Susan Dent - Day in the life

Every day I start off with coffee (I’m in love with my Nespresso vurtuo machine) and hangout with my wife and our Siberian cat, Inga. Before work to get myself ready for the day, I’ll either go for a swim or a run around our neighborhood.

Our office is still hybrid working from home, so I will try to get to the office by 8:30 or sit down at my desk at home to start working by then, depending on the day. I usually have my earbuds in listening to white noise or lo-fi music while I go through e-mails and write out my to-do list for the day, or, if that day happens to be a morning court appearance, I will prepare myself for that (all of our Court appearances in California are currently online). I get my best work done in the mornings when I sit down and knock things out without much distraction.

As I am on the West Coast, 10AM is the typical time for any of my firm-affinity group meetings. I am on the US Diversity and Inclusion Committee, which meets once a month via zoom with members across the US and the UK. Seeing others and working on firm citizenship is a nice treat and mini-break added into the day.

We have a weekly check-in meeting each Monday with attorneys and staff, mainly to discuss the week’s workload and to talk about any novel legal issues that we are facing. The meeting gives us a good opportunity to feel more connected in a time where so many of us are remote.

Lunch is usually spent on a walk for me. If I’m in the office, I’ll walk over to the Ferry Building (which is a beautiful historical landmark in SF), and grab a coffee from Blue Bottle, or something to eat from Amazon Go, and then spend my lunch walking outside to get some sunshine and to break up the day. If I’m at home, I’ll generally fix myself a big salad or grain bowl, and then go on a 30 minute walk through my neighborhood and listen to some music or call a friend to catch up.

We often connect with attorneys in several offices across the US so in any given day, I am lucky enough to speak to counsel in the Miami, New York, and New Jersey offices. We chat about cases, run ideas off one another, or just check in.

I will usually leave the office or shut my computer around 5:30 every night, and start to wind down. I try to make it a practice to check my e-mails only periodically the remainder of the evening as to give myself time to unwind from the day and focus on family. My wife is a bit of an amateur mixologist, so we will typically put music on and try a new cocktail recipe then head outside to sit in our yard and watch the sunset or check on the garden. I’ve recently gotten into gardening and we now have lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit, and tangerine trees in the backyard that are just now starting to fruit!