Finding reliable postpartum depression support while balancing a demanding legal career often feels like an impossible climb. For many professional parents, the pressure to maintain a facade of perfectionism while managing the transition back to work only deepens the struggle. In this conversation, law firm partner Lindsay Aggarwal joins host Carrie Fogliani to share her raw, vulnerable journey from silence to advocacy. After experiencing severe postpartum depression, Lindsay turned her pain into purpose by creating a specialized parental leave coaching program at her firm, BCLP. She opens up about the intersection of identity, guilt, and mental health in the legal profession, offering a powerful roadmap for how workplaces can fundamentally change the culture for working parents.
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Turning Pain Into Purpose: A Conversation About Postpartum Depression, Perfectionism, And Changing The Culture For Working Parents With Lindsay Aggarwal
The Journey To Law And The Vision Of Motherhood
This episode is one that I just think so many women, especially professional moms, will deeply relate to, even if they have never said these things out loud. My guest is Lindsay Aggarwal, a law firm partner, a 40 Under 40 honoree, a very proud mother of two, and the creator of a parental leave coaching program that supports attorneys through one of the most vulnerable transitions of their lives. Lindsay’s program was born after lived experience.
After facing severe postpartum depression while trying to appear successful on the outside, she turned her pain into purpose. With the support of her firm, she built a program designed to change the story for parents coming behind her. In this conversation, we talk about perfectionism, people-pleasing, identity, guilt, mental health in the legal profession, and really what recovery actually looks like. We also discuss how law firms and workplaces can better support parents before, during, and after leave.
This episode is for anyone who has ever felt pressure to hold it all together while silently struggling underneath. If you have ever thought, like I have many days, “I am a bad mom, a bad wife, a bad lawyer all at once,” Lindsay’s story offers hope and a very powerful example of turning personal suffering into lasting organizational change. It is with so much gratitude and appreciation that we welcome Lindsay to the show.
Thank you, Lindsay, for joining the show.
Thank you, Carrie, for having me.
Of course. I really appreciate your willingness to share with us, especially a topic that you only know about if you have either walked through it or seen someone that you care deeply about walk through it. I wanted to start so that we could all learn a little bit more about your path to becoming a lawyer and what that was like for you, and then we will maybe pause right before we get to the good part of your motherhood journey.
Part of me always knew I wanted to be a lawyer or was maybe drawn to it. My dad is an attorney. I grew up seeing what he did, thinking it was really cool. I love to read and write as I think so many of us do, and so that was always the path that I saw myself on. I wavered a little bit during college and explored some marketing or public relations internships or things like that, but I would say something just always kept pulling me back to the law. I went straight through to law school after college and then started as a summer associate at the firm that I am still with, what was then Bryan Cave and is now BCLP, back in 2012, I guess.
When was that moment when you decided this is a great time to bring kids into the mix and to become a mom?
I feel like that describes it a little more eloquently than I probably thought about it at the time. Probably, let us see, so maybe five years into my law firm career, I met my husband, and we, let us see, we were both, I guess, a little older, not that, but we were around 30 when we met. A couple of years passed until we got married, and I think then we both wanted kids, and we were thinking, “This is the right time.”
I guess as we are talking about this, I am not really sure that I did put that much thought into it. Which I think will probably become a theme of our conversation, but I just assumed that it would be easy. It just seemed to me like this was like the next step on my path, wanting to have kids. Let us go ahead and have kids, and that is going to neatly fit into our lives, which was not the case.
People assume parenting would be easy, and that having kids is going to neatly fit into our lives, which often is not the case. Share on XThat is always a question for so many of us. What could be so hard about this? This is the next best thing, and how did you picture motherhood fitting into your life and career? Were you just, “This is going to be just one more thing that I do,” or what was your vision when you decided this is the time to have a child?
