I have man tits and am first

FIRST

My firm does not provide official lactation rooms per se; but they have been most gracious and accomodating by allowing me to use an empty office near me [I'm non-atty] and allowing me time to pump. they have been great throughout the whole maternity leave and return process. it has facilitated the ability to continue to breast feed.

WHOA! Can we please find a different picture to feature breastfeeding?

That photo is TOTALLY inappopriate. How many jersy-clad Africans work at the kinds of lawfirms that would consider providing a "lactation room"?

None, that's how many. That photo is over the line, Lat. Please remove it ASAP.

Most firms don't need lactation rooms, since you have your own office anyway.

You need man boobs to be first. I like watching people in lactation rooms and hopefully geting a taste test.

Yeah, that photo shows a black person and her child. It's patently racist. Replace it with a picture of a lawyer breastfeeding, which should be easy to find.

What do these lacatation rooms look like? Is it just an open room with the moms just pumping and babies feeding away in plain view to anyone else in the room? Or are their dressingroom type things?

1:59, LOL, best comment ever...

Since she doesn't have an Afro, she could get a job at Cleary Gottlieb.

What's with the African garb? It looks like she's wearing a Pistons jersey.

They're actually becoming pretty common across corporate america. Just because a lot of lawyers have their own offices doesn't mean they can pump in them. Between doors without locks, see-through shades, or no shades at all y'all best not be getting naked in your offices. And just because lawyers get offices, most staff don't. And moms do not want to pump in germy bathrooms. It's a great benefit and it does show how family-conscious a firm is.

I like how this post is categorized under "Food."

OMG AFRICAN MOM WEARING A CHAUNCEY BILLUPS JERSEY OMG

She is an attorney. STB has begun outsourcing.

re - the photo. My only problem is that kid looks about six years old.

2:10, you're being ethnocentric. My uncle, who is Thai, was breast fed until he was six. Just because American kids are weaned earlier doesn't make late breastfeeding "wrong."

that photo is fucked. it is only tangentially related to the substance of the post --which is: whether law firms are commonly providing lactation rooms, NOT that women breastfeed.

the photo essentializes black womanhood down to a cartoonish idiocy.

2:17--just like your statements are only tangentially realted to the post.

Um Ewww!

The photo is fucked up.

Poor judgement, Lat.

My firm provides a "mothers' room," but as mentioned above, it is mostly for the use of the staff, since attorneys and attorney-types have private offices (with actual non-transparent doors).

Lat, why not just use a photo of a baby?

I guess you think a photo of a grinning African woman sitting under a tree breastfeeding a too-old child just too funny to pass on.

I thought this sort of thing was beneath you... cheap laughs at the expense of an anonymous, powerless third-world nobody for the benefit of your comparatively elite readers.

Very impressive.

I can't wait for your 15 minutes to end.

2:16 - this isn't social studies class. We're talking about american moms at american law firms.

Breastfeeding 6-year-olds to $190k!

While I was at Columbia Law School, they converted one of the public bathrooms into a lactation room. What was cool was that they found one of those iconic male/female bathroom signs, but this one actually depicted lactation. Lat should have found an image of this instead of his poor choice of photo.

http://www.umich.edu/~urecord/0304/Jun07_04/13.shtml

Go Blue!

I'm waiting for Lat's 15 minutes to begin.

My understanding is that our "nap room" is really supposed to be the pumping room. Not that I have ever seen anyone use it for anything.

Lat is so over already.

UTR was the best of him. Since then, it's all been cheap and easy garbage....

Then why do you visit Lat's site? I don't know the exact traffic stats, but it seems that ATL is more widely read than UTR ever was.

Where do moms who pump at work store their milk? PEople are always stealing stuff out of our communual fridge, so I'm wondering what I would do.

Greenberg Traurig has two nursing rooms because some of our offices have windows into the hallway. Women do use them. They have comfy chairs and refrigerators so you don't have to use the main fridges in the pantries that everyone uses for their lunch.

