Working mom guilt is something so many lawyer-mothers carry silently, and in part two of this heartfelt conversation, Suzanne Leslie, founder of the Leslie Law Firm, shares the moment her son’s words freed her from years of self-blame. She reflects on how guilt shaped her parenting, what it took to finally let it go, and why giving children space to fail is essential to their growth. Suzanne also discusses the lessons she’s brought into her firm—from mentoring younger women attorneys to creating a culture where parents don’t have to apologize for family responsibilities. Her story offers both comfort and clarity for lawyer-moms learning to lead with balance, resilience, and grace.
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How Lawyer-Moms Can Release Working Mom Guilt With Suzanne Leslie Part 2
Unpacking The Weight: A Lawyer-Mom’s Guilt Journey
Thank you so much for joining the Mothers in Law podcast. We are so privileged to have Suzanne Leslie back with us to share an incredibly impactful story that truly changed the way that I feel about the guilt I’ve experienced as a mom and a lawyer. Enjoy.
I do want to go back to the guilt because I think in our earlier conversation, you absolutely blew me away in sharing because we all come to this, even when our kids are proud of us. Feeling regretful, sometimes even resentful of not being able to be there, and all the things. I just wanted to know if you could share just about your experience with guilt and how you worked through it.
My son, from an early age, had problems listening to other people doing what other people especially teachers, in school. He ended up in special education. They said he had anger management, not ADHD or anything like that, but I was constantly called to school a lot. He just wasn’t a school kid, even though he’s bright as heck. He just hated school. When he got a little bit older, it was the same thing.
I couldn’t get him through high school, and then you’re going to be eighteen and you want to be the tough mom, which I never was, but be the tough mom, do the tough love, make him leave the house, whatever it happened to be. Just over a number of years at a certain level when he was younger, I had to be there, but I was always there when he was in trouble. That was like, “This is not the type of time that I want to spend with my son.”
After he’s gotten in trouble, decide what the consequences are going to be. Our conversations, it seemed like all through elementary and even middle school, and high school, were, “Why did you have to do that? Now you’ve got to learn from.” It was just never a good feel or conversation for the longest time. He did go to school for a little while, and again just suffered from depression and got into some issues with alcohol, and finally, they say you’re going to hit rock bottom. He did, and he went to rehab, and this was during the co or just after. You couldn’t go and have one-on-one time, or they would do family time.
You couldn’t see them.
You couldn’t see. Everything was on Zoom. They were talking about parenting and kids who are addicts, whether it’s drugs or alcohol. A lot of times, the parents feel so guilty over it. There was just one session where they asked if anybody wanted to speak, and there’s nothing worse than silence in a room. I’ll always speak up, and I just said, “I feel really guilty that I wasn’t there enough for my son, and I feel like all the issues that he’s had are my responsibility, and it’s my fault because I wasn’t there all the time because I was a working mom.”
That is something that I’ve carried with me for years. It was a struggle to say because it was a feeling I had had for so long that I never verbalized. It was really emotional. My son was sitting. I could barely see because 10 or 15 people in a room, and he was in the very back. He got up and he walked right to that camera and he looked in that camera and he said, “Don’t you ever feel guilty. You gave me the most wonderful childhood. I was a difficult child. You are not the reason why I’m here. You were at every school play, every event that you needed to be at.”
“You picked me up. You took me to practice every day. You never missed any of my games. You didn’t have to be the room mom. You didn’t have to be there 24/7. You are not the reason why I’m going through what I’m going through. You’re the best mom I could ever ask for.” He and I had never had this conversation, and I had never verbalized it, like I said before. That was a turning point, probably been four years or so ago now that I finally got a chance to number one, say my guilt, and then hear back from my son that it was misplaced. I’ve released it from me, and so I’ve gone now since then and don’t feel guilty about not being there 24/7 for them.
How does that change like the core when you share that with me? It changed something within me, quite honestly, because I walk around, and every child comes with the challenges that we somehow believe are our own and that we created for them. I’m so grateful that you shared that because I know it will help so many people who sit in that same spot, and I would love just to know, in that moment, what that felt like for you.
It was a big emotional complete release, and it was just the fact that he said what he said because he’s a man of very few words and he doesn’t express his feelings, which is part of why he’s had a lot that has gone on in his life since an early age. It was great. It just goes to show you, we want to take on all of our kids’ burdens and pains and take them upon ourselves, and we do, and we try. It’s not always us. It’s them.