I would say, “This is going to be one more thing that I will do,” and I would maybe even add onto that like, “This is going to be one more thing that I will do that I will just do easily and exceptionally well.” My mom was a stay-at-home mom. She was a great mom, and then, as I said, my dad was a lawyer. I do not even think that I stopped to think, “This is going to be difficult or challenging or I need to think through this.” People now ask me, “When is the best time in your career to have kids?” or things like that. I just think none of that really actually entered into my consciousness. I was just thinking, “This is what is next.”
Expectations Vs. Reality: Preparing For Parenthood
The other part is we always have these assumptions that you have been so successful before in your life, like everything else that you have done to that point. Of course, not without working hard and with good ethics, but hard work pays off, and so how is motherhood going to be different? Do you think there was any of that perfectionism that played a role in how you were setting yourself up on your motherhood journey?
Definitely. I said, “I am going to do this, I am going to do this exceptionally well.” By that I meant also like pressure. “I am going to be great at this.” It needs to look perfect from the outside, the same way I think I approached my career.
It is like one more thing, I guess, on some level. Did you feel pressure at the outset, and we can talk through where you were in your career when you had your son, but to make it look easy? Was that part of your experience when it was getting hard?
I am thinking about that. Yes, I would say that that certainly became more of my mindset with my second, my daughter, which is when I experienced postpartum depression. I am almost wondering if I did not initially think that because I had my son a month into the pandemic. When I came back to work, it was working from home, and it was such a weird time in the world that I am not even sure I probably gave much thought to things like, “I am going to make this look easy,” because I think everyone was having a really hard time.
That is a great point. When you start the journey off like that, where you did not also have to cleanse yourself of your mom role when you are going into the office, that is a whole other effort, I feel like, and a showing up. When you were going back to work, when you were really physically going back to work, it is a different experience. I want to just shift to that journey.
One of the hardest things with women that I have spoken with about, especially lawyers, about postpartum mental health challenges, is that from the outside, we often look like we’re still managing it all, that we’re still very high-functioning, we have it together. At what point did you realize, like, this was no longer just like exhaustion or stress? We can talk through maybe sharing a little background about your first and second, and when the signs came in to answer that question might be a helpful time to do that.
My son, my first, was born in April 2020. As I said, looking back, I probably had some level of perinatal mood disorder going on. It certainly was not the experience I had with my second, but I think a lot of that again I brushed aside as, “The world is in crisis right now. No one is doing well.” It is not that unusual that I am struggling a little more than I otherwise would have thought. With my second, it is interesting because I think I had this vision in my mind of postpartum depression being very close in time to when the baby is born and stereotypically like not trusting yourself at that point to be around the baby or not having the feelings you thought you would have about your baby or things like that.
Obviously, that is a very real experience for a lot of women, but that was not my experience. When I was on my parental leave, I actually felt like I was doing great. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed being with my daughter. It was really, at the time that I came back to work and those two worlds started to converge, that my mental health really started to deteriorate. The best way I can describe it is like when I was on leave, I could focus on that, and I felt like that was going great, and then all of a sudden everything that was on my plate basically doubled.
Recognizing Postpartum Mental Health Challenges
I did not have, I guess, maybe the mental capacity or bandwidth to do both, at least at the level that I felt like I needed to or that I demanded of myself. There were just a lot of little things over the course of a few months that just, I guess, kept stacking up. Making it harder and harder. I remember just thinking, “This will get better after my daughter.” My daughter’s name is Mia. After Mia has a steady place in daycare, or this will get better after we get through this round of expert depositions, or I just need to push through this, this will get better. That point never actually happened. Your original question was like, how did I know maybe?
That shift. You describe that sometimes people would minimize some of those feelings. What another podcast guest referred to as like death by a thousand cuts, like the little tiny things coming through that build up. At one point, you had to have an awareness that this was not just being tired. Being put in a professional environment is very intense. You are a litigator. There is quite honestly no more intense professional environment to walk back into unless you maybe have a different opinion on that, but I feel like that is probably one of the more intense things to try to do as a mom, a working mom. How did you know, like, “This is not just being tired?”
