divine angst

I’ve seen quite a bit of commentary on this article:

Some call them slackers. Others are more diplomatic. But whatever the moniker, “Generation Y” associates are getting a bad rap for what some say is a flabby work ethic and an off-putting sense of entitlement.

Attorneys from Generation Y-those born in 1978 or later-are plenty smart and generally well educated, say firm leaders and industry experts. But these young attorneys also are lacking in loyalty, initiative and energy, so the criticism goes.

First, I guess I’m not technically part of Gen Y, since I was born before 1978. But I have a hard time buying that it’s a bad thing for young lawyers to expect the quality of their personal life to be high. I’m certainly not prepared to leave law school and start living at a firm. What happens when I want kids? What happens to my husband? What happens to all the other things I enjoy—choir, cooking, dancing? Because of my personality, I don’t see myself as very likely to go into BigLaw.

Of course, if you do want to do “BigLaw,” it’s probably true that you’ll have to sacrifice some things—you’ll work longer hours and have higher billables. And it might be true that the partners will think you are a slacker if you don’t do the drudge work they assign with a smile. This article, then, might give you some insight into how to move up the ladder more quickly.

No, what really bothers me is that this article isn’t being read just by the people who want to go into BigLaw (and know what to expect) or just by the people who already know that they don’t want the big firm life. It’s that they’re being read by the 0Ls who don’t know what they want to do.

A lot of those people read the boards, where other young people who are all equally uninformed blabber about things like debt, and job prospects, and employment statistics. And they get frightened. I’ll be in so much debt; I’ll have to work 80-hour weeks! Or, There aren’t other jobs that pay well except in BigLaw! Or I’d better go to a school that sends lots of people to BigLaw because that’s means something significant about my own prospects. And then they read the article above and get even more scared.

Let’s get, then, some truths out of the way. Yes, law students usually have a fair amount of debt. Yes, BigLaw pays better than other lawyering jobs. And yes, the employment statistics do mean something—that a certain number of students get high-paying BigLaw jobs.

But there’s a lot missing from that worldview. There are other jobs besides BigLaw, and you will be able to pay off your debt in those other jobs. Maybe not as quickly, but so what? If you’re expecting instant wealth out of law school, maybe you’re focusing on the wrong stuff.

I can only hope that the junior associates cited in the article are the face of a changing profession. Maybe when they are managing partners, they’ll be able to assure first-year associates that their personal lives won’t be hijacked by the firm. Maybe they’ll even get around to abolishing the billable hour. Or maybe they’ll just be a little more understanding when a fresh, young JD doesn’t want to sleep in his office or would rather do more interesting work than document review. And they won’t make ridiculous statements like,

“They are more willing to sit back and wait for things to happen to them instead of making them happen for themselves,” the attorney said, adding that new associates today are more brazen than those in previous years. “They are willing to turn down work they don’t want to do. They don’t volunteer for committee or other firm work.”

What must those brazen young associates be thinking? Maybe it’s something like this: I’m $150,000 in debt and I’d much rather do something that makes use of it, so I’m not going to join a committee. Or, I’m $150,000 in debt and I’m out of here in two years when it’s all paid off. So I’m not joining a committee. Or even: I have two kids at home and I want to see them growing up. So I’m not going to volunteer to carry your briefcase for this case, and I’m not going to join a committee. Not to bag on committees or anything.

Other commentary: Narkoleptik, Jeremy Blachman, Orin Kerr, Raffi Melkonian, and JD2B.