Breast is best says US giant
Latham & Watkins has launched a revolutionary programme to help new mummy lawyers breastfeed while travelling away with work.
The US giant — appearing to confirm that breast is indeed best — has created a system that allows its breastfeeding members of staff to ship their chilled milk from anywhere in the world.
In what is apparently a first for a large corporate law firm, Latham & Watkins will send a special chilled shipping unit (including storage bags, labels and additional packing tape) to the hotel where the lawyer is staying. Once filled, the unit — which can stay chilled for up to 72 hours — can be taken down to reception and FedExed to a destination of the mother’s choice. The firm will then foot the bill.
Legal Cheek understands this is a global programme, meaning the new initiative — launched in the US last week — will be made available to the firm’s London-based lawyers and staff.
Speaking about the new scheme, Julia Thompson, an associate at Latham’s Washington, DC office, explained she had initially explored the idea of trying to ship her milk using dry ice. Having eventually ruled this out over fears of feeding her baby milk that hadn’t been chilled properly, she welcomed the new scheme.
Meanwhile Latham partner Jennifer Koh, who is currently nursing her second baby, described the initiative as “amazing”. Revealing that the cooling unit “really does work”, Koh used the new delivery programme to ship her breast milk from New York back to her home in California.
According to reports, a number of organisations including Ernst & Young, IBM, Twitter and Johnson & Johnson have operated similar programmes for at least a year now.
Legal Cheek has contacted Latham & Watkins for comment.