It just had to basically flatten me, unfortunately. I remember it is called the Edinburgh scale or the postnatal, something like that. It is that test that they give you after, maybe six weeks out after you have a baby, that is supposed to screen for postpartum depression. I found that online, I took it, and this was probably still three months before I recognized that I had postpartum depression, but my score on that indicated a high probability of major depression. I remember I told my husband like, “That’s not right.” I must have scored some things too high like this. “Yes, I’m having a hard time, but it is definitely not that. That’s not right.”
I hid it for a long time from the people in my life as well as myself. Partly it is because I was worried I was weak and I couldn’t overcome this, and what was wrong with me, and things like that. The point when I finally, eventually had to accept it, really for lack of a better word, was basically when my husband and my mom really pushed me to go to my doctor. I credit my doctor quite a lot with just being like, “You need to take a step back and take care of yourself. You cannot power through this anymore. You need to basically heal yourself.” That was the wake-up call, frankly, that I really needed and was just avoiding.
You need to take a step back and take care of yourself. You cannot just power through anymore. You need to heal yourself. Share on XIt is two things that you have shared in there are so important for everyone to understand because I was honestly ignorant to the fact that it does not always happen right when you have the baby and being mindful of your mental wellness for, I think you said it is even a year, there is I am trying to how much to give people that grace of knowing and also the availability of some way to measure that. I love that even maybe you did not react immediately like, “The score says this. I should right now get help.” That it still took a while for you to get encouraged by the people that were caring for you really to get help. In between that period of time, what was work like? What was it like during the day for you? Just so people understand.
It was terrible, to be honest, and it was, I guess, the best way, actually, that is like giving too much feeling to it, if that makes sense. It was more like numbness. I basically felt like I was in a cloud, going through the motions and having really no attachment to anything. It is really sad looking back because I can very deliberately see that all of the mental energy.
I had gone so far into appearing okay on the outside, basically primarily at work, but still with probably friends and in social situations, but making it still appear like I was okay and I was keeping everything afloat and things like that. I would just come home at the end of the day and basically just collapse and check out and not have, truthfully, like any interest in my family. Things that I would normally really look forward to, birthdays, holidays, things like that, I just had no emotion about.
Guidance For Supporting Working Parents
When you see that in yourself looking back, I think that is such an important thing for all of us because we do not know what to look for, but I think we have all felt what you just described in different spaces and having it continue for over a period of time. I do want to credit you, your husband, and your mom in their caretaking of you because I know we’re stubborn. We’re not like, you have test results saying that you probably have a diagnosis to check and you’re still muscling through.
They’re sitting there quietly, as quiet as it can be, saying, “She’s going to do it her way because that’s what we do. We do it our way.” For other people that are trying to take care of women like us, do you have any guidance or recommendations for them so that the people that they’re caring for, maybe their course of it would be a little shorter or different? I feel like that maybe would have helped you more sooner. I do not know. That is what I am curious if you have any thoughts on that.
Part of it is maybe just checking on people more often even than you think you need to. I do not think it needs to be like an elaborate, grand reach-out, but maybe just even, “I was thinking of you. Are you doing okay?” I have tried to be much more intentional about that with my friends who are postpartum. Just like continually dropping in and saying, “How are things going?” and things like that. Again, I hope maybe I would not have pretended that much. I do not mean to say that people weren’t checking in on me. I do not mean that. It is just so hard to open up to other people about feeling like you’re struggling or doing something wrong. Sometimes I think it is just making clear that it is like a safe space and you care to make sure that they’re doing okay.
Especially like you’re such a trusted human, given we’ll get to the work that you’ve done, which is totally amazing. Even in the moment, like some of us are still hiding behind our mental state that we’re still fine. It is very interesting that you were able to break down at home. You were able to not be forced into being someone that you weren’t in the moment. That is also exhausting. That transition at home. You cannot do both, like even in my own experience, you’re either going to be able to pull it off at work or be able to pull it off at home, but it is really hard to do both.
