Some mom lobbyists skip the negotiation process with potential employers altogether and launch their own businesses.

Melanie Nathanson, who left Glover Park Group last year to start Nathanson + Hauck with Megan Hauck, said she made the jump to have more control — control not only over her client relationships but her personal ones, too.

“There’s a huge amount of internal work just to make sure everyone’s on the same page in a bigger firm,” she said. “We can take that time and invest that in our clients and also with my son.”

Owning her own business, though, means having to fill out her own Lobbying Disclosure Act forms, finding IT help when the computers go haywire (which they did) and all the other underpinnings of operating a business. Even so, Nathanson said, it still works out that she has more time to directly work for her clients and to be with her son.

“This was as much about making sure I could be a good mother and wife and be the best for my clients,” she said.

The full Roll Call article can be found on their web site.