Juggling Law School and Motherhood: One Woman’s Story

Amily McCool walks briskly through the law school rotunda, talking on her cell phone, with a backpack slung over one shoulder, and an immigration and nationality law textbook under the other arm. It’s just before lunchtime, and fellow students lounge about on armchairs or stream toward the kitchen to heat up leftovers for lunch.

As McCool draws near, the furrow in her brow shows she has more than courtroom arguments on her mind. The twenty-seven-year-old runs a hand through her chin-length brown hair. The concern in her voice is unmistakable. She is talking to her husband, who is at the doctor with her son, who has developed a rash on his leg. The call is lost, so McCool hurriedly drops her bag in the nearest chair and runs to the pay phone at the end of the hall. She returns a moment later, calm and collected, everything sorted out.

The insurance card, the paper work, the medication—all things that happen in “Mommy-world,” not at law school. But for Amily McCool, the two are inextricably linked and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

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For McCool, a second-year law student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law, the more traditional order of life—finish school, get married, then have children—came in a different way. She had her son, Ethan, after her junior year of college at North Carolina State University. After taking one semester off, she finished her degree. She then continued on to graduate school, as was her original plan. However, instead of taking a six-year course in clinical psychology, she opted for a two-year course in social work—more manageable for a single mom. 

Law school was not in the original game plan. While working for the non-profit organization Family Counseling Services, McCool was struck by the problems running through the legal system. She saw the need for lawyers who were trained in social work to reform the system from the inside out.

So, she rolled up her sleeves and went to law school.

The first year of law school is notoriously difficult. Horror stories abound of all-night study sessions that turn into caffeine-soaked test hours. But, ironically, it’s having a family that kept McCool from becoming a stressed out first-year. Law school will consume every extra minute if you let it, she says. It’s just a matter of saying when enough is enough.

“There are definitely days when I say, ‘Enough’s enough, I’m going to bed. I’m not reading criminal procedure,’” she says.
   
“My goal first year was really to feel like I could just be around the top 50 percent and I would be good to go. When I did much better than that, I was like ‘Awesome.’”

It is not an easy task to stay in the top 50 percent at a law school that is ranked among the country’s top thirty. She modestly credits her success to luck and just being good at school.

Her focus—on becoming an assistant district attorney and making the legal system a more effective place for social work cases—also keeps her from getting caught up in the rat race for big firm jobs.

“I’m lucky that I have a really specific purpose for being here and am just very intrinsically motivated,” she says. “This definitely is a place where you’ll easily get swept up in the whole madness about where you’ll place on the curve and what your grades are and rankings and applying for big firm jobs and all that.”
 
Her law school involvement doesn’t end in the classroom. McCool volunteers at the school’s pro bono office, which coordinates opportunities for students to help provide free legal services to those who otherwise couldn’t afford it. McCool is also actively involved in the school’s award winning mock trial team. After winning the region in February, the team will travel to Texas to compete in the national tournament.

That travel, like so many aspects of law school, will be made easier with the support of her husband of two years, Rob Schutte. The two were acquainted during undergrad and he has been a constant in her son Ethan’s life since he was eleven months old. 

“Co-parenting is really awesome!” McCool says with a laugh. “I recommend it. Much better than single parenting!”

Schutte, twenty-eight, is finishing his PhD in biomedical engineering at nearby Duke University.