When you do, of course, again, I’ve gone through many years of being a parent now, but you learn you’re not responsible for everything they do and say, and you have to do the hard things sometimes and let them fail. You’ve got to let your kids fail. That is a a that’s how I was raised, and that’s not how everybody else is being raised.
As parents, you're not responsible for everything your kids do and say. You have to do the hard thing sometimes and let them fail. Share on XThere’s a struggle. I shouldn’t joke about it, but my husband and I joke about it all the time. We grew up mostly in the ‘70s, I’d say, as kids in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s, and whatnot. Everybody didn’t get a trophy. That’s our saying, and there’s nothing wrong with that. If you want to give participation trophies, fine. You’re not always going to be the winner, and you’re not always going to be the best, but you can strive to be the best or try to be the winner.
I grew up in a very athletic family. I played sports my whole life. I was never the best, but that didn’t mean I didn’t try to be the best. I had the attitude of “I want to be the best, and I don’t want anything to be given to me.” I tried to raise my kids that way. It’s just a little softer, I guess. That’s okay. We didn’t have computers and iPads and screen times, and all of that that we had to worry about either.
I think learning how to be a good loser is also a skill set. That is a struggle that even as I am parenting kids, still striving in their athleticism, but it’s okay not to be but as long as I look at your work ethic. I think that is the quality, though, that we obviously value as lawyers, and we know when we’re hiring someone or supporting someone, it really is that it is like a critical aspect of what we’re looking for, because the other stuff, if you’re used to winning, it’s wonderful if your work ethic helped you to do it. It’s so true.
I think that, and just being somebody who puts other people’s feelings first.
I totally agree with that.
It’s hard to take time to develop relationships, whether it’s with your siblings or your parents or your friends or those types of things. It’s like everything moves so fast these days that I don’t feel like the younger generation has time to build relationships in front of each other.
You won't always win, you won't always be the best. But you can strive to be the best or try to win. Share on XYou being here in person, like, means so much because we could totally do this via Zoom, and if we had to, but there is something to be said for what we’re losing and not encouraging. Those connections and those relationships because especially what you do in your line of work as a lawyer, your relationship-building skills. It has to be the number one maybe knowledge, even maybe fall underneath that. You don’t need to know everything all the time, but you need to know how to relate to people in a challenging situation.
Perfectly said because relationship building is number one in anything, whether it’s from business development to relationships with your clients to relationships with my employees, to relationships with the people that I network with. It’s the number one thing for what I do from a professional standpoint as well as a personal standpoint, too.
Nurturing Future Leaders: Mentoring Lawyer-Moms In A New Era
Totally makes great sense. Your firm is comprised of a lot of other parents who are doing it at a different time period on some level. I know you’re a mentor to many of them, like how do you help them or advise them in this time of raising kids? It’s a little bit different than when you were doing it.
It’s very different. I think that if my child were sick or if I were going to be late because of an issue with the child, I would have been almost reprimanded for it back in the day. Now I’m just like, “These things are going to happen, so you just deal with it.” If your kids are sick, be home with them, or if you don’t have somebody to watch them. There’s no guilt associated with being a parent. I was held to feel guilty at work for being a parent, and that is just not going to happen.
I really strive, of course, because maybe I didn’t have the work-life balance when I was first starting out as a parent, but I really try to get that through to the people that you work with me or the young attorneys, female attorneys especially, that I enjoy mentoring, is find that work-life balance and be forgiving of yourself. If you do have to take time to take care of these things, take it. Nothing’s worse than you sitting here at work feeling guilty or bad or however you’re feeling. Nobody’s winning here. Go take care of it. Our little saying is “We don’t work in an emergency room. Nobody’s going to die if you have to leave and you have to go take care of something.”
Relationship building is number one in anything, professionally and personally. Share on XThat’s such a release for a young attorney because like I think, all of us were ingrained that we have to do this perfectly. Sometimes better than our male colleagues just because we have to show up in a different way. Just to give women permission to be a parent and an attorney is something that, in my own experience, I’ve been so grateful to the mentors and the bosses I’ve had who encouraged that. I can only imagine that you have a bunch of people around you who like hopefully they don’t know the difference. It’s hard. We’ve had people leave our firm and go, “It’s not the same everywhere.”
Grass is not greener on the other side right now.
It’s a tricky balance of how to encourage that and but I do feel we have the most productive staff because everyone on our team knows that we cover for each other, and we also can support each other when you do have a sick kid or someone ends up in the ER or whatever it is. There’s only one guarantee. There was a period when every flu was going around, and I said we should put up a sign that how many days since no kids have been homesick. It was like zero for like three weeks. It’s hard because the moms for sure, at least the ones that work with us, are in the primary position of needing to manage that. Even my kids will say, when we get sick, we just have to listen to you, have calls all day. I’m like, “That’s what we do.”
