律師也有苦日難熬的時候。但那不是因為發生經濟蕭條，而是因為放假。據美國律師協會(American Bar Association)的調查，大多數美國私人執業律師一星期都要工作60個小時以上，幾乎每個星期都是如此。每周40小時的工作制被認為是“兼職”；如果再短的話，那就完全是缺乏責任心了。

These are tough times for lawyers. Not because of the economy - because of the holidays. According to the American Bar Association, most US lawyers in private practice work 60 hours, or often much more, nearly every week. A mere 40-hour week is considered "part-time". Anything less is simply unpatriotic.

    但每天工作12個小時的律師做不了圣誕曲奇，他們甚至連上街買的時間都沒有。在這樣的人家，如果圣誕老人在給他準備的那杯牛奶旁，還能找到一塊不新鮮的姜汁餅，那他真算十分幸運的了。

But lawyers who work 12-hour days do not bake Christmas cookies. They scarcely have time to buy them. Santa will be lucky, in such households, if he gets a stale ginger biscuit beside his glass of milk.

    正是這種拼命工作的思想撫育了我，以及眾多像我一樣年屆不惑的中年人。但如今這種思想卻遇到了后繼乏人的難題。美國的年輕一代自私地主張，自己在工作之余有生活的權利。老一輩的律師可能還樂意侍奉那位善妒忌的“工作情人”，但年輕的一輩，不論男女，都開始在其它地方尋找新愛了。

This cult of overwork - the cult that raised me, and so many of my middle-aged contemporaries - now has a recruitment problem. Younger Americans are unaccountably demanding a right to life after work. Older lawyers may still be happy to service the jealous mistress. But younger ones, male and female, have begun to look for love elsewhere.

    能證明的數據比比皆是：超過一半的美國應屆畢業生表示，他們最高的職業目標是“在個人生活和事業之間獲得平衡”。這或許終究是個難以實現的夢想，但上一代人卻連這一點都羞于啟齒。而且，即使是那些曾一度熱愛法律的人，也逐漸為了“生活方式的原因”而拋棄了他們的情人，比如說，為了能在工作日看一看孩子醒時的模樣，或是可以決定是否要烘烤圣誕曲奇。

The statistics are everywhere: more than half of recent US college graduates say their highest professional goal is "attaining a balance between personal life and career". That may be the impossible dream but it is the kind of fantasy that earlier generations would not have dared to utter. And even those who have once embraced the law are increasingly forsaking their mistress for "lifestyle reasons", such as the right to glimpse their children awake on weekdays, or the right to refuse to bake Christmas cookies.

    最近，一群策劃生活方式的革命者在美國華盛頓特區的一座教堂大廳里舉行了一次聚會，商討一條通往工作生活兩和諧的新路。

Recently, a small cell of lifestyle revolutionaries met in the parish hall of a Washington, DC, church, to plot a new path to work/life harmony.

    一群牙牙學語的嬰孩和愛發脾氣的蹣跚稚童在他們母親的陪伴下來到了會場，在他們的一片合唱聲中，由首都的女性律師協會(Women's Bar Association)舉辦的“在家執業律師”論壇("Lawyers at Home" forum)開場。論壇在吵鬧的背景聲中介紹了“工作安排新思路”，換句話說，是如何在不犧牲事業的前提下縮短工作時間的技巧。

Struggling to hear above the chorus of burbling babies and tetchy toddlers who had accompanied their mothers to the hall, the "Lawyers at Home" forum of the capital Women's Bar Association took instruction on "alternative work schedules", or the art of working less without sacrificing your career.

    她們的要求同女權運動一樣歷史悠久。工作、孩子和自家烘的曲奇，一樣不少，她們都想要。但和我們這群已是更年期的革命者不同，這些年輕的母親不單是要和男人一樣的工作權利，她們要的還多得多：她們要像母親一樣的工作，也就是說，工作強度不能那么大、不能那么沒人性，總之一切都要減輕。

Their quest is as old as the feminist revolution. They want to have it all: the job, the children, the home-baked cookies. But these young mothers - unlike my own generation of menopausal revolutionaries - are not just demanding the right to work like men. They are asking much more: the right to work like mothers - less intensely, less pathologically and just generally less.

    一些人聲稱她們的總體考慮是基于道德：就算做母親的是律師，孩子也有偶爾看看母親的權利。但這種說詞自然不堪一擊：如果孩子的母親待在家里，他的權利就不會受到侵害了。

Some make a moral case for their holistic vision: that children have a right to see their mothers occasionally, even if the matriarch is a lawyer. But this case, of course, is easily rebuffed: the child whose mother stays at home does not have his rights violated.

    幸好還有個從法律上變革生活方式的商業理由，這是由美利堅大學 “職業生涯法” (WorkLife Law)課題組的辛西婭•托馬斯卡爾弗特(Cynthia Thomas Calvert)于當天的論壇上提出的。她認為，很多年輕一代的律師主要是為了生活方式的原因而離開律師事務所，其中許多還是男性。“這不是一個婦女問題，它更是一代人的問題，”她說，“這是一場‘戰后嬰兒潮合伙人’與‘X一代’的較量。”

Luckily there is also a business case for a lifestyle revolution in the law and it was made in the church hall that day by Cynthia Thomas Calvert, of American University's Program on WorkLife Law (sic). According to her, younger lawyers are leaving law firms in droves, often largely for lifestyle reasons - and many of them are men. "This is not a women's issue, it's more of a generational issue," she says. "It is the Baby Boom partners vs the Generation Xers."

