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Beyond Biglaw: On The Stigma Of Living 'At Home'

If you're a young lawyer who still lives with your parents, how should you handle that fact?

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Beyond BiglawWith all the discussion about Biglaw associate raises lately, I got to wondering about how associates are handling the rising housing costs in many cities nowadays. I know that most associates are on the younger side, having recently graduated law school. But it is unclear to me just how different those associates may be from their millennial peers, other than in terms of their high, and now higher, salaries. For example, the popular media is replete with stories of how millennials are adjusting to the working world, or at least trying to. (The one about millennials learning how to email was particularly enlightening, considering how important the ability to craft a proper email is for lawyers.) Pay raises aside, are Biglaw associates, or for that matter any recent law school graduates, more mature and ready to perform in a serious business environment than the average millennial? Hard to know, though I don’t doubt that law firms big and small hope their younger workers are ready to perform right away. In my view, one element of that maturity has to do with housing choices.

There is a broader societal phenomenon in operation, of course. Apparently, there is parity between the numbers of millennials who are married and those who still live at home with their parents. Maybe the ones who are married and still living with their parents are having the most fun. Maybe not. But there is no doubt that many law students graduate with crushing debt loads, and considering the housing costs in many major markets, the temptation to live at home must surely be there for at least some of them — particularly for those associates working in their hometowns, like I was when I was an associate. Since I got married right after graduating law school, there was no chance I was living at home while working at a major law firm. But the statistics suggest that there are at least some current associates who are.

What makes this issue interesting is that it coincides with yet another general societal trend, which we can refer to as the “telecommuting” revolution. It is well-known that more people than ever are working from home, and that even sophisticated companies have embraced allowing certain personnel to do so on a regular basis. In fact, I have seen that certain Biglaw firms are considering or have instituted official telecommuting policies for associates. Of course, partners (and depending on the firm, associates as well) have been telecommuting for decades at many firms. Likewise, one of the appeals of the small law firm life is increased flexibility in terms of telecommuting, especially relative to Biglaw firms that have not yet embraced the concept. Since rent is the second-biggest expense for most law firms, however, there is ample motivation for all law firms to look for ways to reduce the amount of space they take to house employees on a daily basis. So the ranks of firm that allow, or even encourage, telecommuting is likely to grow.

We are left with two trends at play when considering associate housing choices. One is the increasing numbers of millennials living “at home,” and the other is the increasing number of law firms comfortable letting associates work at home. You would think, therefore, that millennial associates can comfortably do both, without any negative impact on their careers. But that is not the case, particularly with respect to living at home. We can discuss how best to work from home — for those living in their own places — as an associate in a later column. For now, let’s address why there would be a real stigma to a younger lawyer letting clients or colleagues know they still live with their parents.

Law is a conservative profession, where changes in attitudes can take a long time to set in. Importantly, law is also a competitive profession, where clients and other lawyers are constantly looking for reasons to disqualify younger lawyers as unworthy of attention or hiring in the first place. Accordingly, there will always be the risk that a client or colleague would find the fact that a junior lawyer lives with their parents off-putting. It may not be fair, but the risk is a real one that this fact could be enough of a basis to disqualify that junior associate from advancement or employment. Clients want their lawyers to be independent, bold thinkers with judgment and maturity. While they understand that such characteristics take time to develop in younger lawyers, they also don’t want to feel like they are hiring someone still dependent on their parents. As a junior lawyer, you can’t expect sympathy from anyone, no matter how dire your financial straits.

What if you are a millennial who actually does live at home? For one, you should not advertise that fact to anyone you encounter as a lawyer. If it comes out, you should be prepared to quickly indicate that this is a temporary situation, and that you are actively looking for a way out of your parents’ home, or that you expect to find a new place very soon. In fact, you are better off saying you sleep at your desk at work than to admit to sleeping in your childhood bed. Like it or not, nearly all clients or fellow lawyers would use such knowledge against you in some way. Even sympathetic fellow millennials should not be trusted. When you work in a competitive and conservative profession, you don’t want to create further obstacles to career advancement. No matter how great it is to have your laundry done by mom, or to get a home-cooked meal on demand, those comforts are not worth the potential career cost of letting it be known that you are a homebody.

Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.

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Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of Kroub, Silbersher & Kolmykov PLLC, an intellectual property litigation boutique. The firm’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gkroub@kskiplaw.com or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.

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