That is one nice thing is you can do some work from home, whereas I didn’t have that opportunity. I don’t want to sound like a dinosaur.
No, but that’s only a reason it can come on.
The worst is the computer, even laptops and computers, and all that sounds terrible, but we didn’t need them back in the day.
Even before COVID, I had to walk away from like my dream job because they weren’t comfortable with me working remotely two days a week. Now the whole thing is remote. We’re learning in the process.
I think too it’s not purposely this year. I have a gentleman who’s worked for me. We’ve worked together for 32 years, and he got divorced when his son was younger. Whenever his son was sick or his son needed something and he always knew. He said, “I’ve learned from you that it’s okay for me to say I cannot come in today because my son’s sick or I cannot come in or I have to leave early or whatever.” He goes, “You’ve always made me feel so comfortable, and it was okay even though I was the man. I didn’t have my wife, whom I could call, or the mother of my child, all the time to call.” He goes, “I learned that from you that it’s okay.”
The terminology everyone’s focused on is psychological safety, which obviously you created before it was a coined term, but it’s like being able to just be authentic and in your needs, especially as a parent who’s working so hard to do all the things professionally. When you have that responsibility as a parent to not have a boss or someone that you report to, it makes it worse and actually makes it better. That is what we should all be striving for.
It’s interesting because the original owner of the firm, as difficult as he could be for me. He was my mentor, and I learned a lot of maybe this isn’t how I would do something. Learning the flip side of things is a good thing, too. I learned a lot of my ethics from him and my morals, and how to do things within our practice and do them the right way. I also learned that if I ever have my own practice or anybody is ever working for me, they will never have children. They don’t know. He came from a very broken family. It was just like, “I’m going to take all these things I learned from you, but I’m going to incorporate all these other things and try to give the best of both of those worlds.” We want to be good parents.
Strategies For Work-Life Harmony As A Professional Parent
It’s a huge priority, and it’s a short period of time when you have an impact on these humans. I know we were talking about the blinking thing, but it is like how to maximize your impact and to build that relationship, knowing that we have these huge jobs and we want to do great at everything. Are there any tips or tricks that you can help us with?
Give yourself some grace.
Give yourself some grace; it won't always be perfect. Share on XI love that.
It’s not always going to be perfect.
That’s true.
I never sent my kids to school with dirty clothes, but if I did, it would have been okay. I think it’s just making sure that your kids are being heard, that you’re giving them the quality time that they need to have. You don’t have to hover over them. I’m sure I’m sitting on their shoulder, but they can hear me, but I have to be looking over their shoulder at all times. Let them develop into their own people. When I’m at work, being very present and efficient is number one for sure. Take seriously what you’re doing on both ends.
That is just more on the legal professional side, but I think logistical expertise is part of like I’m expecting as a planner, especially how you manage your priorities at work and knowing what those were and then figuring out the priorities at home, even just on a day-to-day basis. If you can remember what that was like and how you did it.
Looking back, I don’t think I did a very good job sometimes of that. I probably prioritized work over my family at times when I was trying to climb that ladder. I tried to be cognizant of that. There are times I’ll look back and go, “Maybe I could have taken that day off or done something even though it seemed like a minor event that was going on with the kids.”
It’s interesting because I think in my earlier years, I probably didn’t prioritize. They start to grow up quickly, and then all of a sudden they’re five and then they’re eight and you’re like, “This is something’s got to change here.” Having conversations with my husband about that were really important because I would say to him, “Am I doing enough?” I’m taking care of him, too. It’s like a third child sometimes.
I hear you.
I think that he and I have a really good relationship where I could be honest with how I was feeling, and share my guilt with him sometimes. I don’t know that I did a great job at the beginning, and like I said, they just started to grow up so quickly that I had to just all of a sudden say, “Stop.”
Time does stop.
“Just stop.” It’s okay to not be everything all the time to everyone.
That’s a big stop.
Just recognize when I need to shift a little bit more to the family and when it was okay to shift a little bit more to work, like if there was a big project or a big case. I litigated for the first twelve years, and that was tough. When my daughter was 3 months old, I was in my first trial. That was tough. I think where that shift of that priority changed is when I got out, for me, out of litigation. The owner of the firm was going to start to walk away from the firm, and he said, “I’d like you to come over and learn business development, learn how to meet with the clients, sign up the clients, and do the negotiations.”
