A successful career journey is not all about financial wealth but also about the realization of all your personal goals in life. If you want to build a sustainable career, you must do so without losing yourself in the process. Carrie Fogliani is joined by Kristi Tremble, who shares how she balances the high demands of being a mother and a lawyer. She explores how parenthood helped her redefine her own definition of success, the right way to address burnout, and the importance of setting boundaries in both your personal and professional lives. This discussion is for everyone who feels very successful in paper but is also quite exhausted in life.
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Ambition, Motherhood, And Type 1 Diabetes: The Breaking Point No One Talks About With Kristi Tremble
We are so lucky to be joined by Kristi Tremble. She is a Lawyer, a leader, and a mother who has definitely spent her career navigating that intersection of ambition and leadership and caregiving, quite honestly, in a profession that doesn’t always seem like it’s built for parents in mind. We’re going to talk through her personal journey through motherhood and the law, how her definition of success has evolved, and really what it takes to build a sustainable legal career without losing yourself in the process.
We’re also going to explore how parenting a child with Type 1 diabetes has shaped her perspective on flexibility and what truly matters. We’ll talk candidly about burnout, leadership, boundaries, and changes that maybe we think the profession could benefit from that will retain talented lawyer moms. I am really excited for our conversation, and quite honestly, if you’re a person that’s ever felt very successful on paper but exhausted in life, I feel like this episode might speak to you. Welcome so much, Kristi, and thank you for taking the time to be with us.
Thank you so much. I’m really excited to be here, Carrie.
Looking Back To Kristi’s Legal Career Journey
I want to start off in the very beginning and just have a better understanding of your legal career journey and how you came to be doing the work that you do now. I know you had some big shifts in the last period of time. We’d love to hear about it.
I started in big law, as many of us do, and loving it. I loved the hours and the grind always feeding to my competitive spirit. Actually, my husband and me met in college and so we journeyed through graduate school and then my legal career, him business, together. Actually, it’s funny because I was a junior associate and we weren’t necessarily ready to start a family, but we had had a lot of friends who really struggled to get pregnant, ironically in the legal industry.
I actually was a junior associate when I found out I was pregnant. I did eventually navigate away from big law and ended up at a smaller boutique firm and then did labor and employment consulting, I’m going to say, for several years while my kids were younger and then in 2024, I started my own firm with a partner, which is fantastic. We’re super excited, love it. Come full circle and I feel very much that I’m where I should be, but it has been a journey, for sure, of so many different chapters.
That’s quite the experience. I’m going back to even big law and understanding at that point, you had a child while you were in big law? What was that like and how did that pan out for you?
It’s funny because I was trying to remember details in knowing that I was going to talk to you. I was very fortunate, we got pregnant right away, and that was a shock because I was so happy with my job and both of us, we were young. We were working a lot, and we were enjoying life and then all of a sudden, here I am pregnant. I was quite sick, and so I actually put on quite a bit of weight right away. That was not me. I was a college athlete.
All of a sudden, my clothes were pretty tight. My mom had had a miscarriage, and so I had that in my head of like, “I want to wait.” I’m not here throwing the pom-poms up like, “Look at me.” I was also cautious of I’m in a big firm, there’s lots of women. I don’t want to say it’s frowned upon, but your billables and that thing.
I waited a very long time. I remember my mom asking me, “Kristi, how did people react when you told them you were pregnant?” I said, “I haven’t told anyone yet.” With no pause, she said, “They know because they can see it.” I was like, “No way.” It was pretty funny. Honestly, I think it was the next day, I went in and they were like, “We suspected.” I’m like, “Mother knows best.”
I was fortunate that I had a good pregnancy. We had our first of three, our eldest, and I took some time off, the firm was phenomenal. All of a sudden, it was time to come back and we found a fantastic in-home daycare for our son that was actually quite close to work. You work long hours. There were days I would just pop over for five minutes to say hi and as a mom, it helped.
It’s funny because I remember those first couple of days coming back to the firm and just feeling devastated. In the moment, I’ve told friends after the fact that’s when you should go back. You can train your kiddo to stay up late when you get home. It is now when you’re in the grind with teenagers and stuff that in the moment, you got to be there because the problems are just more significant. At the time, with an infant, you feel just like your heart has just been left somewhere else.
