Gen Z v Gen X, Nearly ￡200k NQs, Vaginas, and more
Simon P MARSHALL
Marketing expert for lawyers, solicitors and law firms @ TBD Marketing Ltd | Agency Owner | Marketing Strategy | PR | Digital Marketing | Business Development | LinkedIn training | Husband | Dad | #SimonSays
The generation game
Last month, a report published by Obelisk Support – a consultancy founded by friend of TBD Marketing Dana Denis Smith, which connects freelance lawyers with businesses in need of their services – created quite a splash in the national news, both legal and general.?
Titled World in Motion: why the legal profession cannot stand still, the report is based on a survey of junior lawyers and their attitudes towards the legal sector. The survey’s headline findings, picked up by news outlets including The Daily Mail and The Times, include the fact that around 65% of respondents feel their employer “should allow them to refuse to work on certain matters for ethical reasons”, and that 75% of them state they would “not join an organisation whose values did not match with their own, even if they were offering more money”. Respondents also went on to voice their general frustration at the slow pace of cultural change within the sector.
The Times piece in particular frames this in the context of the culture wars, as the headline “Future looks woke as junior lawyers speak up” makes clear. However, it seems fairly obvious to me that this is much more a case of the time-honoured generational conflict – a tale as old as humanity itself – playing out. Indeed, as one of the respondents told the Obelisk researchers: “There is something among the older generation where, either consciously or subconsciously, they think, ‘I worked bloody hard to get into this profession and no one cared about my mental health. I worked long hours. Why should the younger generation get away with a nicer culture?’ Perhaps there is a bit of resentment there.”?
Now, it’s been my general experience that if you get any group of City veterans talking about the working conditions of their halcyon days as cub lawyers, things can quickly stray into Three-Yorkshiremen-sketch territory. Simply put, the business of law as it is practised in its upper echelons is well-known for being extremely demanding, and I don’t think anyone enters into it thinking that they are about to go gently perambulating in the park.?
In other words, it is almost a rite of passage to complain about the gruelling nature of working in top firms, and nothing unique to Gen Z junior lawyers, no matter how much some sections of the rightwing-leaning press would like to frame this as ‘snowflakery’. But I also think it is true that every new generation of lawyers agitates in its own way for the industry to change and evolve, and that this activism (for want of a better word) does then move the dial, albeit at a slower pace than those doing the agitating would perhaps like.?
However, the fact is that, when it comes to running a successful law firm, youthful optimism and idealism – though beautiful, necessary and essential to progress – must always be married with, and offset against, cold commercial reality. The industry-hardened senior lawyers who have the responsibility of steering the ship are certainly going to be more clear-sighted about this inescapable fact than their junior colleagues, whose ideals cost them relatively little as yet, given the still fairly negligible amount of skin they have in the game.
Part of that commercial reality is knowing that the jeopardy for those working in the legal profession is generally so much greater than in other sectors when it comes to privileging activism over orthodoxy: there is a very real-world cost involved, because the buck stops with lawyers when their opinion turns out to be wrong and it becomes clear that they have led their clients down the wrong path.?
Therefore, there is often a sound rationale behind many of the checks and balances that previous generations have put in place, whose constraining effects the new generation of junior lawyers may well find tedious and frustrating. That is not to condone the slow pace of change on many critical fronts, especially where gender equality and diversity of representation are concerned – but it bears repeating that law firms are generally small-c conservative for a reason.
So where does that leave junior lawyers and their senior colleagues? Ultimately, Gen X and Gen Z lawyers share a common cause and need to work together to effect the changes that are fundamentally necessary to future-proof their firm during this era of seemingly constant seismic upheaval. Gen X currently runs the firm and is driven by pragmatism; Gen Z will run the firm in future, and desires to be the change they want to see in the world. That means that both generations need to learn from and agitate against one another in the right way to deliver the best result for current clients and future generations of clients. It will be fascinating to see how this plays out in the coming years.
US firms play tug of law over associates
As the age-old saying goes, it’s a dog-eat-dog world we live in. And the legal industry is no different. Firms are constantly trying to pit themselves against the competition to prove they’re the best in the game. The most recent legal arms race has seen the renewed push for firms to up their starting salaries in a bid to secure the best new talent before their competitors do, or even poach talent from competitor firms. It’s certainly impressive to see the speed at which firms are acting to price-match these salaries.?
US firm Milbank was the one to set the bar high, upping its salary offering to new junior lawyers by $10,000 to $225,000 (￡178,538), beginning the ‘ripple effect’ of upping salaries within the legal industry, whereby newly minted junior lawyers are the cream of the crop. Described in this article by The Lawyer as a ‘compensation scale’; US firm Cravath, Swaine and Moore have upped the ante in response to Milbank’s move, and many firms have followed suit. Cravath’s Class of 2023 will be starting on the same heady salary as Milbank, matched also by fellow US firms McDermott Will & Emery and Paul Hastings. This figure is significantly higher than the ￡125k Magic Circle firms currently offer their newly qualified lawyers.
Every year, around this time, I think “they can’t go higher, can they?” And then they do.
The war for top legal talent is, like this week’s Premier League football rights deal, in a bubble of its own. It will only directly affect a few hundred people, but the ripples will affect the market as talent drifts towards the top dollar payers, and needs replacing from competitors’ talent pools.?
Cracking (or hacking) the code?
Mentions of cyber attacks seem to be prevalent in Si’s Matters recently. So what’s going wrong? What lessons need to be learned? How can law firm leaders guarantee there won’t be a follow-up next week involving their own firm?
In the latest instance, conveyancing firms have come into the attackers’ crosshairs. Hackers have infiltrated legal IT system specialist CTS, by means of various cyber attacks. This meant that for up to 200 law firms, as stated in this SC media article, phone, email, and case management systems became inaccessible, and operations were shut down. As outlined in this Law Gazette article, even the most prepared law firm owners would have struggled to foresee this new front.
That said, if you happen to work for one of the firms affected, maybe you do have options? Have a look at these posts by Hodge Jones & Allen and Linklaters to see exactly what you can do to take action against your IT supplier in the case of a cyber attack.?
If you’re not one of the affected firms – now would probably be a great time to double down on your research into cloud and technology providers and how to prevent and triage attacks.
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In other news
Law and disorder for Osmond & Osmond
This week, we saw the first-ever prosecution brought by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) against a solicitor for tipping off a client. Why on earth William Osmond, of Osmond & Osmond (obviously), thought it wise to risk suspension, a prison sentence, and irrevocable reputation damage is beyond me.?
This kind of story must scare the living daylights out of law firm management. If a partner with their name above the door (twice) is capable of such behaviour, how do Managing Partners at larger law firms get to sleep worrying about their partners' and employees’ activities being above board??
Read more about the case here.?
Blood is thicker than water – and the law, apparently
He ain’t heavy… The second tale of insider dealing and fraud this week concerns Goldman Sachs. An ex-analyst, in cahoots with his City lawyer brother, has been prosecuted in a London fraud trial for using confidential information to aid insider trading.
Read the full story here.?
How many lawyers does it take to open a vagina museum?
We missed this the first time round a couple of weeks back - but great work from Womble Bond Dickinson on the world's first vagina museum finding a new home thanks to pro bono support from 15 of their lawyers.
Read the full monologue here.
Dates for your diary
As always, I hope that you enjoyed this week's edition!
Email me with great stories or comments on these articles.
Si