In my mind, now that I’m talking about it, that was my shift of being a litigator, which is a lot of work. You’re working all the time, so when I could leave, when I left work, I left work. When I was a litigator, I never left work. It was always on my mind. I think that when he left, and I shifted my duties and responsibilities at my office, my priority shifted back to the family. Not just happened to correspond with the kids getting to be like 4 to 9, like right in that age.
The Challenges Of Litigation For Lawyer-Moms
It was a good time. I have talked to a few litigators, and it just seems like such a difficult aspect of the law to be in with young children.
I agree. My niece is five years in. She’s a DA, and she’s so stressed all the time because she’s in trial all the time. She doesn’t have any kids and she said, “I’m going to give it another x number of years before I even think about having children because this is what I’ve always wanted to do and I’m going to do it, but I’m also seeing now I’m not going to be able to do it for the rest of my life.
“The rest of my career”
She and I have had conversations about the stress of raising a family and being an attorney, and I could not have continued in litigation for myself. When the kids got to where they were a lot of after-school things and a lot of sports and a lot of this, and a lot of traveling for sports and that type of stuff. For me, it’s funny, I never thought about it till you asked that question. I think that happened to be the shift for me was getting out of litigation and doing more of the business and transaction.
It’s just hard cuz people are born to do it.
Their passion escalates.
You see these women, and they are just like incredibly skilled, and they shine. You can see the light emitted from them when they’re litigating, and then they have a child and recognize, “This is really going to be difficult.” To transition, it’s one of the first losses as a mom away from that dream, hopefully another dream for a while, maybe not forever, but even with like someone like your niece, like even how you describe her, like I can tell she loves what she’s doing.
Being prepared to know and to start even thinking before you have a child, what other avenues of the law might be more conducive. I didn’t even really think through that before I had children. I knew there was a daycare, one of the places I worked at, that you needed to apply for when you get pregnant, because it was already booked up. I’m like, “That’s strange.” She’s like, “No, they’re open from 6:00 until 9:00 or something.” I’m like, “Those are a lot of hours.” It didn’t occur to me because they didn’t have kids.
That’s a great thing.
They could have gone and had lunch with your kid and then gone back to work. It was brilliant. That was the first time I thought of how people were trying to merge, but I think litigation’s a much harder thing to merge.
Back then, too, it’s like nowadays, I sound so old, but there weren’t the emails and stuff. When you went home, unless you physically brought work with you, there wasn’t any work to do. That was an advantage of being a mom back then versus now. If I’m sitting relaxing on the couch at night, I flip my iPad open. I check my emails all weekend long. I’m checking my emails. That would have been a lot harder for me if I had all that accessible to me when I was raising my kids. I didn’t. When I left work, I left work. It was that forced thing. I think for attorney moms now, it’s it’s harder because it’s harder to turn it off.
It follows you around. Even though it’s a discipline to cut it off, because like I remember, even just in the car, my business partner called, and it was 3:00, he’s not picking kids up. That’s exactly when I pick my kids up, and I answered with a car full because I just felt like I needed to. If you’re trying to keep up afterwards, he called and said, “Call me when you get home.” I’m like, “Okay.” He called me and said, “Just so you know, when you have a car full of kids, you don’t have to answer.”
It shocked me because I was like, “I am not supposed to be on all the time.” “You can take a break. Put the phone in the back.” We have these things that force us into being 24/7. I think it is a different discipline that we have to exercise of like even when I take my kids to the park, I leave the phone in the car. I am not saving anybody either. For fifteen minutes, for me to swing and do all the things at the park, everyone’s going to survive. It’s a discipline not to be needed all the time.
Yes, because we’re used to.
Finding Fulfillment As A Lawyer, Mom, And Business Owner
Sometimes kids can also be a little bit frustrating. Sometimes work can be a distraction.
A healthy distraction from the kids.
A healthy distraction from difficult kids’ situations. We have to really be disciplined and set those down, but it’s hard.
Good point.
I want to just end with a couple of quick questions. I feel like I don’t even know how long we’ve been going. It’s been so good to just flow naturally. I wanted to ask just what of all of the things that you’ve done has really brought you the most fulfillment as a mom, as a lawyer, as a business owner? What would you fills you up with pride of in the legacy and what you’ve created?
I think by starting in a more male-dominated field, as a young female, and just being able to stick with it and work your way up the ladder and get the respect from the males above you, so to speak. That brought me a lot of pride, and people look back and they say, “I always knew you were going to be successful.” That means a lot of different things, but if you work hard enough and put 110% into everything, you’re going to have success. Whatever that success looks like to one person might be different to another person. The one thing I love about this is that my kids have been on this journey with me, even though when they were little, they didn’t realize it.