From your family perspective, when you went to your doctor, and she is trying to help you navigate something that obviously has a lot of stigma, even at the time, a lot of feeling of I feel like there was grief involved in that moment of like, “I cannot do this, I cannot do both?” How did she help you to take the next very brave and courageous steps, quite honestly?
There was a lot of grief involved because I had not identified with having a mental health disorder before this. That is also partly why, when I took that survey, and that is what it said, I pushed that away because I did not want that label. That did not match who I thought I was and like what I thought a version of perfect was. There was a lot of that. Initially, when I talked to her, there was a lot of like, “I hear what you’re saying, but like that’s not me and I cannot do that.”
I just think really over the next few days just sitting with it and again just probably deteriorating further and further, basically just forcing me into that point. When I went on leave from my firm, it was not like planned. It was not gracious. It was basically I was here one day, not here the next, and that was very difficult for me. Also, it showed how far I had let it go.
What was that from the firm perspective? A lot of times in these conversations that I have been having, I do not always get to celebrate how a firm handles or supports. It sounds like you had a pretty decent experience when you needed to step away. Can you share a little bit of what that looked like?
I would say it is only with the benefit of hindsight that I am able to view it that way. Again, because I think I was probably numb at the time, so far from who I felt like I was. I would say everyone gave me a lot of grace and space to really heal. I remember one conversation in particular that one of my practice group leaders talked to me about and just said like, “This is a really long career, or it can be a really long career.
You need to focus on yourself, your health, and this will be here if and when you are ready. Right now, you need to prioritize yourself.” It is not lost on me how incredibly lucky I was to have that. To have an environment where I was able to take a step back and know that there was a job there for me if and when I was ready. Again, I just know how privileged I am all throughout this. To have had access to mental health services and things like that. That is very important, really.
You need to focus on yourself, your health, and this will be here if and when you are ready. Right now, you need to prioritize yourself. Share on XHow did that translate? I do have family experience with this. When someone does take a leave, and especially when you have young children at home, it is almost impossible to recover because you’re home. You’re still a mom. You’re still in demand for the attention of children that need your support. You said it really beautifully in another discussion that you have about, “Kids cannot be well unless their parents are well.” Giving you the time to get well for them. Even in line with what the managing partner said, quite honestly, the season as a mom, it is very long. I am curious. When you were home not feeling great, how did you manage that season knowing that there are, I am sure, a lot of mixed emotions with healing while still being mom?
One thing that I did that at the time felt incredibly selfish and again, probably like I was failing, is my kids still went to daycare every single day that I was on leave. I thought about not doing that. I am pretty sure my husband really pushed me to send them, but I think from the beginning I thought, “I’m not going to be at work, so like why wouldn’t they be here?” “I should be the one taking care of them.” Had I done that, I would not have at all, I think, given myself the space to heal.
Really, during that first month, I would say most days I just, like, walked outside, maybe read a book, slept a lot, and just did the bare minimum because that was pretty much all I could do to get through some of the days. It took me a long time probably to not feel guilty about that fact, about the fact that I continued using childcare while I was not working. That is really like taking that time for myself. I think it is probably like one of the best gifts I will ever give.
The Courage To Heal And Prioritize Self-Care
Love the fact that it is such an act, and I think it is such an act of incredible courage, quite honestly, when you describe that, and I am sure it was hard at the time. There is no way to recover without giving yourself that space. It must have been very, this probably was one of the hardest when you share that. I am guessing that had to be probably one of the hardest components of forcing yourself into a healthy recovery for them to give them their mom back, quite honestly, because that is not an easy thing to sacrifice, especially knowing that we are all built worrying about what everyone else might think about it without knowing the feelings of what you were going through.
I just want to publicly tell you that it is an incredible thing you did, and I am sure it wasn’t easy, but I also feel like it is probably part of why your story helped you to get back to work. During that timeframe, the first month you were in this recovery mode. Was there ever a point in that, because many of our guests have done this, when it was like, “There is no way I am going back to being a lawyer.” Like, “I am done.” “I’m checking out.” Was that part of you?
