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Across the Great Divide: Dealing with the Legal Profession's Generation Gaps
The generation gap is nothing new. In a pattern as old as time, the successor generation has always viewed its forebears as stodgy and unduly authoritarian, while the 'old folks' have tended to view the energy and impulsiveness of youth with suspicion, if not derision. It now appears, however, as if the accelerated rate of social change has also wrought profound and fundamental changes in how members of different generations relate, collaborate (or don't), and communicate (or not). Not only are we not in Kansas, Toto, there may not even be a Kansas once today's emerging young leaders take the controls.
In the lingo of the social scientists, folks born between 1925 and 1945 are often called the 'matures,' 'traditionalists,' 'builders,' 'seniors,' or 'veterans.' They comprise about 20% of the U.S. population but less than 10% of practicing lawyers. They are in or entering their emeritus years, and to young lawyers they embody 'the old days.' The 'boomers' born during the baby boom of 1946 to 1964 make up about 30% of the U.S. population and a little under half of today's lawyers. Their careers are now peaking, and a lot of them will be retiring in the next decade. They drive the power structure of most firms, and although they think of themselves as more individualistic, more optimistic, and more committed to personal integrity than their predecessors, younger associates tend to view them as defenders of the power structure and status quo.
The Gen-X'ers, originally labeled the 'slackers,' were born between 1965 and 1979 and now sometimes are called the 'busters' or the 'e-generation.' They presently represent about 25% of this country's population, but almost half of its lawyers. Temperamentally they are probably not all that different from the boomers, except that they tend to be more skeptical of authority, less self-centered, and more inclusive and collaborative. The Gen-Y'ers, born after 1980, are sometimes called the 'nexters,' 'whys,' or 'echoes.' The youngest subset of the Gen-Y'ers, the 'millenials,' is becoming a dominant force in reshaping how our society buys, sells, learns, and works. Their worldview is so different from the boomers that many wonder if productive communication will be possible once the younger Y'ers (the Kaiser Family Foundation has dubbed them 'Generation M,' and soon they will be going to law school) come of age. 'They revere youth and change, and our age and experience are of little practical use to them,' says one senior partner in her 60s. 'I suspect that like Inuits, when their time comes they will simply put their elders outside the igloo to freeze. In fact, it's getting chilly already.'
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