Actually, this makes sense people...California law requires employers to provide nursing mothers a private location (and specifically says NO bathroom stalls) to express milk or breastfeed. It's not a perk...its a requirement.

that photo needs to come down.

Troutman Sanders in Atlanta has one. It has a fridge, CD player, cushy chair, and resource materials for pregnant and nursing moms.

And to the previous poster, the room is for the use of one mom at a time, no "group pumping" necessary.

I pump in my office, but use the mother's room fridge when I forget my cooler (which happens about once a week) so that other people don't touch my milk when they are getting their lunches, etc. The stuff is like GOLD and I don't want it contaminated!

"Lat, why not just use a photo of a baby?"

Better yet, how about a photo of a breast?

Breasts... mmmmmm.

uh.....don't these firms have bathrooms?

People who love UTR but hate ATL are like those kids who love a band before it gets popular and then accuse it of selling out when it becomes popular.

But Billy Merck still sucks.

I love the people worried about people touching or using their breast milk. I actually get the impression that 2:44 is kidding, but take my word for it breast feeding mothers, we don't want to handle your breast milk anymore than you want us to. Yuck!

I think it's funny that people who not only take the time to read ATL, but also take the time to comment here, are telling Lat that he is a nobody.

I appreciate the explanation, David, but I still urge you to pick one of the other photos. You know what is wrong with the one you selected.

try this one:

http://www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=search&txt=%22breastfeeding%22&w=1

Get over it you lame-os. Its a picture of a mother breastfeeding. Grow up.

2:53(2) -- I agree with you and find your comment somewhat ironic (and insulting) at the same time.

Lat, you're a winner! Don't cave into pressure from the PC crazies.

as 2:56 proves, there are other similar photos available at your photo site.

it is obvious that you chose the black woman over the white woman to ridicule the former and preserve the dignity of the latter.

Why is this site becoming the new Autoadmit? The photo is tacky.

With comments like 3 p.m.'s, I often have a hard time figuring out whether the people who cry un-PC on this site are actually being serious, or making fun of people who are overly PC. It's fine if you don't like the picture (I personally think it's funny and am surprisingly not a card-carrying member of the KKK), but saying that Lat picked this photo to "preserve the dignity" of a white woman seems like a bit of a stretch.

it's only a stretch if you're a misogynistic yahoo who believes breastfeeding is somehow degrading to a mother.

The picture is great! I like that it isn't just your typical teeny tiny infant breastfeeding picture.

I put my milk in the thermos bag that came with my pump, and with the frozen ice bags to keep it cool. That way everything is together and I didn't forget the milk when I was leaving for the day.

This is a great perk, I wish more people were listing which firm offices have these types of facilities.

FWIW, this is actually law in California. As a result, a lot of Cali firms practice this nationwide. http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=lab&group=01001-02000&file=1030-1033

and the kid looks to be about 2-3. The WHO recommends breastfeeding for at least 2 years.

Our infant mortality rate wouldn't be up there in the top of the 'modern' world if we had more lactation going on...
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/05/08/mothers.index/index.html

Look at the other photos on the front page of this site:

Post about Harvard Review with photo of Harvard crest;
Post about Yale death with photo of YLS Campus;
Post about Bar-Bri settlement with a photo of a Bar-Bri book;
Post about LEWW with photo of winning couple;
Post about Kilpatrick Stockton raise with a photo of their logo.

ONLY on the post about lactation rooms at corporate law firms is their an incongruous photo.

This is NOT an innocent case of “no better photo.” A choice was made that reflects, at best, a simmering racist propsensity, and, at worst, an open act of racial hostility cloaked as an innocent gaffe.

Let's call it like it is

3:17: Read the damn article. It doesn't link infant mortality to non-breastfeeding. Enough with the scare tactics.

3:25: Totally. There was a picture of a breastfeeding med student in the NY Times yesterday - use that instead.

The pic is in poor taste. And Lat's justification for it is even worse.