It’s hard. People have different approaches. I remember one someone said to me taking leave or taking more time at home when your kids are little, that’s actually for you, for your needs, to be around the baby, all this stuff but stepping away when they’re teenagers, that’s for them. That’s where the hard work comes in. Not everyone wants to be there for that, for the eye rolls and the attitudes, but there’s a philosophy around that. You have to do what’s right for you when you do it. I do think that that was interesting advice that I got that resonates with what you just shared.
I wholeheartedly agree with that. We can get into later on with teenagers and stuff, but we when my eldest one Colton, so when he was little then I went back and I remember one night being there late, 10:00, 10:30, and my husband came from work with Colton. I think I have a picture of them, I should find and send it to you, but of them asleep on my office floor.
My husband is fantastic, my much better half, and he’s like, “We’ll bring you dinner,” and they just curled up on the floor and fell asleep. I was at a very large firm, it was Jones Day fantastic, and but I was in a smaller office, so it really did there was a community sense to it where it felt like the partners I was working with were down the hall and they and I knew them. I knew their families, and so they were really supportive and they never batted an eye when I brought my family in, so it worked.
A lot of sleepovers.
For better or worse. His first sleepover. It’s funny because we were talking about trial and you’re young, you’re building your career. I wanted to go to trial. That’s what I wanted. I was bound and determined. I had a great mentor, amazing litigator, who was going to quite a few trials. I don’t even remember where we were, but he knew my husband very well. They were good friends and we were somewhere for dinner and I said, “Next time you go to trial, I’m going with you.”
He looked at my husband and the two of them are like, “No.” I’m like, “Yes, you cannot deny me this. I will never forgive either of you. You have to let me go.” A couple of weeks later, he sends me an email late at night. “Here’s the next trial.” We were living in San Diego, California at the time. It was in Florida. We’re going to start doing prep. The trial date was I don’t know in six months or something like that. I was so excited. I don’t even think I talked about it with my husband.
At 5:00 AM the next morning, I sent him an email and all I said was I’m in. I don’t even think I told my husband. I get to work I am bouncing. At 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, I feel sick to my stomach. I can’t pinpoint it. All of a sudden, I sat down in my chair and I’m like, “I’m pregnant.” It was literally like within 24 hours, all of this. My career dream, my personal dream, we’re doing at the same time. Sure enough, I am with our second and but I said to my husband, “I’m doing this. You can’t prevent me.” He said, “As long as your OB okays the travel and everything, we’ll do this.” That was a journey in and of itself.
Type A lawyers and moms want to please, even to a fault sometimes. Share on XYou went?
Yeah.
The whole family went together?
Yeah, it was crazy, chaotic, but I’m so grateful all the same.
I think that’s really an interesting example because a lot of times, either one of those people pulling back or not asking you or overriding that happens a lot. I think it’s pretty awesome but I also think you’re a very direct person and clear that that is something that you wanted and you were going to do. I think having that level of confidence and clarity is essential to making sure that your mom dreams and work dreams can live together essentially. That’s so great. You got to go to the trial with the baby?
I did. In retrospect, I should have told my mentor. He really cared so deeply about me but I hid it, and I hid it all the way through trial because you’re afraid of being handled with kid gloves.
That pregnancy you hid as well?
The second one for a little bit. I tried a little bit longer. It’s harder because you’re in a small space. I don’t want to say I hid my pregnancies, but I was just cautious. You’re in trial. You’re in war room and you’re up late and stuff. I know my body. I have a pretty good sense of self and I knew what I could do. If I didn’t feel right, I was going to go to bed or I was going to tell someone. I felt like I could do it. I was lucky enough to have healthy pregnancies and was in contact with my OB, so I didn’t want someone else telling me what I could or couldn’t do. Does that make sense?
Yes. It’s crystal clear to me. I think it’s exactly the modeling that we want to encourage. The kid glove comment is it’s a valid one. I also think because of who you are on the planet and authentically this is something that matter to you, even if you told everybody you were pregnant, you were still going to do it the way you wanted to.
It’s such a good message, though, because you can still do all the things even while you’re pregnant or about to have a child. It is feasible as long as who you are and you’re supported. I think that critical. Having that mentorship, was that person a father? How was he sensitive and aware and supportive of your growth as a mom? I think that relationship so essential.
