Matthew Korn left and returned to his law firm in Columbia, S.C., for the same reason: He wanted more time with his children.
Korn, who was born in upstate New York, went to college in Rhode Island and law school in Washington, D.C., was happy with where his move south had landed him, his wife and now their four children – three boys, one girl.
What he wasn’t happy with was how being a lawyer made it tough be a father and a husband; at times the two seemed to be contradictory, even lonely aims. With a specialty in work-place and employment law, Matthew spent several years at a gold mine – literally – as part of their in-house legal team. He loved that he left at a set time every day and could be home to spend time with his wife and kids.
But when the mine was nearly finished, its owners realized their legal needs could be outsourced. He was laid off as his second son was born.
He had left his firm Fisher Phillips because he had been traveling and working so much – including every Saturday – that he felt disconnected as a father. He returned because he was open and honest with the senior lawyers at the firm: he loved the type of law they did, but he could not go back to the travel and weekend work.
“I said I can’t do what I was doing before,” he recalled. “I was burned out. A lot of that was me. I said I want this to be sustainable.”
The firm agreed, and he went back.
There was one big change. Instead of doing health and safety law, which required a lot of unplanned travel, he switched to focus on wage and hour defense and reduction in workforce law, something he knew first hand. It gave him the ability to work at a high level and be involved as a father.
Yet Matthew, who is now a senior member of his firm, knows that a lot of lawyer dads don’t know where to go for advice on being both. So this year, he started Dad, Esq., a community focused on bringing those dads together.
“I had a bunch of guys coming to me and saying how do you manage four kids and being an employment lawyer,” he said. “My answer had always been, I just sleep less than everyone else. But I turned 40 in December. It caused me to think more about that answer. I wanted to find resources for lawyer dads, and I couldn’t find anything.”
Not unlike the founding story of The Company of Dads, Dad, Esq., rose out of a need for community that didn’t exist yet.
Dad, Esq., is up to about 400 people, in 42 states and 11 different countries.
“My tagline is you don’t have to do law or fatherhood alone,” he said. “Both can be isolating if you don’t have a strong group of guys. Having this support network is super important. It’s the feeling of community.”
When his wife had to suddenly be away when her father’s health failed, he found himself trying to manage a sick kid and three others who needed to be in school when he had to do a deposition that couldn’t be moved. He was able to do the deposition on Zoom, was honest with everyone involved and was lucky enough to be able to call his mother in law in for help with the sick child. He shared the experience with female lawyers who were mothers at the firm, and together they worked to add Bright Horizons emergency back-up care as a benefit.
“There are times as a lawyer mom or a lawyer dad when things happen,” he said. “Most people have two full-time working parents and these things come up a lot.”
Thanks for working to make a difference, Matthew, and welcome to The Company of Dads.
Check out the Dad, Esq. community here – https://DadEsq.mn.co.
