In-person trials are starting up again.
In some states, judges never believed there was a pandemic. Those judges just barely slowed down.
In other states, judges experimented with Zoom trials.
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But now, life is starting to open up again in a fair number of places.
I heard about a trial recently that made me think about a (possible) generational difference in the law. The trial was in-person. The trial lawyers were in one city, and the trial was 1,000 miles away; the lawyers would have to fly to the trial site. If folks were aggressive about it, they all could have had one, and some two, shots of the vaccine before they left. So the senior trial lawyer asked his team: “Who’s willing to fly to the trial site?”
One associate — the senior-most of the bunch — said yes.
Two associates — the junior members of the team — said no. (Yeah, that’s a lot of associates. It was a big case.)
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That got me to thinking.
Suppose, a generation ago, a senior partner had asked, “You have to run through a burning building to get to the trial site. Are you willing?”
Before he finished the question, the smoldering associates would have appeared on the far side of the structure.
A trial!
We were always quiet about this, because we didn’t want the firm to know, but we would have paid the firm money for the firm to allow us to watch a trial. And more money to examine a witness. At big firms, watching is as close to trial experience as many associates get. It’s where the action is. You’d do anything for a trial.
I realize, of course, that my comparison is not completely apt. There were no pandemics back in the ’80s and ’90s, and partners weren’t really asking you to gamble your life for the opportunity to attend a trial. But partners did ask you to take on a new case when you were already swamped with work — and ruin, if not actually forfeit, your life — for the chance to see a trial. Without exception, junior associates accepted those chances; indeed, associates fought over them.
Are we really seeing a change in attitudes about work-life balance?
Alright, alright: I hear the chorus of you saying in unison, “Okay, boomer.” Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m just part of an older generation thinking that the younger generation is less committed to its careers.
But it’s also possible that’s true: The younger generation may in fact be less committed to its careers.
It’s also possible that’s desirable: Why did people ever ruin their lives for the right to participate in a trial?
In any event, this came screaming through to me when I watched a real-life experiment: The times may be a-changin’.
Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at [email protected].