I think a father and I think just a friend in the regard of wanting to see me succeed and felt that I could succeed. That meant a lot to me. I think type A lawyers, moms, we want to please, even to a fault sometimes. Sometimes, to a fault, I want to please my children, which isn’t always a good dynamic.
Balancing The Major Changes At Home And At Court
Did you continue to litigate throughout?
Yes and no. After we had my second, actually we moved with my husband’s job. That was a turning point for us. A quick side note, when my husband came down to Florida for the trial, my older son was maybe a year old. Under a year, the baby can sit on the lap and so my husband’s got him and we had a refundable ticket because you never know what’s going to happen in trial. They went to Timbuktu and back. I picked him up. He looked like he’d been through a war zone. My son ended up with pink eye. I think my husband in Florida was like, “I can’t do this.”
Everyone hits a limit.
I think and with 1, you can manhandle that, then with 2, God bless him but he’s not the stay-at-home dad. We reached a crossroads when I had our second Oliver of who steps back, do we step back, the questions that I think we all have faced. Do you hire a live-in nanny? Does that financially make sense for us because we both want to go on with our careers.
For Aaron and I, our personal decision was we wanted one of us to really be more intimately involved in raising the kids. That became me. I took the step back and I don’t have any regrets. Sometimes if I was overwhelmed, I would march into Aaron’s office and tell him I was going back to Jones Day the next day and he’d panic a little bit but for us, it worked. I would say when the boys were really young, I wasn’t working as much as I wanted to. You’ve worked hard for it and there’s a self-satisfaction that comes along with your profession.
Being at home, it’s a difficult job as well. It’s a thankless job and it’s never-ending. It’s 24/7 and I definitely think it’s really important in your perspective of having both experiences because even in both situations, there’s grief. You can’t deny that aspect of it. Especially when you’re getting attitude from people and you’re like, “I actually don’t need to be here right now but I am.” It’s a hard place to sit sometimes, I’m sure. How did you manage with your kids, though? Were they thrilled that you were home knowing the difference or were they so young that there was not awareness?
Yeah, no awareness. I think for them, they had times where they were in extended care at preschool or had I was in and out with different work projects and things like that but I was mom to them and I was able to take them to soccer practice, take them to the gym. That really satisfied me in the moment to your point of being physically exhausted and almost more emotionally drained. I have so much respect for stay-at-home moms because it is completely thankless. I think at times, though, I knew that it wasn’t my calling to be a full-time stay-at-home mom. I missed the thrill and I missed getting dressed up and talking to people about something other than teething toys.
It’s a perspective because a lot of us that are in it long for whatever we’re not doing. There’s just part of that. I would expect to be built more like you and there is an excitement of helping people in a different way than helping your children and tying shoes and making sure they have lunches. I love parts of those aspects of my life but I think since you sat in both chairs you have good empathy for everybody, quite honestly. How old were they in that space when you were home?
Preschool, 3, 5-ish.
When did you decide to shift back?
It’s interesting because I would say I was trying to ramp up and then COVID hit. As an employment attorney, all hell broke loose. Nobody knew what to do. We felt employment law was so regulated. Occasionally there’d be a little bit of a shift but you knew you had your rules and there was nothing crazy and then all of a sudden, you have companies shutting down overnight. Employees going haywire on you, employees sick.
While your career does not necessarily define you as a person, it provides you with so much confidence and happiness. Share on XHonestly, I joke that I went from part-part-time to more than full-time overnight. The advice I was giving on March 16th of 2020 changed on March 17th because new guidance had been shifted. My kids are home, my husband was home but I loved it. I’m like, “I’m back in it and this is what I want to be doing.” I had an opportunity to work with amazing clients and to really be more client-facing which I was ready for at that point in time.
Sometimes, if you’re working through another attorney, you can not necessarily pawn stuff off but you can punt things a little bit whereas a client calls and you got to stop in the moment. It’s different. I was very much ready for that. I think that really helped me ramp up. My colleague and partner who I started our firm with, we’ve worked together for ages and in 2024, about we just said to each other, “It’s time. This is it. Our kids are a little bit older and we can do this.” We started our firm and it’s had its bumps they all do. All of a sudden, it’s yours and what not but we are so happy.
