Old People

Old Lady Lawyer: What Exactly Is A Work Ethic?

What has technology wrought in the legal profession? It has changed so much that it’s hard to count all the ways.

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This is an issue that is one for the ages, that is, the disconnect between the dinosaur lawyers (raise your hands if you’re one of us) and the newer (e.g. less than ten years or so) lawyers among us. It’s an issue that seems to have opened the generation gap, which is what my generation called it, from a gap to a chasm.

What I have been hearing from my dinosaur lawyer colleagues, people who don’t complain, don’t whine, just put their noses to the grindstone and do the work, is the perception that the newer lawyers don’t have the same work ethic.

Dinosaur lawyers think that the newer lawyers are not willing to do the grunt work that we had to do in the dinosaur days: researching in the library (what’s a library?), creating from scratch all sorts of motions and pleadings (as well as responding to) in the days before any sort of word processing program existed (carbon paper for copies, anyone?), and other work done in the days before technology. List serves didn’t exist to answer questions; that was the law library’s job.

My take on this issue is different. I see newer lawyers working incredibly hard to make a go of practice in very difficult times. I don’t see a lack of work ethic. What I do see is a different kind of work ethic that has arisen because of technology. I see the older and the newer among us talking at cross purposes (cue the mediator in me).

What has technology wrought in the profession? It has changed so much that it’s hard to count all the ways, but I’ll try a few:

Legal research: yes, we dinosaur lawyers spent hours and sometimes days researching statutes, case law, legislative history, treatises, and so on. Now, with a few keyboard strokes (and a password), the heavy lifting of legal research is done in the flash of a billable moment. Statutes still have to be analyzed, the cases read and Shepardized, and the other sources consulted, and all that takes time, but getting to the point is so much faster now.

We dinosaur lawyers didn’t have that option, and so, what may seem to dinosaur lawyers as hanging around drinking lattes may instead be reading, reviewing, researching online, heads hidden from view by laptops or desktop monitors, rather than stacking up codes, digests, and reporters in the library to read, discard, and reshelve. (That was always a pet peeve of mine at places I worked; is it that big a deal to reshelve a book so that someone else can find it, rather than going from office to office or nowadays emailing, piteously seeking that one volume that contains the case that may hold the key? Reshelving: what a concept.)

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I miss the dinosaur research techniques. What I liked about them was flipping through the statutes but more often the reporters on my way to read a cited case. Many times I came across a case that I didn’t need for the particular matter I was then researching, but that case would be very helpful in another case on my desk. Technology has made that kind of serendipitous (aha!) moment a thing of the past, and I think we’re the poorer for it.

Connectivity: just because a lawyer is not in her/his office doesn’t mean she is not on the case, so to speak. The trend is away from office space to concepts like hoteling, co-working spaces, working at home and using executive space, even coffee shops, for meetings. Younger clients don’t seem to be impressed by swanky offices; in fact, some of them find them off-putting. (Any correlation, they wonder, between billing rates and high-end office space?)

Does it matter where and or when the work gets done as long as it is? What seems, to dinosaur lawyers, like a “lack of work ethic” may be anything but. Perception is unfortunately often reality and so dinosaur lawyers see newer lawyers out and about and wonder what they’re doing. We old folks need to get a grip.

When I had been practicing for five or six years and then working in house, a corporate client had what we lawyers laughingly called “bed check.” Office hours were 8:15 to 4:45. A secretary (always female in those days) would walk around the floor at 8:30 and 4:30, pad in hand, to see who was there in the morning and who hadn’t sneaked out before quitting time. She kept a calendar of those of us who had court appearances, depos, or other appointments, but if not on the calendar, there were always some curious people (they had way too much time on their hands and couldn’t mind their own business) who wanted to know why that particular lawyer was not at his/her desk at bed check times. Of course, the calendar, published the week before, didn’t include appointments with clients or other last minute events. Ex partes, anyone?

Lawyers today are able to work faster, smarter, and better. Given that clients are loathe to pay much, if anything, for services rendered, the more efficient the lawyer is in using technology, in meeting clients on their turf, the happier the client, and isn’t that, at the end of the day, the name of the game? Clients want and need lawyers who are tech savvy and knowledgeable about how to use that technology to benefit them. If any doubt, then read Daniel Susskind’s book of some years back, The End of Lawyers?: Rethinking the Nature of Legal Services (affiliate link).

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It’s not the same work ethic that dinosaur lawyers know and “love.” It’s not better or worse; it’s just different.

Jill Switzer is closing in on 40 (not a typo) years as a active member of the State Bar of California. Yes, folks, California, that state west of the Sierra Nevada, which everyone likes to diss. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see old lawyers, young lawyers, and those in-between interact — it’s not always pretty. You can reach her by email at oldladylawyer@gmail.com.

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