Last week I was at the NAWL (National Association of Women Lawyers) annual conference in NYC. It was good to see so many old friends and to make many new friends. As always, I would like to share some of the messages that I deem most important from that eventful day. So, here they are. As you advance in your career, I hope that you will become involved in your local bar association, including your Women’s Bar Association, and that you also will join NAWL and participate in their activities. There is a great opportunity for findings mentors and networking there. And, you know how important those things are for your future success and advancement in the law.
So, here are some of the messages that came out of the discussion of what Millennials want out of law practice.
- Extending the practice outside of the office: This is a combination of the work-life/flexibility issues/telecommuting discussion. Lawyer/moms need the flexibility to work from home on occasion to meet the needs of their children and family responsibilities. There is no perfect answer, but we must be creative in solutions. We also must understand that flexibility puts pressure on the institutions and the culture where people are used to interacting face-to-face. If flexibility is stretched too far, it will stretch the institution too far. We need to be cognizant of the cultural nostalgia of Baby Boomer lawyers for the good old days when there was lots of interaction in the hallways and around the water cooler. Be sensitive to everyone’s perspective.
- Compensation integrates with these issues as well. If women lawyers have wage and income parity with the male practitioners, they will be able to afford more help at home and will be able to be in the office as much as the institution needs them to be.
- The success of telecommuting will depend on full attention to work when you are working — whether that is at the office or at home.
- Millennials are more inclined to move around in the practice of law than we might have imagined. Studies show that Millennials do not embrace change easily, but the surveys show that 66% of Millennial lawyers say that they expect to leave their jobs in the next five years. We have to question why that is true. I think that it has to be related to the quality of practice and the training that young lawyers are getting today. These are important things to contemplate and the reason that I wrote my last book, Best Friends at the Bar: Top Down Leadership for Women Lawyers (Wolters Kluwer/Aspen Publishers, 2015).
- Although we want law firm leadership and management to be sensitive to the needs of Millennials, there is always a threat that whatever they say and try to pursue as solutions will end up on legal blogs and social media the next day. That has a chilling effect. Think about it. Respect the challenges.
Tune in for more from NAWL next week. Lots to share. Try it at the water cooler!
