Billable Hours: In 6 Minute Increments

The submitted images are from a larger semi-autobiographical project entitled Billable Hours in 6-minute increments. Using staged photographs shot in a documentary style, I take a humorous look at the obstacles facing women in the corporate workplace. Most large corporate law firms want to be thought of as caring, successful "families." They believe that they will be better able to attract talented employees and high-end clients if they are seen as a close community of elite professionals bound together by common interests and mutual admiration. Yet, these firms are as dysfunctional as any other family. Beneath a veneer of good manners, great wall art and nice looking suits, the office environment is rife with sexism, drama and conflict. Prior to becoming a photographer, I practiced law for over 20 years. Although I spent the majority of my legal career as a civil rights lawyer, my first lawyer job was as a junior associate at a large corporate law firm. With a sense of the absurd that I only discovered in hindsight, I explore the obstacles that women professionals face when the work place reality does not conform to the fiction that they were sold during the recruitment process. I examine how women lawyers respond to the pressure to conform to a predominantly male culture, the sexual innuendo, the tedium and the stress that defined my daily life at the law firm and that continue to define the corporate work environment today.