Navigating Career and Family: The Journey of a Successful Job Share

Hear from Jo Galbraith and Sophie Copson, Labor & Employment directors in our Birmingham office, on how they navigate a successful job share alongside family life.

How did your job share come to be?
J: It started after I returned from my second maternity leave in 2023. We both have two young children and partners who work full-time in demanding jobs and were both finding it difficult to balance everything in a way that worked for us and our families.
S: We discussed this with our supervising partner at the time and the idea of a job share came up. It felt novel and a little scary, but, at the same time, it had the potential to work for us and for clients. We all agreed to give it a go and the rest, as they say, is history.

How did the firm support you in finding the right balance?
J: The firm has been extremely supportive. We had advice early on from a partner in the firm who was herself in a successful job share for a number of years, which was invaluable for picking up tips about how it could work in practice (see our tips below).
S: Our practice group leader has also been incredibly helpful throughout, and has championed the share from the beginning.

How does the job share support you both personally?
J: I have been able to spend more time with my family (a lot of hanging around tennis clubs while my older son plays), and because I trust Sophie entirely, I don’t have to worry about work on my nonworking days.
S: Being able to be more present and available for my family has been amazing. I know I have at least two days a week where I can do the school runs, have time to help out with homework, take my girls to their gymnastic classes, have dinner together as a family, and so on. It’s the simple things that make a real difference in our week.

And professionally?
J: We were jointly promoted to director at the start of 2024, which felt like a real validation that the job share was working.
S: Last year, we also billed almost the exact same amount, which I think shows the strength of our partnership. The best thing is probably when we get good client feedback about how seamlessly we work – if clients say they have forgotten which of us they previously spoke to about a matter, we take that as a real compliment.

Our Job Share Tips

• Find the right partner who works in a similar way to you
• Share an email address, and keep it well managed and filed
• Try not to read through emails on your nonworking days and risk the other person missing emails in the shared inbox
• Find ways to optimize handovers, like email subfolders or client call logs, and be consistent in your approach