My column last week about what millennials want prompted some thoughtful comments. We dinosaurs grew up in such a different world, as one of my readers pointed out.
We grew up in the 1960s (or earlier), but let’s talk about the 1960s because that was my decade of growing up. Dinosaurs lived through three assassinations: President John Kennedy, Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, and New York Senator and 1968 Democratic candidate Robert F. Kennedy. Our war was Vietnam, long and ugly and ultimately lost. The struggle for civil rights was front and center.
To millennials, our history is ancient history, just as World War I, the “war to end all wars” was to us. (And if you haven’t read Erich Maria Remarque’s classic of that war, All Quiet on the Western Front (affiliate link), at least stream the movie.) The Sixties of our lifetimes are now fifty years old, and thus, the millennial frame of reference is so different from ours. That’s something we dinosaurs need to understand and accept when hiring them, working with them, supervising them, mentoring them, collaborating with them.
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I’ll let this reader, a young lawyer practicing in the Midwest (vague enough for you?) say that better than I ever could:
1. Most of us millennials can’t remember a pre – 9/11 world.
2. The first president any of us voted for was likely President Obama.
3. Most of us have been using a computer since before we could spell it.
4. None, and I mean none of us, experienced the “good old days” of the legal profession — we’ve all had to hustle our way to where we are.If the great recession of 2008 taught us anything it is that there are no guarantees. As high school students we saw our parents and our friends’ parents lose their homes and their jobs with companies where they “paid their dues” or saw their retirement funds decimated only to be shown the door.
Doing doc review and other menial tasks in the hopes of one day coming into the good graces of a senior partner just… to be tossed to the side when the going gets tough like it did in 2008 isn’t exactly why any of us went to law school. 2008 taught us that paying your dues doesn’t buy you much.
All of that being said, I don’t know any millennial who isn’t willing to do the work, whatever it is, to get the job done. We just want a piece of the pie.
Okay, dinosaurs, time for a little self-reflection. We can remember the days before the TSA, when you could walk to the airline gate to either see someone off or greet someone arriving. We can remember the days when we cast our first vote for President. (I won’t tell you who my first vote was for, but he lost.) We can remember the days of carbon paper, white-out, and the best electric typewriter ever, the IBM Selectric. We remember Wang word processing equipment, and yes, gasp, dictating machines and those mini-cassettes that we would give to our secretaries (not legal assistants in those days). For almost all of us, except those who are computer illiterate (shame on you), the efficiency in turning out letters and documents today is a huge plus in streamlining routine legal work.
Most of all, I think that deep in our hearts, we dinosaurs do miss the “good old days” of the profession, when it was practiced with civility, collegiality, and professionalism, when it was a profession and not a business. I think that any dinosaur who says otherwise is not playing with a full deck.
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The millennial reader who is one year post bar passage landed a job with a former Biglaw partner who had gone out on his own. So, he’s working for a solo and getting substantial experience right off the bat. (Clearly, not the case in Biglaw or anything even close to that size.)
The millennial has already taken and defended one deposition, participates in litigation strategy, appears in court, drafts pleadings and motions, and is learning how to work with clients. Working with clients, hearing their stories, managing their expectations (sorting out the real from the “what planet are you on?”) are the kinds of skills that are not acquired in any other than a minimal way in law school, assuming that there’s any acquisition of those at all.
Bravo to the millennial’s employer who gets it, that the only way to learn is by doing, not by watching, and trusting this millennial enough to give him a chance to learn what he needs to know in order to be a good lawyer; now if only other lawyers and law firms would give other millennials similar chances.
A 2015 Multi-Generational Leadership survey by Workplace Trends looked at millennials who now manage older workers. “However, a significant portion of the older employees they’re [the millennials] managing don’t have faith in their abilities. The only way to overcome this unique challenge is through a range of professional learning & development delivery options, including formal training, mentoring, coaching, and online self-directed learning.” Is that really news to anyone? If so, where have you been this last decade?
That’s part of the new reality of practice, one of many new normals in the profession, that we dinosaurs need to pay it forward. When all of us are taking dirt naps, do you really want non-legal providers to be servicing your clients? No, I didn’t think so. Get with the program, then. Give millennials opportunities sooner rather than later. Mentor them, coach them, give them chances for substantive experience. Help them be the best they can be. It’s what you wanted for yourself, right?
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 [email protected].