Generally speaking, “the kids are all right.” Older generations consistently bitch and moan about young people making the exact same mistakes the rapidly fossilizing pretend they never made, but in the end, the next crop turns out fine. Gen Z may actually be breaking that proud tradition. Or at least some representatives of the latest generation to enter the workforce are ruining the reputation of the whole cohort.
Consider this Reddit post over at r/Biglaw that takes insubordination to a level that would make Eric Cartman seem like a model employee.
What in the Bartleby is this nonsense? That’s not even defiance. That’s performance art.
Like a splinter in your brain, you will never know rest as you forever contemplate what this junior thinks their job actually entails. Inserting edits is the junior associate job description par excellence. It’s the only thing standing between a first-year and total obsolescence. Can we get a look at these timesheets? How is this lawyer spending the day?
6.4 — Nothing but stand at window in dead-wall revery.
1.5 — Workshop memo declining next assignment.
0.3 — Click “Mark as Unread” on email that requested work.
How did we get here? The pandemic robbed these young lawyers of formative years of professional socialization. Not just because they spent some of college Zooming from their couches, but even after the lockdown, getting firm lawyers to physically go out and meet students almost certainly suffered.
Current midlevels and seniors might have lost key delegation instincts during that era, choosing to do simple tasks themselves rather than hassle with distributing work over teleconference. This first-year might — might — simply not understand the concept of edits being handled by anyone but a midlevel.
Or they might just be tragically spoiled from a helicopter upbringing.
Whatever the issue in this situation, this story seems like an extreme manifestation of a trend firms have shared a lot lately: young lawyers are simply behind where they need to be professionally.
As one might imagine, the replies have thoughts:
If it’s transactional work, let’s not sleep on “Chief counsel for DUBIOUSCOIN ($PONZI).”
The AI conversation involves a lot of hype, but between AI and AI-enabled ALSPs, the rote, brute force work that fills the day of a junior associate is disappearing fast. The number one priority of a junior associate in 2025 has to be demonstrating indispensability. Everyone with authority over your job — or, even more importantly, with input valued by those with authority — needs to be impressed at all times. Biglaw as an industry has operated as a pyramid scheme since it was a twinkle in Paul Cravath’s eye, but attrition becomes a lot more professionally existential when junior lawyer classes shrink.
As for the midlevel, seeking guidance among the wisdom of crowds is a good start, but the original post probably should’ve been dumped into an email “To: Senior Partner, Re: Get A Load Of This.”
Channeling Barack Obama: yes you can! “Do it or you won’t last long” might be too harsh, but as a supervisor you definitely have the right if not the obligation to say, “hey, yeah, this is not a request and you probably should exorcise ‘you do that’ from your ‘asshole-to-senior’ vocabulary.”
Honestly, this is the FIRST thing that came into my mind when I read the post:
Thankfully, some more conscientious Redditors offered a more human resources appropriate response for this junior who has dishonored their ancestors.
While a substantial driver of the return-to-office push is just a bunch of partners who miss being surrounded by sycophantic juniors all day, there’s definitely something to be said for soft learning. All the formal training in the world can’t replace the sheer, soul-crushing power of seeing a room full of colleagues giving you that look after doing something uniquely stupid.
But midlevels and seniors (and partners) also need in-person interaction to learn basic management skills. While Biglaw firms function like high-end corporations, the workflow is managed by people who never learn to manage. Companies elevate employees to management and send them to seminars to learn how to effectively lead people. Or at least to learn corporate buzzwords that simulate leadership. Lawyers are elevated based on their ability as lawyers which is not the same and may well be counterproductive to management. Being able to look folks in the eye matters because exclusively working with faceless cogs over the internet doesn’t build teams.
In the meantime, Gen Z, come collect your stray. We’d send them back ourselves, but apparently, they prefer not to move.
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.
