5 Key Insights from "The Millennial Exodus from Law Firms"

5 Key Insights from "The Millennial Exodus from Law Firms"

About a week ago, I submitted my Law/MBA thesis, An Exodus Explained: Millennials at Law Firms along with the above screenshot of its cover page on LinkedIn. That post received nearly 10,000 views and I received about 300 emails and messages asking to discuss the results of this study. The following are some key insights revealed from the data.

Though they are by no means comprehensive (there are 35 graphs and 128 pages in the final document) I hope they will be informative. While this study paints a picture from interviews and data, it should be noted that these results do not speak to any one particular law firm. However, given the sample size and demographics of the sample population, these results are generalizable to medium and large Canadian and American law firms. While I hope that they will motivate and catalyze change in the legal services industry, they are not my opinions but, rather, an interpretation of the data collected through an objective survey tool and interview form.

1) Traditional law firms are not ideal workplaces for Millennial lawyers

The study indicated that law firms are not close to being an ideal working environment for millennial lawyers. On the contrary, almost all respondents - including members of law firm leadership - disagreed that law firms, on the whole, were a good workplace for millennials. On a 1-7 scale (with 1 being strongly disagree, and 7 being strongly agree), there was disagreement with the following statements:

  • A traditional law firm is the ideal work environment for millennials
  • Law firms have adapted to accommodate the unique needs and values of millennials
  • The value proposition provided by traditional law firms is appealing to millennials
  • The reward structure at traditional law firms motivates millennials and is sufficient to keep them motivated throughout their careers

2) Millennial lawyers don't aspire to be partners at law firms

What is perhaps more concerning for lawyers reading this is that there was agreement with the fact that millennials at law school aspire to work at law firms. However, there was significant disagreement - especially from millennials themselves - that the culture at law firms is conducive to attracting and retaining millennial employees. The result appears to be that millennial associates no longer aspire to be partners. Rather, there is strong agreement that millennial associates typically apply to jobs outside of law firms after they begin to practice.

3) Millennial lawyers work at law firms to pay off student loans and gain experience so they can pursue their passions

Millennial lawyers work as junior associates to gain experience and money (to pay off student loans) in order to pursue their passion. The only things that the majority of Millennial lawyers found appealing about working at a "big firm" were compensation, and to a much lesser degree, prestige. To a large degree, they indicated that the workload, ability to have a work-life balance and opportunity to make an impact through their work at a "big firm" were all extremely unappealing.

This, combined with results from interviews and written survey responses indicates that Millennial lawyers use the experience at large law firms to enable them to transition to more appealing jobs (e.g. in-house, at NGOs etc.). Further, they use the salary offered by large law firms to reduce their accumulated debt. Once these financial and experiential needs are met, Millennial associates leave law firms for, what interviewees referred to as, "greener pastures." The results from interviews and written responses are telling in this regard as demonstrated in the word map to the right (the size of words in the figure to the right indicates the frequency at which words were used in interviews and comments). When asked why they should work at a large law firm, reasons were largely to pay off loans, open doors to a better career after a few years, great networking opportunities, and the ability to eventually pursue other careers or work in-house.

Combining these trends with the rupture of the partnership model described above has significant implication for the partnership model at large law firms and, therefore, their continued viability. If law firms wish to attract and retain the best millennial talent, they must adapt and change the value proposition they offer millennials.

4) Millennials are not satisfied working at law firms

All millennial respondents - summer students, articling students, interns, associates - agreed that Millennials are not able to find meaning, and remain happy, throughout a career at a large law firm. When asked why a prospective Millennial law graduate should decline work at a law firm, the largest issues which stood out were a complete lack of work-life balance, work that lacked a sense of meaning and, perhaps most provocatively, that work at law firms is "soul-killing" (or some other variant involving the word soul).

One respondent eloquently noted that Millennials should not pursue careers at law firms at all because:

A) you are a cogwheel in a machine B) technology/ trying to find solutions to do things faster isn't a priority because billable hours is a focus. Aka doing things faster means less [billable hours]. It's a backward, short-term way of thinking. C) There is a lack of diversity at big firms- particularly the higher up on the chain of command.  Where I see benefit to big firm, it is the same benefit you would get if you worked at any big institution. A) access to resources and people with highly specialized expertise B) prestige/ resume noteworthiness C) Compensation- although if you do the math and convert salary to the rate you're getting paid per hour, it is not as lucrative.”

Building on this sentiment, another respondent to the survey indicated that:

“In addition to feeling dehumanized by being described as "profitable", I felt it was frowned upon to want to learn about other areas of law and broaden my practice. While some partners embraced my desire to branch out, others try to pigeon-hole me, which was discouraging.  Finally, there was little or no awareness among management that Millennial[s] hope to do meaningful work.

