Generational differences play a part, but the crisis of disengaged associates in law firms is really about whether a firm has a meaningful value proposition that can earn (young) lawyers' commitment.
I agree wholeheartedly with this piece. In many ways it’s a surprise that law firms are surprised about disengagement. As you say, if you pull up the ladder on equity, and largely ignore management skill when considering who to promote (because you assume the supply of fresh recruits will be infinite/ you can ignore attrition risk), in the long run you’re going to switch a few folks off.
I’d like to propose three additional factors in disengagement:
(1) the core contradiction of modern law firms is that they claim to offer outstanding service to clients, but are in fact strongly disincentivised to do so by legacy billing models - generations who have grown up in the SaaS era have seen tech empires built on obsessive customer centricity, have a different view of what “outstanding” means in this context, and observe the dissonance.
(2) working from home strips away the theatre of working in a law firm - the fancy office, the buzz generated by high achieving colleagues, “doing deals” - and reduces the work to a production line of “request in, deliverable out”. This quickly exposes much of the work for what it is, i.e. highly automatable shitwork.
(3) partners have (with exceptions of course) ceased to be role models for associates. It is perfectly reasonable to question whether the juice is worth the squeeze if the vision of partnership life presented is to be on call 24/7, just to afford a family home in a major city and put your kids through a good school.
I agree wholeheartedly with this piece. In many ways it’s a surprise that law firms are surprised about disengagement. As you say, if you pull up the ladder on equity, and largely ignore management skill when considering who to promote (because you assume the supply of fresh recruits will be infinite/ you can ignore attrition risk), in the long run you’re going to switch a few folks off.
I’d like to propose three additional factors in disengagement:
(1) the core contradiction of modern law firms is that they claim to offer outstanding service to clients, but are in fact strongly disincentivised to do so by legacy billing models - generations who have grown up in the SaaS era have seen tech empires built on obsessive customer centricity, have a different view of what “outstanding” means in this context, and observe the dissonance.
(2) working from home strips away the theatre of working in a law firm - the fancy office, the buzz generated by high achieving colleagues, “doing deals” - and reduces the work to a production line of “request in, deliverable out”. This quickly exposes much of the work for what it is, i.e. highly automatable shitwork.
(3) partners have (with exceptions of course) ceased to be role models for associates. It is perfectly reasonable to question whether the juice is worth the squeeze if the vision of partnership life presented is to be on call 24/7, just to afford a family home in a major city and put your kids through a good school.