Lat -- type "lactation" and use the glass of milk picture if you have to use something.

3:25, you mean:

"ONLY on the post about lactation rooms at corporate law firms is there an incongruous photo."

But I otherwise agree.

Man, that's one nappy headed ho.

what scare tactics? it is the truth.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=AbstractPlus&list_uids=15121986&query_hl=8&itool=pubmed_docsum

the only offices with locks on the doors at my firm are those of the breastfeeding moms

Excellent Googling work, 3:39. Please get back to your internship with the La Leche League zealots.

I love subject of the photo, and find it TOTALLY appropriate to the post. Thanks Lat!

David,

The use of shadow and angle in your piece entitled "Three-Hole Punch" is breathtaking.

Sincerely,
Art Lovers Everywhere

I support the photo as well. Please keep it and get rid of the commenter's who don't like it. I find them to be sick, disrespectful and generally cause for outrage.

Instead of lactation rooms, my NYC BigLaw firm offers free sterilization.

We have a sperm bank on the 4th floor- I stop by to make regular deposits.

If you have a problem with the photo, don't pick up National Geographic at your doctor's office.

Lactation rooms are nice and all, but if you don't have access to your computer and telephone, you'll lose precious billable time that will ultimately take you away from your little one.
So, get one of these hands free pumping accessories -www.easyexpressionproducts.com and maybe a poncho, lock your door, or if your firm won't put a lock on, buy a doorstop so no one can open the door, cover over any glass windows in your door and triple bill away....

I gather no one reading this actually cares about the question on the floor, but Sutherland Asbill (Atlanta) has a mother's room which includes a lazy boy rocking chair, a screen (just in case one of the other mothers with a key walks in while occupied) and a fridge.

We have locks on our office but I personally don't want to keep a breast pump in my office, have people walking by hear it in use, have people knocking on my door while it's in use, and go walking out into the hall way with my equipment to wash and milk to store. I like having a quiet retreat on the HR floor.

The people who are offended by the photo are misogynist racists. What, Lat isn't allowed to post pictures of black people? Breastfeeding is undignified?

You're a bunch of jackasses. Lat, the photo's fine. Anyone who thinks there's something wrong with black women breastfeeding (statistically shown to improve IQ, btw) should git back to the part of Mississippi they came from where there's no internet access.

It's actually a beautiful photo. Here is the full version:

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/130448

Um, 2:56, those photos are NSFW.

i don't know why race is the big issue on these boards regarding the photo... i'm more offended that the kid looks like he should be in 1st grade...

is that woman wearing a basketball jersey?

I got my own fridge in my office, a door that locks, and i can bill, bill, bill, while pumping away

My firm had a breast pump that plugged into a USB port... but it was being "abused" and was taken away.

You ALL have been drinking African breast milk for years... in your coffee.

Love,

Flavia aka Flavia of Love

FIRST!!

bingham DC has lots of lactation rooms! Enjoy!

A couple of things:

1. Because I'm God (check the "Posted by:" line), and all that I say and do is right, Lat needs to take down that picture and replace it with something much more politically correct and palatable, such has a screen-shot from a lactation porn.

2. A good way to make extra money to pay back those student loans is to steal the pumped breast milk from the lactation room fridge, and then sell the colostrum-rich white gold to bodybuilders. Profit!

CFM: When I came back to work, I bought a small fridge from The Sharper Images for my office and stored milk there -- avoiding the ick factor associated with the communcal fridge (my ick factor at storing my precious baby's milk in a community fridge, and everyone else's ick factor at the idea of having breast milk near their leftovers).

Now that I'm done breastfeeding, I use it for last night's leftovers. And it runs hot and cold. Not a bad deal.

Sorry for the delayed response -- was out for the holidays.

Damn, and I thought WCL (American Univ.) was weird for having lactation rooms in the law library.

I assume that "lactation room" really is the correct description, since in order to actually breastfeed at work the mother would need to have her baby with her in the office. Surely that doesn't happen, does it?