This article focuses on five legal and judicial careers in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. It analyzes the mutual impact work and family have on women and men practicing law in the private sector and in the public sector, and in careers with more or less female participation, to examine the ways in which the boundaries between professionalism and private life are been dislocated. The aim of the research is to show how work and home overlap each other instead of being apart as supported by the hegemonic ideology of professionalism, which produces discursive boundaries between these spheres. © 2016, Universidade Estadual de Campinas UNICAMP. All Right reserved.201646245277