Kate Lyon takes fertility seriously. She has to; she’s one of the lawyers helping new families interpret the law. I spoke with Kate about what life is like at her home office, and how the joy from a newborn seeps into her practice.
AC: What’s your typical day?
Lyon: On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I am up at 5:30 a.m. to go to work out at Boot Camp, LA at 6:30 a.m. On Tuesday and Thursday, I try to get up by 6:30 a.m. to take a run. Sometimes, I sleep in until 7:00 a.m. After working out, I have a cup of coffee, eat some breakfast, watch the morning news, play with the dog, and take the dog out if my husband wasn’t able to before he left for work. Then I shower and get dressed for work.
Sometimes I have to go to court for parentage hearings. More often than not, I am talking on the phone with clients, drafting or revising agreements, consulting and reviewing documents with clients. There is an occasional business meeting or lunch thrown in. I am with clients, on the phone, emailing, drafting documents or in court for the remainder of the day, depending on the workload at that particular time. By 2:00 p.m., I am usually antsy, so I take the dog for a walk to pick up mail, go to the post office, and get some fresh air. By 7:00 p.m., I try to wrap it up, wait for my husband to get home, make dinner, decompress, and hang out with him until we go to bed—usually around 11:00 p.m. or midnight.
I should add that after having a real office for a time after I opened my practice, I opted for a home office, as most of my clients are not in my general area. Therefore, I was paying rent on a space that I was alone in most of the time! If I have to meet with clients, I tell them I have a home office, and we meet for coffee or lunch. I was worried that clients would think I wasn’t “big time” because I have a home office, but I have found the opposite. Most envy the fact!
AC: How’d you get where you are?
Lyon: It’s something that I sort of fell into. I went to law school thinking that I was going to meld my love of journalism with the law—become the next Court TV personality or something (I started law school right after the OJ trial, when people thought that legal analysts were the next big thing). While in law school, I clerked for a judge in the criminal court, worked at a civil litigation firm, and realized I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I graduated. I didn’t see myself litigating for the rest of my life, and I wasn’t working too hard on getting a broadcasting audition tape together.
During my third year, I wrote a paper for Law Review that was published. It dealt with what happens to frozen embryos when couples separate or divorce. I realized that assisted reproduction was raising some ethical, legal, and moral dilemmas and I started to research the area more. Once I graduated and passed the bar, a firm that specialized in this area was hiring, and I interviewed and got the job. It was a great start and great exposure to these issues and I found that I enjoyed it. I was able to practice law, but in a non-contentious area of law. I was helping couples to have children. I was assisting the women who wanted to make parenthood possible for a couple experiencing infertility. I was married about ten months into the employment and had to leave the firm because my husband’s job was based in Colorado. We had hoped he would be able to transfer to California, but it wasn’t possible at that time. I was then trying to figure out how to continue in the field and was looking into taking the Colorado bar exam.
Tragically, my husband took his own life, leaving me a widow and on my own. I came back to California permanently and spent several months figuring out what I was going to do. Amazing people surround me in my field and several attorneys took me under their wings and introduced me to other doctors and agencies, and started feeding me work. From there, it grew. One client turned to two, a lunch with an agency turned into steady work, and soon my law practice was off the ground. I don’t know what I would have done if those attorneys had not been there for me.
AC: What’s the best thing about your job?
Lyon: Ninety-nine percent of the time, joy is what results from what I do. I help couples to have children—either by representing their interests or the interests of their donor or surrogate. I also do some minors’ counsel representation, representing children in the foster care or adoption system. Both are incredibly rewarding. Because this field is so intimate, I feel like I really get to know my clients and I love getting baby pictures or invited to birthday parties.
AC: What don’t you like?
Lyon: Sometimes, it’s hard to turn work off. There is always something that I could be doing, and it’s hard not to be at it all the time. It’s also painful to watch my clients suffer a disappointment—an in vitro transfer that is not successful, a miscarriage that either my client (either the intended parent herself or the surrogate) suffers. There is a lot of time and money invested in assisted reproduction, and it can be devastating to my clients when it doesn’t work out the way they planned.Also, because I work for myself, it can be hard to not have that steady paycheck or great corporate benefits. Usually the flexibility makes up for it, but paid vacation (if I don’t work, I don’t make any money) and great health insurance are missed sometimes.
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Photo courtesy of Kate Lyon