It’s so wonderful. I think that shift also is a growth opportunity that you grow along with your kids. You’re starting a new business, essentially. You’re becoming an entrepreneur on top of being an attorney and a mom. It’s a lot to come to that. I also think what’s so important about it is going back to the modeling. I don’t if you’ve talked your kids about that but what are their perceptions of you? What are comments they’ve said to you that are like, “Either they’re getting this or they don’t get what this means for me to have a prominent career while I am a present parent?”
It’s funny because along the way, we had a third. She’s a bit of a pip-squeak. She gets it. She knows mom works. You’ll be able to understand this. I was so angry, I was on an important Zoom and she army crawled into my bedroom to get the ipad because that was all she could think about and that was what she needed. I saw the door open and I saw her little blonde curls army crawling through my room and I was like, “Don’t you dare.”
Parenting while you’re on Zoom to make it look like you’re not parenting.
My eldest is almost sixteen and so I have had those conversations with the boys of this is important and while your career, you don’t want it necessarily to define you as a person, but it provides so much. It can provide confidence and happiness. I also want them to see that the financial piece aside the intellectual that I’m contributing to the family. I bring interesting stories to the table and when they ask how my day was that that I can say, “I did this and that.” I think they appreciate that, if that makes sense.
I think it’s an interesting contrast to the outset of the conversation of in a law firm environment, we’re trying to like conceal our pregnancy and our motherhood. It’s so wonderful that you’ve come full circle that in your home that it’s important that you’re emphasizing your work life and what you do and the impact that you’re making. I think building those things together, that’s the tension.
How A Legal Career Impacts Motherhood
It speaks to the tension that we live in between not hiding our motherhood essentially because I definitely been guilty of a similar dynamic, especially in COVID when I was like, “Get out of the room.” That army crawl hide around to pretend like I don’t have children. I had so much work to do and we were doing important things but it’s like, “I still have kids. It’s okay. They’re going to come in. You can’t control it.” Thinking of it in those terms, and I love that you’re sharing with your children what you’re doing, do you feel like it’s impacted how you’ve mothered them that you have a prominent legal career? Do you see any of the crossover with how you parent?
Yeah, I do investigations and stuff so they will tell me, “I’m not opposing counsel, I’m not here to be investigated. You ask too many questions.”
You have to ask all the questions. That’s your job.
I want more than grunts. “How’s your day?” “Mm.” I think as far as impacting my parenting, I said this. I’m pretty open book. I want them to see that and to see that I don’t draw the best boundaries. I will admit that for sure, but that there is a fluidity to it and I can be mom and do this. I want them to be involved and be involved dads if they have the opportunity to have children and not feel like they have to put their career in a box and their family in a box. Does that make sense?
Totally. I think it does. I think the other thing I want to lean into is that when you set out on this motherhood journey and you’re trying to figure out how this is all going to come into play, we had a vision. We have a vision. When you and maybe you had a vision of having three kids or maybe they arrived. I think one of the things we chatted about is it doesn’t always go exactly as you anticipate. How to pivot or go with those shifts.
Having A Child With Different Healthcare Needs
I did want to just dive into having you share a little more about the fact that you’ve had a child who came into some different healthcare needs and what that has meant for you and your family and how you had to balance your career in order to be a caregiver in a more significant way. What was that like? I don’t think you’re alone in that experience. I think it’d be helpful for you to share that with others.
Yeah, absolutely. My eldest was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. It came out of the blue. They call it a sporadic case because he has the gene it. We can’t pinpoint it in our family. We feel that he was probably pretty sick for a while before we actually figured it out. He had some pretty drastic symptoms which led me to taking him to our family doctor. We were living in Canada at the time. I’m lucky enough that my dad is a doctor so I was able to connect with him and tell him the symptoms.
Again, we were scratching our heads because diabetes doesn’t run in on our side or my husband’s side. The symptoms just matched. I had gone the mental health route but when we got the blood work back, ,I”t was pretty instantaneous and our family doctor called and said I don’t know how to tell you this but you need to rush him to Children’s Hospital.”
It’s interesting because in my world of employment law, we were seeing a huge increase in mental health leave requests which makes sense. The stigma is leaving, which is fantastic. I had a panic attack in that moment. It’s the first time I’ve ever had that and I had just received the news. I was talking to my dad on the phone and I couldn’t breathe. I think from that moment, when someone tells me that they have had this anxiety leading to a panic attack, I get it. I don’t wish that on anyone.