Yes, 100%.
How was that? You worked so hard to get there.
That was probably a few months, to be honest. That was just like, “I am not going back to this.” It was basically like the cliché, like I would walk into a bookstore and I would be like, “Maybe I am going to do this. I like this.” Maybe I do not even bake. Like, “Maybe I’m going to open up a bakery,” or just things like that. This is too hard. I am not going to go back to that. I do not really know when the shift was necessary, but I just remember thinking, like, fixating on that, probably thought, like, “This is too hard. I cannot do this.”
It was a little bit like, yes, I can, but I am not being given the chance to. I am, and I do not mean that just me. I was thinking of it more broadly, like, look at all of these other incredibly strong women, moms, who can do this but are not being set up to do it. When I grappled with that, that was a lot of responsibility, I felt like. I was like, “Okay.”
You were going to solve it for all of us. That is amazing. I love that. That is a really important part of your story to me. That calling because you were suffering. You were in the midst of something that I have very clear familiarity with. The fact that there was this light bulb or whisper or something that led you to believe, “This suffering that I am doing, I am going to make it better for others.” When did that happen in the course of your time away?
It happened gradually, and it was just starting to talk to a few people that I really trusted at the firm about this idea. I just made the program I am running now up, and I do not exactly mean it like that, but I just was like, “I want to create this program. I think I can do it, and this is what I want it to be.” It was just starting to talk to people, honestly looking at some of these like statistics for the first time. Again, these things that I had not looked at or considered before I became a mom about just how much harder it is for women in the legal profession, moms, not even just in the legal profession. In corporate America, all of these things that now are abundantly clear to me, but at the time, I had.
From Personal Struggle To Organizational Purpose
It does take you back because, honestly, and I think both of us share this, when we started on the journey of being a mom, I did not even like how could it be any different? Why would it affect me differently? If you start looking at the statistics and the data, it is startling how difficult it really is. I love that you are, you were called into this greater purpose. I would love you to share, and I also want to recognize that you absolutely could have just gone back to work quietly and done your job the same as you did it before, after you were feeling better, but you did not. I think what you did next is so incredible. If you could walk us through that conversation of when you finally felt like it was ready, you were ready to go back, what that looked like.
Thank you. It’s interesting because you said I could have gone back and done my job, and I actually do not think that I could have. Not because I was not capable of doing it, but I think that I was fundamentally changed by this experience. I do not think that I could have come back and not had anything change in terms of, like, I do not know, my contributions or what I felt like I was bringing. It was like, looking back, it was like all these things started lining up in the right place, right time, things like that.
I talked to one of my good friends at the firm. She suggested I get in touch with our director of learning and development, who is now one of my really good friends, but who at the time I had never really spoken with before. I talked to her, like, talked about this idea, and she was like, “I know this is crazy, but I’m going to this conference next week. Do you want to come and explore this idea?” I went to that conference.
There was a panel with Lori Mihalich-Levin, who runs this company, Mindful Return, which works with law firms. She spoke at that conference about supporting parents and returning to leave coaching and things like that. Coming out of that, it was just like all the little pieces started falling into place. With that, I basically put together a proposal and went to the firm and said, “This is what I think we need. We have amazing policies.
I benefited from so much of those, but I was still basically this close to walking away as so many before me have done. What I think we have is a gap that we do not like actually create an environment to help these moms and parents thrive.” I say that I do not think that we were at all unusual in that. We’re basically like any other, again, company in corporate America. I proposed this idea that I would work with our lawyers and parents as they were going through their own parental transitions.
That is amazing, and they said yes. The other part is like that. Recognizing the need and that you were coming at it with such passion and mission. I can feel it as you’re even just describing this. I would say yes to this. It’s like, “This is absolutely what we need and how we can support not losing so many incredibly brilliant parents because the environment makes it so difficult to feel good about being both an attorney and a parent.” Do you mind sharing some of the ways that you feel have been the most successful through this program in supporting parents through that part of their life?
