I recently attended a symposium on work-life balance where the keynote speaker was Deborah Epstein Henry.  She was there to talk about her FACTS program.  In a portion of her talk, Debbie mentioned some current initiatives at Big Firms aimed at helping with the work-life balance concerns of women.  Most that she mentioned, I was aware of already because of blogs like Ms. JD.  Most were programs seemingly aimed at making the unbearable billable hours requirements more bearable or aimed at creating reduced-hour alternatives for lawyers.  However, she also mentioned that some firms are putting into place initiatives aimed at bringing back their "regrettable losses" -- i.e. attorneys that leave the firm that the firm wishes would have stayed and that may be in a position to come back at some point in the future.  One such program is the "Sidebar" initiative at Skadden and, frankly, I am not sure how I missed it. (JDBlissblog.com covered it last month here.)  You can find some information on it on Skadden's Women's Initiatives page here even though I think the program is not just for women.  According to the site:

Through Sidebar, attorneys in good standing may decide to leave the firm for any number of personal reasons for up to three years (more than the six-month maximum permitted under a leave of absence), with the expectation that they will return to the firm at the end of that period consistent with the needs of the firm and their department. The firm expects and encourages Sidebar participants to remain connected, for example, by attending certain firm-sponsored events and gatherings and continuing legal education programs.

This is not intended to be a plug for Skadden but more of a head's up to other law firms.  I think this is genius.  I think that a lot of women really want to take a break for a few years when their kids are young or maybe when their kids are teen-agers but they are afraid to.  They are afraid to leave their current employer for fear of not being able to come back but they are also afraid of leaving the work-force because of a fear that they could never come back to any employer.  They are afraid that their skills will get old, that they will get too disconnected from the profession, that they will forget how to talk to grown-ups.  I'm not assuming that Skadden's Sidebar, or others like it, will be the cure for all of these potential issues but boy, it sure does sound like a great way to keep the possibility of return to the work force a real possibilitiy.