ABA Journal Op-Ed:  Night-Shift Lawyering: Lessons From Juggling Kids, Class and City Attorney Externship, by Dzina Nelson (3L, Southwestern):

It’s well past midnight. My desk is a toppling tower of case files and civil procedure treatises; from the next room, I hear the soft, hiccupping snores of my two daughters, ages 2 and 6. In seven hours, I’ll be standing in the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, ready to defend the city against a negligence claim. In nine, I’ll race to campus for evidence. And in 12, I’ll be back in the carpool lane, fielding a debate over whether one bedtime story really means three.

That night-shift snapshot captures what the past semester has been: a running experiment in balancing three identities—mother, law student and public service extern—without dropping the kids, the grades or the briefs.

Lawyering From The Crib: Turn Parenting Skills Into Practice Skills
My first revelation was that every “mom skill” has a billable-hour counterpart. The toddler-tested arts of triaging, priority-shuffling and crisis-containment translated cleanly into docket management. I blocked my life into color-coded chunks: research from 5 a.m. to 7 a.m., campus from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., family from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.; and I defended those borders like a temporary restraining order. The discipline paid off: Assignments that once swallowed whole weekends now took a disciplined Tuesday-morning sprint.

A Closing Brief
When I began this externship, I feared that the inevitable spills (literal and metaphorical) would mark me as less committed. Instead, the spills became talking points, and the solutions became skills I’ll market to future employers.

So here’s my midnight verdict: the profession doesn’t need superhumans who never miss a recital or a reply brief. It needs realistic humans who can triage, adapt and ask for what they need to deliver excellent work. If we design pathways for them, we design a stronger bar.

As I type the final sentence, the toddler snores turn to morning giggles. A new shift begins, but the lesson holds: Balance isn’t a destination; it’s a series of calibrated, candid asks—each one an act of advocacy, each one a step toward a profession that looks like the clients it serves.

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