For me, I would say that it is like the individual stories, and I mean I have spent a lot of time thinking about this, because you can make an argument to look at data for the efficacy of programs like this. Attrition data or engagement data or things like that, and I do think that there is value in that. I also think that there are issues with why that might not tell the whole story. For me, it is like the individual stories of people that I have worked with who have told me what an impact this program had on them. What I basically think is most valuable about the program. It is not to celebrate myself or anything like that.
We’re celebrating.
You can celebrate. What I think is most valuable is that lawyers here at BCLP know that when they come back, if they are having a hard time with the transition back, which frankly, like, why would you not be? I would be amazed if you were not. If they are having a hard time with that, there is someone that they can talk to about that that knows what it is like, that it can be confidential, that they do not have to publicly declare like, “I’m having a hard time. I think something’s wrong with me because I cannot do this.” It is just that there is somebody that they can talk to, and I think for me, that is the piece that I felt like had been missing.
Totally. What I was just going to say, like what impact do you think that would have had like as you were walking the halls at that point when you were really having a moment of like, “I do not think I can do this,” to be able to walk into someone’s office at the firm and say, “I am feeling like a bad mom, wife, bad lawyer, help me out”? Is that where you come into the picture through this program? Is there also other components to prevent those things from happening as well, or how does that work?
That is a good way to put it because as you were saying that, I was thinking, “I hope I have gotten involved before they get to that point and think.” It’s not always the way that it happens. Basically, the program is voluntary. It is an opt-in. I publicize it within the firm. Our HR department also shares the information with our lawyers when they notify them that they will be going out on parental leave. It is designed to be really, I think, as much investment as the person going through the leave wants it to be. It can be every two weeks or every month. A meeting around a specific topic.
Sometimes it is only like meeting once or twice and then being there if they need something, following up. Certainly making sure to check in that first week or so when they are back from their parental leave to work. That is one component of it, one-on-one coaching. The other big component of it is like peer groups. Setting up groups of parents who have kids roughly around the same age. We have like 70 lawyers participating in these pods now where they meet once a month, and some of that is also just like the comfort in knowing other people are going through a similar experience.
Totally. Especially with the hour, it’s really hard, and I don’t know everyone lives in different environments, but especially when your social pod is full of either women that you know are not working or have different types of careers versus being in a pod with other people in the same industry. I have to imagine that that carries incredible value because you do not have to explain the mental exhaustion and decision fatigue that you already have from being an attorney. Now you’re tapped in as a parent. That is a brilliant aspect of this program. It must be, I bet. I would expect it to be very appreciated that you can commiserate and get tips about how to navigate different aspects of parenthood right away.
You are right. Our profession is unique in some respects. Trying to walk through that. Hold on. Are you offline from like 5:00 to 8:00, and then do you like log back on because you have to bill many hours, however? How many things happen in your day? There are some specifics like that.
Defining Success And Navigating Professional Boundaries
That’s awesome. That’s super helpful. I would say, what would you say to a mom or dad that’s listening and they’re like barely holding it together? They’re at that maybe that last moment before they either take the test, which we will try to post on here because I feel like people should be aware of that, or they really know that they cannot do this anymore. There’s some nagging suspicion that this is not working out. What would be the best next step?
That it is probably admitting to yourself that you are not as important at work as you have led yourself to believe. By that I mean, I think that the reason I was so dedicated to, like, appearing perfect and I was so sure I could not at all take a step back and take care of my own mental health was that I really thought this like place would fall down without me here to handle the case, which is ridiculous. We have like 1,200 attorneys.
That sense of pressure is so ingrained in all of us to just feel like, “I have to do this, I have to be the one.” There are situations in life where your body just basically tells you, “You cannot do that,” and coming to terms with the fact that you have to take care of yourself, and work will survive, and you will be able to come back stronger if and when that is what you want.
