Juggling Law School and Motherhood: One Woman’s Story

“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. He is done with classes and is primarily in the research phase, so he has more freedom with his time throughout the day. Freedom to, say, have lunch with Ethan at school to make sure he’s doing all right after being diagnosed with shingles on his leg. McCool says that most guys in their twenties wouldn’t have come within fifteen feet of her, knowing she had a child.

“He’s just pretty much the best guy on the face of the earth and I feel sorry that no one else can have him, but he’s totally mine,” McCool says. “For Rob, a lot of falling in love with me, poor thing, was shifting his perception of how things were going to be.”