We got Colton to Children’s Hospital and he would probably disagree with me because he’s the one living with it on a daily basis, but there were so many worse things that it could have been. There are medication and technology to help my kiddo live a very, hopefully, healthy long life. That said, when we were in Children’s Hospital, you’re there. They are trying to regulate your kiddo and they’re trying to train you because there’s shots every day and there’s finger poking and there’s nutrition and you meet with all these different people.
I had a client call. I’ve got a nurse and a dietician in the room and Colton, who by this point is just lost so much weight but they were regulating him. I said, “I’m so sorry, do you have a room I could use to take this Zoom call?” They looked at me and they were like, “Sure.” I still, to this day, can’t believe that I actually did that but I think it was like I didn’t know what else to do. I took the call and got it wrapped up and I think back to that moment of it was just a very weird boundary that I chose to draw in my head of I’m still going to keep up this client work but I’m going to take care of my kiddo. I’m here at the hospital and I’m present. It was interesting.
It’s that moment of, “What am I supposed to do?” I’ve definitely talked to other parents who have spent weeks and months in facility-level care. It’s not even an option to not do it. It’s one of those moments when it shines through like, “I need to be present in this space but I also need to be present in this space.” How we figure out how to feel good about both things? Those are the mental gymnastics that produce the exhaustion of a mom, quite honestly.
I don’t know. It’s hard to say if another parent would have the same, “I’m just going to step outside and take a call,” versus we go through this entire like, “Is this what I should be doing or not,” but at the end of the day, it’s like you made the right choice in the moment. That’s how I look back at those moments because we’ve been there and encouraging not second-guessing them.
I’m sure that your son felt your presence fully and your client appreciated your attention for 30 minutes. It’s tricky, though. Those these are exactly the tricky moments. I do think having a lawyer mom to help you navigate a healthcare situation is a pretty great thing. Especially with your dad too. It was probably a huge benefit to having that support as well.
Our family had been fortunate we were fairly healthy up to this point. We moved back into the US a couple of years ago and my kids will laugh at me because they’ll say, “No insurance company wants you to be calling them.” I get worked up when something is denied for him. They laugh because my line is, “Just like you and I need air to breathe, he needs insulin to survive. This is pretty simple.”
It’s the advocacy that comes with what we can do for our clients and that’s where it’s wonderful when we can do it for our family.
Advocacy is a huge piece of this. I think not only in our professions but for our kiddos too. Colton is a very easy example to rely on advocacy for an accommodation for testing or for breaks because he needs to take insulin or we’re navigating the cell phone during a test because that’s how we monitor his levels. He’s a pretty easy example of that but there’s so many of us that are dealing with maybe smaller examples of that where we’re having to advocate for a kid, a parent. We’re all at the age where we’re dealing with that a little bit for the parent. To be able to use the skills we’ve honed to do that, I’m all in.
It’s very fulfilling to be able to apply knowledge know-how, even negotiation tactics. Even teaching your kids how to also advocate for themselves is also incredibly offshoot of being an attorney mom in having that. Also knowing what the rules are and knowing that it’s okay to make sure they’re being followed and make sure you’re getting the healthcare that you need, it’s a huge advantage.
Preparing For The Emotional Toll Of Motherhood
I think it’s such a great crossover of how to deploy the legal skills into motherhood in a successful way. Obviously, that experience with your son had to be a bit startling and unexpected and you gained a lot of skills in navigating that experience. Are there any other big surprises of motherhood that you would want to let the next generation know about so they’re not as surprised when it happens to them?
Yeah, that that’s a pretty big one. Surprises in motherhood, I think your heart is just in your kiddos. Even when I drop them off to school, it’s like, “There goes my little heart.” It’s just you never get over worrying. You never get over just the day-to-day of wanting the absolute best for them. They might disagree.
I tell them, “I am your parent, your mother. I am not your friend, so you might disagree with my decision in the moment, but I am doing my best.” I think the emotional toll that that takes on you, my husband and I will constantly say, “We’re so tired.” We’re getting enough sleep generally, sometimes getting enough sleep but it’s the emotional toll of motherhood, nobody can prepare you for that.
It’s not like you can do mental gymnastics during your pregnancies to be ready because you just don’t know what that will bring. I think especially with people and women that are linear thinkers and organize their thoughts a certain way, that’s just not how this whole thing goes. There are so much unexpected interruptions or ideas. Especially in this day and age, it’s a really tricky thing to navigate it but I think our skills generally help us do that.
