Way back in dinosaur days (and you can use Mr. Peabody’s WABAC time machine if needed), consciousness raising was very much part of the vocabulary of the 1970s. (You already know I’m old, so stop with the snickers, please). It was, in my day, especially applied to the feminist movement.
This is about a different kind of consciousness raising. I’ve written a number of columns on the divide, schism, or whatever you want to call it between my fellow dinosaur lawyers and the millennial lawyers who will inherit the profession for better or worse. My most recent column on this topic had comments from Mr. A., a dinosaur lawyer who raised a number of points about millennial lawyers that he has encountered in his career.
In response to Mr. A.’s comments, I’ve received emails from millennial lawyers who, no surprise, take a markedly different view. I’m sharing some of the comments because I think that we dinosaurs need to consider them in our world view of millennial lawyers. Like it or not, they’re the ones who will be taking over the practices, whether we are carried out feet first from our desks or decide to chuck it all and sip mai-tais in some exotic place or even our own backyards. Our world will not be ours that much longer. We need to understand the mindset of millennials practicing today. We dinosaurs may have had similar experiences, but I don’t think that we’ve had them to the extent that millennials have.
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Financial and professional insecurity abound. Mr. J. lost his legal job in the 2008 recession (we’ll stipulate he wasn’t the only one and it wasn’t just millennials who got whacked). Most of his friends are educated professionals 35 and under who are doubtful about their futures in terms of financial and professional security. We dinosaurs didn’t have that same kind of insecurity. If you were a good lawyer, even if you didn’t have a book of business, you could find and keep a job. Technology was a glimmer in nerdy eyes; we didn’t worry then that it would replace us. (Ediscovery, online legal research, outsourcing, offshoring, and the like were terms that didn’t even come into the legal language until the 2000s.)
We also didn’t come out of school, undergrad and/or law school with the amount of student debt haunting millennials today. The economy is now in a “new normal,” says Mr. J., “…where uncertainty and insecurity are the norms and nothing seems likely to change any time soon. I understand why people get demoralized, and how that could negatively affect their work ethic.” Most dinosaurs didn’t worry all the time about their jobs evaporating; we were too busy doing those jobs and the plethora of work that provided them.
Mr. A. might not know these millennials. Mr. J. pointed out that it’s entirely possible that Mr. A.’s gripes about them may arise from the fact that he’s in-house and that his contacts may well be with Biglaw and the “cream” so to speak of the millennial crop. “…If arrogance and elitism of this millennials are the cream, then “…it doesn’t speak well of the cohort as a whole or perhaps it’s just a biased sampling unrepresentative of the whole.”
Millennials are less concerned with pure profit-seeking and are motivated by collaboration and people first. As Mr. J. noted, “Perhaps the other 99 percent of law grads who don’t end up in Biglaw fit that “People first” collaborative profile.” It might also be that Mr. A.’s frustration with the arrogance of youth is just the eternal tug of war between age and youth.
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Mr. J. relishes the feedback of older attorneys who take the time to offer anything, especially when it’s not owed and his ability to reciprocate in kind is uncertain at best. This is where the “pay it forward” theory comes in. I don’t think that dinosaur lawyers mentor with any payback expectation. I and so other many dinosaurs are happy to do whatever we can to help younger lawyers. Hopefully, when they are dinosaurs themselves, they’ll pay it forward too.
Mr. S. notes that management or the lack thereof is a real problem. “You have partners and bosses who have no idea how to use a computer or to manage employees. You want better workers? Be a better manager. Inspire people to do better, work harder and they will. But yeah, that takes effort, so no, let’s just go with the billable hour and complain about lazy workers.”
Point well taken. How many dinosaur lawyers have ever taken any management courses? When there’s a problem with an employee, what, if anything, do you do about it? Employees want/need feedback, and they don’t want to get it for the first time when they’re laid off or fired. (Sandbagging, anyone?) No one, in my experience, deliberately sets out to do a lousy job, but many times, they’re not given the tools with which to succeed or even survive. Sound familiar? Newer lawyers need guidance, they need support, and they need a sense of direction, at least initially. However, as Mr. S. notes, that’s not billable time and so that very important task of developing talent goes by the wayside.
Further, in the view of Mr. S., “companies with good management don’t complain about millennials.” There are some entitled, whiny crazy millennials, but “…guess what, there are some entitled, whiny, crazy people who are boomer partners at law firms (just scroll through the ATL articles about stapler-throwing, sexual advance-making, screaming…)” and the like.
So, dinosaurs, is it time for a little 21st century consciousness raising? Millennials are just trying to do what we have been able to do with much less worry about debt service and technology encroachment. Perhaps we need to consider those additional pressures that they face.
https://abovethelaw.com/2016/05/old-lady-lawyer-one-dinosaurs-point-of-view-on-millennials/
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].