There are situations in life where your body just basically tells you, “You cannot do that,” and coming to terms with the fact that you have to take care of yourself. Share on XIt is so hard, though, because when you said that, and I am guilty of this, but like, and you have mentioned this before, like we make appointments, we set it up, and then we do not show up. We’re busy. There are other things. There’s a client call, there’s a kid thing. How do you drill into people to make sure you, if you even initiate right, but then we do not follow through, and like how that can be a dangerous aspect of setting you up for a disaster, quite honestly, that might have been preventable if you took the many steps along the way. I do not know if that resonates with you at all. How do you guide people through that?
I always hear people say, “You should treat yourself how you would treat your best friend,” and that does not resonate with me as much. For me, what has always been the touchpoint that resonates for me is my kids. When you were saying that, I was thinking, never in a million years would my child have some medical issue that I would set an appointment for, and then when that day came, I would be like, “I cannot do it. I am sorry. I am way too busy. We will do it in three weeks.” I never would do that. I absolutely did that for myself. I set the therapy appointment a month out.
I did it last week. I was supposed to have a stress test, a heart stress test, and my daughter called from school. I called, and the woman’s like, “Bring your kid with you because you need to get this done.” Literally, I’ve been there all my life. I was really proud of myself for going. It was like there were 99 reasons not to go. To you, that’s such a great way to think about it for anyone out there to like to put your kid in your position, and then you would follow through and show up. It’s really like that way better because I am a good friend and I love my best friends, but I think the kid pull is probably the smarter way to go.
Smarter for me.
Totally. The other question that I’m curious about when we’re talking about our kids is, and I know your kids are quite young. In the season that you really went through this, I would expect that they are not going to remember. They were having a normal experience at daycare, which again, it was the right choice. If you had to look back and if you ever think they would come into knowing about this experience, this struggle for you, what do you think they would, you would want them to understand about this chapter?
First of all, you’re right that they were too young. Certainly, my daughter was too young. It is interesting because I would have thought that my son was too young, and this period coincided with the fall, and I remember the following Halloween he said to me, “You did not go trick-or-treating with me last year. Will you go trick-or-treating with me this year? Why didn’t you go trick-or-treating with me last year?” I remember just saying, “Mommy was sick at the time.” That being said, what I would want is that they would maybe be proud of me for taking the step and getting the help, taking care of myself, and getting what I needed to get back to myself and to feel like myself again. I hope to emulate that for them in terms of encouraging them to take care of their needs.
You’re doing that for all of us. Quite honestly, you’re emulating what it looks like to take care of yourself so that you can be the best mom and lawyer. This is like you’re modeling amazing behavior, especially in an environment that challenges that and makes it difficult sometimes or has made it difficult. The fact that you not only did that, but that you’ve grown into creating something for the rest of us, for those coming behind you to make their journey better and more supported, I know they will be proud of you.
Even though I don’t know you that well, I’m so proud of your journey and how you’ve created something that is for the rest of us is so powerful and such a good call to action. I just am blown away by that, and I just want to make sure that we have a minute because we are busy, busy moms, busy lawyers, but curious if you’ve ever thought about how this experience has really changed your definition of success.
It has fundamentally, I think, changed who I am as a person. Absolutely changed my definition of success. I resonated so strongly, I think, with success being like that gold star mentality. Next step on the ladder, how many cases have I won, how many arguments have I won, things like that. I derive success, or try to, still getting better at it maybe all the time, but try to derive success really from how I am showing up, probably as a person in the world to my kids, to co-workers, to the people I work with, things like that.
Everything you said was really nice, but I also feel like it works both ways. I think that I learn so much from the parents in my program and from getting different perspectives and seeing the ways that they make it work. Running the program has made me a better parent and has made me, frankly, a better law firm partner, has made me more empathetic, has given me a diversity of perspective. Things like that. I absolutely think it has gone both ways.
That’s amazing. It is a really great question I want to make sure we hit on before our time ends. That really is that call to action to the firms, to the organizations that are out there contemplating creating something of this nature. I would just love to hear your perspective on how hard it is, what it takes, and also sharing the benefits of it, even what you just described, but also for the entities to encourage them to take similar actions that your firm has done.
