Law Firm Partners Complain About Work Ethic of Generation Y Associates

Law.com reports that many partners are beginning to question the work ethic of generation Y associates (those born after 1978).  The major complaint seems to be a “flabby work ethic and an off-putting sense of entitlement.”  Some interesting observations in this article include:

·                    Associates are becoming more vocal about meaningless work even if it pays well.

·                    Time for personal life is an important factor for many young lawyers.

·                    Some partners view associates as less willing to take charge of their career.

One wonders if generation Y associates will have a significant influence on the traditional law firm culture of pyramid structure will high billable hours supporting the top. 

Thanks to David Giacalone (see comment below) for correcting the link and noting the citation to the work of Patrick Schiltz.  I do refer students to this article and it does expose the problems with the current model.

Comments

[Brad Wendel]

I read that article, too, and laughed out loud when I read the complaint from firms that associates lack loyalty to the firm. As a Gen-X'er and former law firm associate, I remember all too well the "loyalty" of firms who laid off entire classes of associates when the economy took a slight downturn. The message learned by every associate who remained in the firm was that loyalty ranked near the bottom on the scale of values in big-firm life.

Judging by the experience of my cohort of associates (JD '94), the interest in having a balance between work, family, and personal life is not unique to Gen. Y. Many talented people left law firms because it was impossible to retain a semblance of normal life and comply with the ever-increasing demand for billable hours. It's true that associates bear some responsibility for bidding up salaries into the stratosphere, which naturally increased the number of hours expected in return. Maybe some people are willing to trade having a life for making a gazillion dollars. But I've often wondered why law firms don't create two different tracks: (1) the traditional track, where you bill like crazy, make tons of money, and have a shot at making partner, and (2) the track for people who want to have a life, where you have realistic billing requirements (say 1800 hours a year), make less money and aren't in line for huge bonuses, and may never make equity partner but can stay on permanently in some kind of "of counsel" role. I know many smart, hard-working lawyers who might have stayed in law firms if it had been possible to achieve a reasonable balance between work and personal life. Does that mean they have a "flabby work ethic"? No -- it means they're interested in being people as well as lawyers.

[John Steele]

That's funny, because when I read that article I had much the same reactions as you two. We have a sea change going on. Thirty years ago most lawyers were solos -- outright owners of their business. Once you added all the partners in smaller firms, you had massive numbers of US lawyers with an owner's mentality. With consolidation, larger firms, and much higher billable requirements for becoming partner, that ownership status is less and less available. That doesn't mean associates don't care about their careers; it just means that economics make ownership less possible.

I think owners and wanna-be-owners do have different attitudes than people who rationally assume they will not be owners. There will be a huge attitude shift as lawyers change from owners to employees, that's for sure.

[David Giacalone]

I hope you are all correct, and BigLaw partners learn some important lessons about priorities and values from Generation Y.

The article you wanted to link to is at http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1109597705556 .

Do you assign Prof. Schiltz's famed article to your law students? See http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ethicalesq/2003/09/27#a296 .

[Scott Moss]

I entirely agree with your sentiment that this allegedly "Gen Y phenomenon" is just an increase in a trend we 90s law students started -- realizing there wasn't necessarily a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, or that the path to the end of the rainbow was too personally costly.

As to why firms "don't create two different tracks": I think many firms in fact do this now -- I don't have enpirical data to say "most," but I know that even some of the biggest firms (e.g., Cleary Gottlieb in New York) have exactly this sort of "of counsel" career path (derisively known as "the mommy track"), and a number of small firms are offering this option too. Whether it perpetuates a gendered glass ceiling is a different issue entirely.

You also see this sort of dual-track labor market in another way: some associates choose the "lifestyle firms" (e.g., Kramer Levin in New York), while others choose the traditional hard-core firms (e.g., most other 300+ lawyer firms in New York).

What this article shows, however, is one of two things about the traditional hard-core firms.

(1) Perhaps they really don't "get it" that they're losing out on an increasingly large portion of the labor pool

(2) More likely, these firms have decided, for tactical reasons, to take the disingenuous public posture that it's a "work ethic problem" as opposed to a valid work/life balance prioritization by an increasing share of young lawyers. The tactical reason to take this posture, of course, is that it is necessary for these firms to deny that their workload takes a tremendous personal toll and entails immense sacrifice of any non-work goals or values their young lawyers might once have had.

[Carolyn Elefant]

I agree with the above column - law firms, as an institution will always interpret facts so as to make themselves appear in the best light. During the late 1980s and early 1990s when firms were laying new associates off left and right, they always justified it by saying that these people couldn't cut it. Yet in many cases, just a year or two before, the firms believed in these people's ability enough to hire them and pay them large salaries. Same with the work ethic thing as well.

But having said that, I do think that many attorneys - and the legal profession itself - expects firms to make changes to accomodate people. I think the opposite is true - attorneys should make themselves valuable enough so that they can demand changes. For example, I don't think that law firms need to institutionalize part time programs for women - which just creates resentment by non-parents in the work force (I say this as a parent myself who went solo so I could set my own schedule). But when you make yourself valuable enough, you can negotiate your own deal. In that sense, the entitlement remark in the article is accurate - people expect firms to do it for them and instead, they need to show what value the firm will get in return.

[David Giacalone]

Carolyn, While there may be a very special law firm out there willing to make special accomodations for a particularly "valuable" associate, I do not believe that most young lawyers should expect such treatment, no matter how valuable they become. At some firms, in fact, your "value" is precisely the reason you might not be allowed to slack off. Another very important reason is the dissension such special treatment would cause among other associates.

I say this having watched the profession from many perspectives, but let me tell you a personal anecdote: At a time early in my career, when health problems made it impossible for me to work consistently long hours, I made an agreement with a superior (who very much wanted me to switch and work with his group) that I would work no more than 50 hours per week, for a few months. When other lawyers heard about this, they angrily called a meeting in which they demanded that the deal be rescinded. As a result, the managing attorney told me I had a choice: work the same grueling, often 7-day-a-week schedule of the other lawyers, or join the paralegals who did nothing but sort through documents. [I decided to go back to an office where I was so highly valued and trusted that we knew we would work through my health problems in a manner fair to all interests.]

I believe that law firms do have an obligation to create an environment -- with stated policies and workable options -- that allow for a meaningful life outside the office. (And, of course, to avoid an atmosphere that puts dollars above ethics, professionalism, and the intersts of clients and staff. see http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/ethicalesq/2004/03/01#a948)

But, as Carolyn suggests, and we have discussed elsewhere, individual lawyers have an obligation to make their priorities known and to vote with their feet, when their values are rejected by a law firm.