October welcomes Margaret Klaw as the SA VA Woman of the Month. Margy, as I have come to know her, is a Super Lawyer, mother, engaged community member and recent author. Her new book KEEPING IT CIVIL, released last month touches on some pretty poignant and dynamic challenges in our family culture. Derived from the true and dramatic events of the lives of ordinary people over the years she has spent practicing family law. A great read! You can also find her writings on the Huffington Post and DailyWorth.com. I met Margy through mutual friends in Mount Airy and have always been very impressed with her energy and spirit and knew she was the perfect fit for the SA VA Woman of the Month. You will be able to find Margy at our MEET THE AUTHORS event on October 30th from 6-9 pm at SA VA. Get to know Margaret Klaw…..
Q. You clearly excel at what you do, (even without mentioning the countless awards you have received for your law practice) I know that practicing family law is something that you are passionate about, but talk about what it is that makes you so good at what you do? Your approach or philosophy if you will?
A. Lawyers tend to either love or hate family law - very few are neutral about it. I fall squarely into the first camp: I love the intensity and the drama of it, I love helping people navigate through difficult times in their lives, and I love the cutting edge legal issues I’m dealing with, as society’s definition of family is changing so rapidly. But I have learned I need to maintain clear boundaries between myself and my clients - if I didn’t, I’d burn out. So I think the key to successfully practicing family law is to keep that balance where you’re emotionally engaged but still have some professional distance - you need to understand at a gut level that, for example, your clients’ kids are not your kids.
Q. What compelled you to write KEEPING IT CIVIL?
A. I’ve always loved to write, and about three years ago I started a blog, www.familylawunraveled.com , about some of my experiences and observations involving clients, judges, court proceedings, and just how it feels to do what I do and see what I see on a daily basis. I know that the world I inhabit with my clients is really interesting - people discuss family law issues everywhere, from the hair salon all the way up to the Supreme Court - and the challenge was to see if I could capture that world on the page. The blog became popular and I decided, with the invaluable help of a writer friend, to try to expand the topics I was blogging about into a book. And it worked!
Q. How do you feel that this book can positively impact how we approach family issues as a community?
A. I hope it will give readers insight into the complexity of the legal system, why and how family lawyers do what they do and, most importantly, help them see issues and disputes from both sides. That’s something we lawyers are trained to do, but often in the heat of a family dispute, people have a hard time seeing the other person’s perspective.
Q. Your daughters are both transplanted to Brooklyn. Describe your lifestyle now?
A. My daughters are both in their twenties and they currently live together in Park Slope. The older one is an actress (and a bartender, of course!) and the younger one is in the process of applying to medical school. They are amazing and I try to spend as much time with them as possible. They do come home to Philly quite a bit (thanks to the Bolt Bus), but I really love going to New York and staying at their place. I was born and raised in Manhattan but almost never went to Brooklyn - it’s fun learning about a new area of the city through their eyes, and they know such great places to go and such interesting things to do.
Q. Describe your personal sense of style and how you put together the looks that make you feel your best?
A. Let’s start with I don’t like to dress like a lawyer! I have never liked skirt suits or really any suits at all. My challenge has been to find clothes that I feel good in that are also acceptable for my profession. Currently that usually means soft jackets and pants, with the occasional skirt or dress thrown in. I did fall in love with the dress I am wearing in the photo for this piece, however, so I might start wearing dresses more often! That’s the reason I love the SA VA clothing I have - they really fit that criteria for me of being polished but still very feminine and flattering and comfortable. And when I’m not at work I pretty much always wear jeans; a good fitting pair of jeans is definitely my wardrobe favorite .
Q. What are your favorite extracurriculars? How do you spend your time when you are not working or writing?
A. I love to cook, and it’s almost like therapy for me at the end of a long day. I listen to the radio or music and just start pulling things together. I don’t usually follow recipes but will often look at several for whatever I’m making and get ideas from them. I also love yoga and wish I had more time to do it - I try to go twice a week. I read a lot, newspapers and magazines and books. And currently I’m obsessed with Breaking Bad!
Q. What’s next for you?
A. I want to keep practicing law and keep writing. I’d like to write another book, but right now I’m so busy with the launch of KEEPING IT CIVIL that I haven’t had a chance to really think about it. Recently I’ve carved out one day a week where I stay home and write, so I’m a lawyer Monday through Thursday and a writer on Friday. That’s where I want to go in the future - I want to have two careers. I find them to be really complimentary; practicing family law is very hectic and social and involves so many cases and so many different people and settings, and writing is solitary and involves intense concentration. One refreshes me to do the other.
Q. Best piece of career advice you could offer?
A. I think women should be very careful not to opt out of the workforce for long periods of time when they have children. I have way too many clients who have college or graduate degrees but only minimal work experience because they decided to stay home full time when their children were little and then never went back to work. Fifteen of twenty years down the road they end up completely financially dependent on their husbands and, unfortunately, if their marriages fail, they’re in dire financial straits. My law partner has a sign in her office that I really like which says “a man is not a financial plan.” It’s funny, obviously, but also really true. I’m just a huge proponent of women being able to support themselves and their children.
Q. Better yet, after your experience in family law, best piece of family/personal advice?
A. Don’t sweat the small stuff! Seeing up close the cataclysmic effect that divorce can have makes me so appreciative of my own marriage, and if my husband - who’s the greatest guy, by the way - does things which irritate or annoy me (and whose spouse or partner doesn’t?) I try hard to just shrug them off. And when my daughters were teenagers and we were going through that rollercoaster ride, I thought about the kids I saw every day whose parents were fighting over them and the incredible toll that took, and I was grateful to just be dealing with relatively minor adolescent issues. So my advice would be to continually make a conscious effort to value those close to you and to really appreciate and enjoy the intimate relationships in your life.
Meet Margaret in person at our Meet the Authors Event at SA VA on October 30th!