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I would love that because I think that it is a model that can be replicated across industries. The key component really is that you have to have somebody really dedicated to it who really obviously believes in the mission and wants to dedicate themselves to it. I just think something like this, something where there is like an acknowledgement, whether or not it is in like the parental leave context or not.
Although that is a really difficult, pivotal moment in a lot of folks’ careers, just having a safe space where there is not the pressure to be on all the time, to be perfect, but there is like a recognition that everybody is human and that is okay, and that does not mean that they are not fantastic lawyers. Maybe we have to get a little bit more creative about how we support that at different phases in people’s careers and realize that it is not like a one-size-fits-all approach.
We have to get a little bit more creative about how we support people's careers at different phases of their lives and realize that it is not like a one-size-fits-all approach. Share on XThat’s amazing. I will definitely share more about what you’ve created and encourage anyone who is even considering implementing something like this at their firm. It is such a smart decision and there’s such a need for it, and I just think this has been such an amazing time to learn more about it and also just really just want to thank you for sharing so vulnerably and so honestly because I know it’s going to help a lot of people that really have probably felt a lot of the things that we’ve talked about and not known what to do or how to how to take care of themselves.
I just want to thank you with a very warm and heartfelt gratitude for taking the time to be here. Before we close, if there’s any other last-minute thoughts you’ve had to encourage, like a person contemplating becoming a mom, becoming a dad in the course of having a very intense career, any final words to give them hope that you’d want to share?
That is funny because I always worry about sharing this much. Am I going to scare people out of having kids, or am I going to make them think like it is too hard or things like that? I absolutely hope that is not the case because being a mom is the best part of my life. It is the most rewarding part of my life. I actually think probably like the fact that I am here is somewhat a long winding road to show that you can do it, right? It is probably going to look different than what you expected, and I think maybe having some awareness of that going into it might be a good thing.
The other thing I wanted to say is to just thank you, Carrie, for creating the spaces for these conversations. One of the things I did not mention in that step when I was building the program, but I really dug into the like ABA’s Commission on Women in the Profession, parents and caregivers in the law, and I know that you had some of the women who worked on that study, and I mean, that was just incredible the work that they did. Thank you for amplifying that work and these conversations.
It’s absolutely been a privilege. I really hope that through conversations like this, we will really help that next generation and even our own generation to feel better about being a parent and being an attorney and trying to work and make it all happen together. Thank you again. You have instilled so much hope and so much purpose in our conversation, and I just want to thank you very much for joining the show.
Thank you.
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This conversation is a powerful reminder that strength does not always look like pushing through quietly. Sometimes strength looks like telling the truth, asking for support, and using our hardest experiences to make the path easier for someone else. I am so grateful to Lindsay for sharing her story with us with such honesty and purpose. Her experience helps normalize conversations about postpartum mental health. Her work shows what becomes possible when firms and workplaces support parents before, during, and after leave. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with another working mom, lawyer, or parent who may need to hear Lindsay’s message. Thank you so much for tuning in. Until next time.
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About Lindsay Aggarwal
Lindsay Aggarwal is a partner at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP), where she represents financial services clients in complex securities litigation. Beyond her legal practice, Lindsay has become a leading voice on parental leave, attorney well-being, and creating more sustainable careers for working parents.
After experiencing postpartum depression following the birth of her second child, Lindsay transformed one of the most difficult seasons of her life into a mission to better support others. She founded BCLP’s Parental Leave Coaching Program, an innovative initiative that provides one-on-one coaching and peer support for lawyers before, during, and after parental leave. The program has been recognized for helping working parents navigate one of the most challenging transitions of their careers while strengthening retention and workplace culture.
Today, Lindsay speaks and writes about parental leave, mental health, and the future of leadership in the legal profession, encouraging organizations to create environments where lawyers—and families—can thrive. She is a proud mom of two and is passionate about helping parents discover that success doesn’t require perfection, but rather the courage to ask for support, redefine priorities, and build careers that are both meaningful and sustainable.