Finding The Most Balance In Your Life
Looking back, I think the advantage of your story, it’s like you were in big law, you were in another firm, you were doing consulting, then you were staying at home and then you created your own business. It’s probably exhausting to hear about all the things you’ve done. For anyone reading, she didn’t do them all in one year. Looking at that experience, which place did you feel like most suited you to have the most balance in your life?
It probably is the easiest to say but the place I’m at now. I also feel that your kids are in different stages. Now, I’m very professionally fulfilled. I feel as though I have a really good support system to allow me the freedom to pursue my legal career, but also, it’s my time, my schedule, my clients. If there’s something that one of my kids needs, I can be there.
Nobody can prepare you for the emotional toll of motherhood. Share on XI feel also probably some of that comes from with maturity, that I feel as though I have more confidence to say, “I’m really sorry. I need to take this call in the car. My son needs insulin at school.” I’m always amazed when I am honest, the response that I get. “Sounds great. Not a problem. Here’s my phone number. Give me a call.” Yet, there’s this trepidation to actually be honest about that, if that makes sense.
It does. What’s impressive is getting over that fear and overcoming that. Again, maybe it comes with wisdom, experience, and in my case, old age. It’s being candid about this is my life and this is the best I can do today. It’s not my favorite, but if I had to pick up a kid that’s sick in school, I’d pick the best half an hour and the next hour and a half when it’s the least intrusive or the person that I’m talking to would be the least offended. That’s mental gymnastics I have to do to decide when I’m going to pick up my sick kiddo from school. Those conversations with ourselves but also trusting the other people that are choose to work with us to know what they’re getting and being authentic with what they’re getting. I think that’s awesome just to say it, “This is what I’m doing.”
Biggest Lessons From The COVID-19 Pandemic
I think in some ways, COVID helped expose what’s so difficult about this because our clients were in our homes, essentially. They get a sense of the chaos that we’re facing. COVID for you sounds like it was probably a 10 out of 10 as far as family expectations and professional demands. What do you think you learned from that experience?
The most from that experience, I learned that personally, I needed more professionally to be personally satisfied. Also, I loved and craved that special time with my kids that wasn’t going to Disneyland. It was the fact that my kids were making a mess with flour in the kitchen trying to make croissants. I wanted both and I know that that’s the ultimate dream of so many of us and it’s that constant balance. It changes day to day, hour to hour, that tension that you’re feeling between those two really strong pulls
What’s really resonating that I love is gaining the authenticity to know what you want and to say it. “I want both. I want to try this. It’s going to be messy.” At the end of the day, I want the mess in the kitchen that I can hear and experience and be somewhat part of while I’m in the other room working it professionally. There is joy in that. I love a messy kitchen too, but it does show just part of being home and working has a lot of challenges, but there are those shining moments of I don’t feel like I’m so out of it because they’re here. During that time period, it was really helping working parents to feel less isolated.
My kids would tell you I do not like a messy kitchen. I’m always like, “Clean it up.”
I want to clean it up too, but I like the fact that if they’re making a mess in the kitchen, there’s usually good food coming out of it. That’s what I mean. For my kids, I don’t like a messy kitchen either.
I don’t want that. They would roll their eyes at that. I also think one of the things for COVID for me, and I, and I hate to gender stereotype, but the men that we were working with, COVID really allowed a big deep breath because all of a sudden, everyone was at home. Everyone had kids, a dog, animals, neighbors just squawking.
You couldn’t leave first thing in the morning with your coffee, sit in your office in your box and pretend like everything was perfect and then go home. It really shook things up I found that it allowed for more authenticity because so many people were faced with those distractions that you had to sympathize. You had to be willing to say, “We had three Zoom school calls this morning.”
I think most of us had to just expose the mess a little more. We had that vulnerability of I was in my kitchen with three of my kids. I just did that. I’m back and let’s go, but it’s overwhelming. It was an overwhelming time. I do think looking back and treasuring that time together, even despite the hardship, was certainly a silver lining of that experience, showing that you are in the hardest working industries at that point. I think healthcare and labor, they had to be like tied at some point of what we were all up to.
