keep as much of your regular bedtime and morning routine as possible. For me, the most important part of that is my morning run. It gives me a chance to clear my head and see the local sights.

6.  And finally (this is the one for good measure!), a controversial issue — don’t set your watch to the local time.  I see the benefit of “getting on local time”, but every time I do this, I inevitably miss getting to talk to my kids before they go to sleep (even though I know they are an hour or more ahead of me, that seems to slip my mind at the end of the day). And THAT makes for a bad trip for everyone.

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Some of you may (or may not) recall that my New Year’s resolution was to run in the Cherry Blossom 10-miler.

On April 11, I met my goal.  I was no Joan Benoit Samuelson (who, by the way, at age 52 ran this year’s race in 1:00:52), but for a 36-year-old lawyer who sits behind her desk far too much of the day, I felt pretty good about the fact that I ran sub 10-minute miles (a sub-10 — now that’s a phrase you don’t hear at the Olympics too often). Read the rest of this entry »

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I originally thought I would write this blog post about the overuse of the infamous “Reply All” feature.  We’ve all been party to one of those emails – someone says something rude about someone else on an original email chain and then accidentally hits “Reply All”. I don’t have to tell you my stories – I am certain you have enough of your own (but please do share in the comments!).

I will say that my favorite incident of this happened on my neighborhood listserve – you get a peek into who’s hanging out with who, who gets invited out for drinks, who is stopping at the grocery to pick up milk - it’s pretty much my way of confirming that everyone else’s life is equally as uneventful as my own.

But as it turns out, I think I’d rather talk about the underuse of “Reply All”.  Most of the time, I’m a “deal” lawyer, and a lot of the time, those deals involve lots of parties - meaning numerous people on conference calls and email chains.  The majority of people are thoughtful about using the “Reply All” feature – it’s not the default button to push, but when necessary, it’s used.

There are 2 keys to this-don’t use it as a default, and figure out when it is actually a useful tool.  Perhaps easier said than done. Read the rest of this entry »

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When President Obama nominated Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, I was overjoyed. A woman and a minority — ’bout time, I thought.

I truthfully didn’t think he’d nominate another woman — not sure why, but I didn’t. So when I heard that Elena Kagan was next up, well, you can imagine my reaction.

I know, I know. Lots of people don’t understand this thought process. Why do you necessarily want a woman over a man? Shouldn’t they be evaluated individually? I’ll take a page from Justice O’Connor on this one. In this New York Times op-ed piece, she is quoted as saying: “Our nearest neighbor, Canada, has four women on its nine-member court, and one is their chief justice. And they’re a great group. Now what’s the matter with us? You know, we can do better.”

So here’s my view on this Supreme Court nomination thing — strangely, this is not a job with a tiny applicant pool. President Obama didn’t post an ad on Craigslist and get 10 resumes. There are probably a couple hundred (at least) lawyers out there qualified to sit on the Supreme Court. The number may not be in the thousands, but there are still a lot of them. Women and men. White people and non-white people. Enough equally qualified candidates that he pretty much can choose what “type of person” he wants.

So, you may ask, why should he necessarily choose a woman over a man? Read the rest of this entry »

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First it was the dogs. Now it’s the babies.

No, I’m not talking about my home life (although it does sort of resemble that title). I’m talking about conference calls.

First it was the dogs.

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed an increase in the number of times I hear dogs barking on conference calls. This is presumably due to more people bringing their work to their dogs, rather than their dogs to work. It’s just one (more) piece of evidence of the incredible increase in telecommuting (or, as I like to call it, “work/life integration”).  As an aside, I have to admit that, being a dog-lover, I get very jealous when I hear this. What could be better than working all day with your feet resting on the back of your 4-legged-friend?

And now it’s the babies. Read the rest of this entry »

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I am a proud fan of the purple and black. Which means, of course, that I can’t stand the Pittsburgh Steelers or Big Ben.  So, as you might imagine, Wednesday’s six-game suspension of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was not unwelcome.

That said, I can’t say it makes me happy – there are too many little boys out there wearing #7 jerseys whose hero, at best, can’t get his act together, and at worst, well, we won’t go there.

In this layperson’s opinion (for whatever that’s worth), the suspension was warranted – and I’m not just saying that because the Ravens are slated to play the Steelers in Pittsburgh during the suspension. But it has left me with a lot to think about. Read the rest of this entry »

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