If you work hard enough and put 110% into everything, you're going to have success. Share on XThey were on it.
Just at various ages, they’re 32 and 28 now. They really have this respect for me as a businesswoman as well as a mom. That’s really fulfilling because I have no ego. I could settle a million-dollar case and go home, and my husband and my kids wouldn’t have any idea. That was another thing. I didn’t talk about it, but I divided it. When I left work, I left work.
That’s good. That’s an important quote. We should emphasize that.
I always tried not to bring work home and talk about work. That’s a really neat thing that my kids like to think, “That’s pretty cool.”
“That’s badass.” I’ll say because you don’t have an ego, but yes.
I know. They love the fact that their mom has been successful, and that has provided them with this desire to be successful in whatever it is that they want to do. My daughter is not a mom yet. She wants nothing more than that, but she’s very successful in what she does in her career. She always says, “I just want to be like you, where I can do it all.” That’s something that’s very likely, “I’ll help her for sure.”
Just mention all the years that all the people, especially the younger gals that have come through our office, whether they were a receptionist, a paralegal, an attorney, how much impact I’ve had on them in their careers and their motherhood, and I stay in touch with a lot of them. It might have been 25 years ago. We worked together, and I still reach out, and we still have a relationship. I think that if I look back, it’s just the impact that I’ve been able to have on my kids and my people that have worked with me and for me over the years. That’s a nice legacy, I guess, if I want to say when I’m older and I look back what what did I leave? I would say that’s the impact.
The Mother-In-Law Connection: Wisdom For Navigating Family Dynamics
That’s incredible. It’s all we could hope for, to be honest, and it doesn’t come easy. I know you’ve worked so hard and overcome so many little moments and big moments of disappointment and recovery, and even given yourself grace to keep going. I just applaud you.
Thank you.
I’m so happy to hear more about you and your story and in person.
Anytime.
I did want to close. This show is called Mother in Law. Obviously, we are mothers-in-law, but one of the relationships that I like to just share tips and tricks with, if you’re willing to just share with our listeners what your relationship with your mother-in-law was like, and anything you learned from that that could help others who are trying to be a good daughter-in-law.
My mother-in-law was a very kind woman. Interestingly enough, she also worked. She and I shared at times the difficulty, of course, her children were older, and she had gone through the workforce already, but we had that connection of being that working mom. We shared a lot of that. She used to help me sometimes when I would have that guilt.
We would have that conversation about what that was like. When my mom passed away, the one thing I always respected about my mother-in-law was that she was never a meddler at all in my marriage, in raising our kids, or anything. She let us do our thing, as my mom did, too. When my mom passed away, I will never forget her just saying, “I love you. You are my daughter. I will never try to try to take the place of your mom because I know how close you guys were, but I will always be here for you.”
That meant a lot to me because I was really close with my mom. When I lost my mom, it was like I lost a piece of me, but I knew at the same time that my mother-in-law would step into that role in any way that I might need her to or ask her to. That was a really kind, sweet thing for her to do. She’s been gone now for a while, too. I do look back and those are my memories with her. Those conversations about the work.
That’s amazing.
Work-life balance, mom balance, and just what it’s like to be a mom.
That’s so awesome. Thank you for sharing that and for all of your insights, and literally, I cannot wait to listen in and absorb more of all your good thoughts.
Hopefully, somebody will get something from it.
I know they will. Thank you for coming and joining the show.
It’s my pleasure, Carrie. Thank you.
Thank you.
Important Links
About Suzanne Leslie
Suzanne Leslie, is the owner attorney of the Leslie Law Firm who began her legal journey with a priceless education from her father, a claims administrator who taught her firsthand what it takes to win a case.
She’s taken those lessons to heart, building a reputation for an incredibly strong work ethic and dedication that’s earned her a spot on numerous prestigious lists, including Super Lawyer Honorary and Elite Lawyer.
As a managing partner, Suzanne has created a firm environment that’s less “stuffy law office” and more “family-like refuge,” which explains why so many clients are eager to refer their friends and family.
A devoted wife for over 35 years and a proud mother of two grown children, Suzanne knows a thing or two about juggling a demanding career with the responsibilities of family life.
She brings that same passion and nurturing spirit she has for her own family to her clients, making sure they feel safe and cared for during some of the most challenging times of their lives.
When she’s not busy being a successful lawyer, you can find her cheering on the Angels and Ducks, hitting the links, or staying active with fitness-related activities. She’s a true champion both in and out of the courtroom!