These sentiments clearly indicate an urgent need for law firms to implement strategies to adapt to the unique characteristics of Millennial employees. However...

5) Law firms have not even discussed strategies to adapt

Perhaps the most troubling and obvious trend observed in the data was that all respondents - Millennial lawyers, law firm leadership, and other members of the legal community - overwhelmingly agreed that law firms have not taken any meaningful steps to adapt to Millennials. When presented with several common strategies from academic literature on managing Millennials all respondents, including members of law firm leadership, indicated that law firms had discussed some of these strategies or, at worst, had no awareness of these strategies. There were no respondents that indicated that these strategies had even been considered, much less implemented, by law firms.

This raises concerns since, as discussed above, both law firm leadership and Millennial lawyers seem aware that law firms are not optimal work environments for Millennials and that Millennials are not happy working at law firms. Clearly then, there is a need for adaptation and change.

Without delving into too much more of the trends and insights revealed from the data (there are many, many more), the ultimate conclusion reached is that law firms have failed to adapt to Millennials due to two fundamental factors: the partnership model and resulting socialization process, and the billable hour. These results mirror a previous paper on innovation at law firms, The Illusion of Innovation at Canadian Law Firms (available here: https://jnper.com/lawfirms/) which indicates a need to change law firm culture in order for law firms to adapt and remain viable.

A Strategic Way Forward

In order enable such change to take place, the study recommends that law firms adopt a dual pronged strategy to flatten their hierarchies through reverse mentoring programs and restructure performance metrics and evaluation of Millennial lawyers to focus more on the quality of their work (as opposed to the quantity of hours they are able to bill). Quick wins from these easily implemented strategies can then be used to drive momentum toward further adaptation and evolution. While this is flushed out significantly in the actual paper, members of the legal community should increase their awareness and consideration of these (and the above) strategies.

I hope that this will shed some light on the issue of managing Millennials at law firms and provide some insight on what appears to be a pressing issue for a large portion of the legal community. Unfortunately, I'm not able to release the full study until it has been marked and peer reviewed for journals/presentations. I anticipate releasing the full study in a few months, likely once it has been polished for publication.

In the meantime, the study has been submitted to the Academy of Management for presentation at their 78th Annual Meeting in Chicago. Professor Karl Moore (an authority in the field of managing Millennials) and myself will be putting together a half-day workshop for law firms hoping to improve their relationship with Millennial lawyers. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or comments.

I'd like to say thank you to everyone for your congratulations and support throughout this endeavour. Specifically, I'd like to thank Professor Moore and Professor Vrinda Narain at McGill, and Mike Ross at Juniper (links to their profiles below), for their support and counsel throughout this process. I'd also like to thank everyone who participated in the study and helped to form these insights.


Jennifer Emmans

Lawyer at Emmans Law Professional Corporation

5y

Is your thesis paper available publicly?  Or are you willing to share it?  Thanks.

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Karen Schapira

Founder at KAREN B. SCHAPIRA, PLLC

6y

Thank you for sharing this article, Tal. Very enlightening.

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Thomas Wilson

VP, Associate General Counsel at Richardson Wealth

6y

Thanks for sharing this. Many points that have been long-discussed. Some of the elements you refer to in item 5 are particularly difficult to address s law firms are competitive businesses and rely on their associates as revenue generators and to create billable WIP. I know that firms are thinking about other methods, but it is difficult to decouple associate evaluation from revenue generation, lest a firm lose its top billing partners to other competing firms that are able to more efficiently derive revenue and value from their associates.

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Karen Dunn Skinner

I help lawyers streamline their practices, so they earn more money without wasting their time | Attorney, Speaker, Coach & Consultant |

6y

Aly, this is a fascinating study. From my perspective, as a lawyer (McGill 1993) and now a consultant to the legal industry, I see long term impacts. To thrive in the current market, law firms need to attract good associates and then maximize the value of their existing talent. However, equity partnership is, in general, becoming a less and less likely outcome - even for those Millennials who might desire it. With fewer Millennials interested in sticking it out to partnership, and over 30% of the current partners near or at retirement age (see 2018 Citibank/Hildebrandt Client Advisory), succession is going to become a major problem for firms. I agree that firms need to find ways to make working in a law firm more desirable, but I'm not sure it's going to be as easy as you suggest with your quick wins. Perhaps a reverse-mentoring approach could be implemented, but moving from quantity (billable hour) assessment to quality (value in service delivery) assessment will be extremely hard. If you're still in Montreal, I'd love to sit down and chat with you about this. Thanks!

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