    但X一代的不滿足卻更費錢：卡爾弗特認為，更換一個有兩至三年工作經驗的合伙人要花費20萬至50萬美元，這包括招聘并培訓離職的律師及其繼任者。不光如此，其它的代價也不小：律師事務所經驗知識的損失，客戶的丟失，以及因磨擦加劇而導致的士氣低落和效率降低。更有甚者，挑上法律這一行的人，大多都不會完全脫離這個行當，他們或是進政府當差，或是到企業作法律顧問，而且他們一般都不可能雇傭曾令他們大失所望的那個事務所。

But the discontent of the Xers costs money: Calvert says each second- or third-year associate costs between ,000 (£114,000) and ,000 to replace (including recruiting and training the departing lawyer and his or her replacement). And there are other costs too: loss of institutional knowledge; loss of clients; and the loss of morale and productivity that comes with high attrition. What is more, most of those who choose life over law do not leave the profession altogether: they move to government jobs, or to in-house law departments,swheresthey will scarcely be likely to hire the firm that disappointed them in the first place.

    然而具有諷刺意味的是，這些失去眾多年輕律師的事務所并不是沒有挽留這些人的措施。從美國律師協會最近公布的數據來看，大約95%的律師事務所允許其律師以兼職方式工作，但事實上只有3%的律師真的那么做了。

Ironically, the same law firms that are losing so many young lawyers also have the means to keep them. According to recent figures from the American Bar Association, some 95 per cent of firms allow attorneys to work part-time, but only 3 per cent of lawyers actually do so.

    這是為什么呢？一部分是因為，我們這些做母親的認為，小孩應該嘗嘗我們小時候吃的苦：要是我們不能什么都有，憑什么他們就該有。以兼職方式工作的律師認為，他們經常被埋怨、誣蔑，或是被剝奪晉升的機會。他們是什么都有了，只不過代價慘重。

Why? Partly because we matriarchs think the youngsters should suffer as we did: we could not have it all, so why should they? Lawyers who work part-time say they are often resented, stigmatised and denied promotion. They can have it all - but only at a high price.

    但在這個世上，在所有法學院有一半女畢業生，而大多數女生最終都會成為母親的情況下，律師事務所所堅持的每周超過60小時的工作制最終是在侵害很大一部分人。年輕一代的母親們并不愿像她們的父輩那樣工作：早上孩子沒起床就出門，晚上孩子上了床才到家。

But in a worldswhereshalf of all law school graduates are women - andswheres most women eventually become mothers - law firms that insist on more than 60 hours a week end up alienating a big part of the workforce. The younger generation of mothers does not want to work like the older generation of fathers: leaving home before the children are up and returning only when they are safely in bed.

    他們認為，半天、半周或半年工作制完全是可行的，這不是出于道德要求，而是作為一種商業建議。就像在高爾夫球場能找到新客戶，游樂園也一樣可以。“小孩子最能幫助打破僵局了，”辛麗婭•卡爾弗特說道。況且，客戶十分討厭更換律師，只要他們能確保自己的律師在若干年內不換，可能情愿她并不是隨叫隨到。

They think it ought to be possible to work for part of the day, or part of the week, or part of the year, not as a moral imperative but as a business proposition. New clients can be found on the playground just as well as on the golf course: "Kids are such a great ice-breaker," says Cynthia Calvert. And existing clients hate changing lawyers so much that they may be willing to accept one who is not available every moment of every day, as long as they can be sure she will remain with them for some years.

    這不光是為了孩子，這是為了生活。年輕人提醒得對，女人不該像男人一樣工作，男人自己也不該那樣工作。長久以來，美國人就一直有著這種病態的工作觀念，尤其是法律職業，再沒哪個行業像它這么嚴重的了。如何解決這個問題，不是婦女一個人的事，而是我們大家的事。

This is not just about children. It is about life. The youngsters are right to remind us that it is not healthy for women to work like men. Nor is it healthy for men to work like men. Americans have long had a pathological relationship with work, nowhere more so than in the legal profession. Fixing that is not a women's issue - it is one for all of us.

    作者簡介：帕提•沃德米爾（Patti Waldmeir）是金融時報法律和社會問題專欄作家，尤其關注知識產權、就業法和其他涉及商業及大眾關注的法律問題。在移居華盛頓之前，她曾長期在非洲工作。1989年至1996年期間，她任金融時報駐約翰內斯堡記者站負責人，報道了南非向民主化轉型的過程。

Patti Waldmeir writes a column about law and society [for the Financial Times], focusing on intellectual property,employment law and other legal topics of interest to the business and general reader. Before moving to Washington D.C., she worked extensively in Africa, covering the transition to democracy in South Africa as Johannesburg bureau chief from 1989 to 1996.

    譯者/方志燕