Stay True To Your Authentic Self
I feel like we can go on for, for a lot longer, but I just want to at least give you just the floor and share when you look back at a successful career that’s going to continue to succeed and grow in this new dynamic, which we’re so excited to hear more about. As you are emerging into having some teenagers and that experience, when you look back at the start of it, would you have any tips or tricks for folks just starting out in contemplating whether they have what it takes to be a mom and a lawyer or a professional at this point?
I was thinking about this. I think I would say I have two. The first one is to don’t lose yourself. It’s easy for us as moms to become last on the totem pole. I’m not saying to become selfish or whatever, but find something that’s you. Whether it’s a run or a book club or something, find something that is yours that your kids see you doing that gives you a huge sense of self, of purpose. The career’s easy to see. Your family’s easy to see. What is that that makes you, you? I can talk about the things I did and stuff, but I think that’s been really important to me because it also allows for friendships outside of work and outside of your kids, which creates a really great perspective.
Do not lose yourself. It is easy for mothers to become last on the totem pole. Share on XThe second thing I would say is that it’s a daily battle of that tension between superstar attorney and superstar mom. Neither of which I think necessarily exist. For me, sometimes people will say when you get married, take a snapshot. Every 10, 15, 30 minutes, look around and remember have that image in your mind.
I remember about ten years ago or so feeling completely at my wits’ end and just almost losing it over, I’m not a good mom, I’m not a good attorney, how do I balance? I’m never going to be able to balance this, my kids want this, I’m not spending enough time with them. I have tried. I’m not perfect at it, some weeks it doesn’t succeed. I try to give each of my three kids 30 minutes a week. They don’t know it. It’s not like, “Here’s your 30 minutes.”
In my head, it’s like, “This is my time with them.” Whether it’s I’m reading a book with my daughter, I’m playing tennis with one of my sons, I’m having lunch with my eldest. I look back and I think to myself that was cherished time with them and if I have to have them in my house with work and chaos, I’ve had that special time with them. That’s worked for me.
I love that advice. As long as it’s in your head and mind and it’s fulfilling you and showing you that still point with that child to really imprint and have them imprint on you so that you don’t get to the end of this crazy race and realize, “Do I even know this person?” We’re all running ragged. I think that’s a very common thing. I love that you’re being intentional about stopping.
I love the concept of doing something for you and having friends. That’s amazing. I’m going to take that one out. I don’t have that nailed yet, but I love the concept of finding something that’s just for me that I’ll have a friend that does the just-for-me thing. That’s pretty interesting. I do so value your perspective and your joy and you have such a light that shines from you that is just so encouraging. I want to just thank you for taking the time to be here.
I know that the readers are going to appreciate your vulnerability, but also that within this journey of going from pregnancy hiding to sharing who you are with your kids and being such a good example for them. You’re such a success from my perspective and I’m really happy that you took the time to join us here on the show. You’re a gem. Thank you so much, Kristi, for joining us.
Carrie, thank you so much. It’s been my pleasure.
Thank you. We’ll be chatting with you again soon, I’m sure. Thank you to everyone for reading and thanks again for reading.
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About Kristi Tremble
Kristi Tremble is a seasoned employment attorney with more than seventeen years of experience representing companies in employment, labor, and product disputes. Her practice focuses on advising California businesses through the full spectrum of employment law — from proactive counsel and policy development to complex workplace investigations and high-stakes litigation.
At Compass, Kristi partners with employers on reductions in force, employee terminations, agreements, policies and handbooks, audits, FMLA and CFRA compliance, and EEOC and FEHA charges. She conducts workplace investigations involving discrimination, harassment, wage and hour issues, disability accommodations, leaves, trade secrets, and terminations at both the state and federal level.
Kristi also has significant experience litigating California wage and hour class actions, FLSA collective actions, and discrimination claims under FEHA, CFRA, ADEA, FMLA, ADA, and Title VII. Her clients span industries including technology, consumer products, manufacturing, retail, hospitality, and healthcare — supporting companies at every stage of growth.
Known for her relationship-driven approach, Kristi is deeply committed to helping organizations build healthy, compliant, and respectful work environments. Kristi is a member of the California Bar. She earned her J.D. from the University of San Diego and her undergraduate degree in history from Princeton University. She is also an Association of Workplace Investigators certificate holder.
Outside the law, Kristi is a passionate parent, avid tennis player and skier, and a dedicated advocate for families living with Type 1 Diabetes.
