Old Lady Lawyer: Is There A Failure To Communicate?

Every month, a bunch of us old lady lawyers get together for lunch in memory of one of our friends who died way too young from ovarian cancer. We had been, in one form or another, her drivers to and from chemotherapy (this was before Uber) and her support group. She had organized these monthly luncheons for some years, and the decision was made to continue the tradition. A couple of the lawyers are retired, some still working in various capacities, and one of us is a legal recruiter. She gives me the very best ideas for columns (and she knows that I’m talking about her if she reads this column, which she usually does.)

I always ask how business is and she said, this time, it’s picking up, but the issues remain the same. Every firm that’s looking wants someone with a book of business, no one wants to train, and no one wants newbies. Those now in their 50s are starting to think about succession planning and, guess what, everyone was laid off during the Great Recession, and so the field is pretty fallow for those looking to hire clones.

The conversation this week was about language and how the dinosaur lawyers need to be able to communicate with millennial lawyers. What does that mean? It means ditching the jargon that we dinosaurs grew up with, used, and still use. We are dating ourselves just by words alone. While we don’t need to speak millennial per se, we do need to understand that many references that we use in our everyday idiomatic language go way over the heads of the millennials.

Here are just a few examples that my recruiter friend has encountered:

1. “Hitting on all cylinders,” meaning working at full strength, maximum effort, and the like. I suppose that made sense when cylinders in vehicles mattered and I guess that men use that particular term way more than women.

2. “Girl or gal” instead of “woman.” To me and probably most, if not all women, it’s an incredibly cringe-worthy term. You’re showing your age if you use that term and many, if not all, women lawyers find it offensive and demeaning. So, as Ralph Kramden on the 1950s TV sitcom The Honeymooners said “Now cut that out.”

3. “Carbon copy.” Do any millennials who routinely use the “cc” on emails and letters wonder how the “cc” came to be? We used carbon paper in the days before copiers. Carbon paper was icky, got all over your hands and clothes, and if you had to correct a typo on the original, trying to correct the carbon copy was a royal pain. Three cheers for copiers and printers that can spew out as many copies as necessary. You still see carbon paper used for various purposes, but the legal world has thankfully driven a stake through it.

4. “Kodak moment.” What does that phrase mean? It meant and still means a memorable moment. For us dinosaurs, getting a Kodak Brownie camera with a roll of film or two made for an awesome gift. No digital photography for us. We took photos (usually a roll was eight or ten shots), cranked the film to the end, popped the back of the camera open and then took the film to the camera store to be developed. A week or so later, we would have our photos. We dinosaurs were not accustomed to immediate gratification then. Immediate gratification, in the form of digital, rather than film cameras, the ability to see those photos right away, print them ourselves, post them to whatever websites we want has pushed Kodak to the side of the road.

5. “Where’s the beef?” Ah, memories of Clara Peller. Wendy’s hamburger chain used the phrase as an advertising slogan in the 1980s. The ads featured a little old lady (and no, I don’t look anything like her, at least I don’t think so) named Clara Peller who would ask “Where’s the beef?” touting Wendy’s burgers as better than the competition. YouTube has several of the commercials if you’re curious. Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter’s Vice President used it as a slogan when he ran for President in 1984 against the incumbent and very popular President Ronald Reagan.

6. “The Fuzz.” No, I’m not talking about the lint on your jacket or the pilling on your sweater. We boomers used this term to refer to police. There are lots of other terms used for law enforcement today. “Fuzz” is not one of them.

The point my recruiter friend made was that in order to compete in today’s environment where millennials are often the ones doing the hiring and will be doing even more of that in the future, dinosaurs need to toss these dated and antiquated expressions, especially those of us looking to make a move in our later years. We can’t change our year of admission to the Bar, we can’t and shouldn’t change all our years of experience; some do change their appearance to look younger. However, we can change the language we use when speaking with millennials.

In the movie Cool Hand Luke, a main character says that “what we’ve got here is a failure to communicate.” I’m not saying that we need to use millennial language, but I am suggesting that we think carefully about what we say and what that says about us. There’s enough age discrimination without adding language as code for “old.”

Archie Bunker, in the 1970s sitcom, All in the Family, used to tell his wife Edith on more than one occasion, “Stifle yourself.” If you’re not familiar with the series, you should be, especially in these times. Perhaps we should think before we speak.

I’ll stipulate that this column is full of 20th century references, but they’re just some of the ones that shaped boomers. We dinosaurs need to watch our language; millennials need to understand the popular culture that made us.

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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].