Gibson Dunn’s London office is looking for a “professional support lawyer” to provide “targeted training” and “individual coaching” to junior associates. Fair enough. But the original job listing went further, noting that “more hand-holding/explaining [is] needed for Gen Z/post-lockdown” lawyers. Which earned an edit, but… were they really wrong?
Everyone always complains about the next generation of attorneys coming up behind them. Usually, those frustrations amount to the standard learning curve from law school graduate to actual practitioner and after a few months everyone forgets about them until aging partners invent a whole new tier of partnership to cut the next generation out of a slice of their profit pie.
But maybe this time is different. Whether it’s the pandemic or relentless helicopter parenting, this cohort seems uniquely behind on the fundamentals from hours to the basic concept of employer-employee dynamics and law firms have noticed. A junior associate just told a midlevel “nah, you do that” to a work assignment, and it’s fairly safe to say Paul Cravath never had a junior mouth off like that.
Some firms have brought lawyers back to the office to provide the sort of “soft learning” that traditionally brings the pups up to speed, though we suspect the move has more to do with providing a built-in and financially dependent audience for lonely partners to display their brilliance. But even if you grant the firm the benefit of the doubt on their back-to-office motivation, there’s a difference between “figuring out how to format a memo” and “no, dumbass, you can’t tell your boss to do your job for you” that face time at the office probably won’t fix.
The soft learning model rests on the premise that law grads only need to refine a few practice points. The issues bubbling up from law firms signal more foundational problems. They can’t take notes! Schools have leaned so hard into PowerPoint — both for ease of instruction and to pacify helicopter parents — that most law students today don’t even understand WHY you’d ever need to type (let alone handwrite) anything you’re being told.
Digital etiquette skills are in the toilet, with so many believing it’s entirely acceptable to check their phones mid-conversation that schools are taking the drastic measure of locking up communication devices. Which seems like a great idea until the next Supreme Court-sanctioned school shooting leaves students unable to communicate with the outside world.
Most of all, there’s an epidemic of folks struggling to problem solve without detailed guidance, a phenomenon that some chalk up to growing up in a mobile phone era where overcoming new and confusing situations never involved more than reaching into their pocket.
These issues are all much deeper than getting practice ready. And whatever you think of a midlevel lawyer’s managerial and mentorship skill, they’re not equipped to teach basic adulting.
They’d better learn though because technology isn’t going to replace lawyers per se, but it’s going to replace a lot of the “insert-question-get-work-product” tasks and any attorney who isn’t ready to deliver on the human reasoning and client engagement side of the profession are going to find opportunities thinner and thinner.
Introducing a role focused solely on the professional development of junior lawyers ensures consistent and comprehensive training attuned to the evolving needs of the workforce. Someone needs to be available to provide that step-by-step guidance and then teach them how NOT to need that sort of plodding assistance. And the person who does that needs to not be a billing associate constantly stopping and starting to field stupid questions.
Young lawyers have the brains and the desire to be good professionals, they just don’t have any idea how. Gibson Dunn is at least trying a new approach to make sure the new lawyers have the training and support they need to join the long tradition of legal professionals.
They just might’ve been a little too honest about it in their ad.
Sorry… too deadass about it, no cap.
EXCLUSIVE Gen Z lawyers require ‘more handholding’, says firm [Roll on Friday]
Earlier: Gen Z Lawyer Tells Senior Associate, ‘Nah, You Do That’
The Emperor’s New Associates: ALSPs Replacing Junior Lawyers
The Real World Is Coming For Gen Z Lawyers
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
