Among the things I tend to care a bit about is the future of the profession. which has caused me to write about new lawyers. Some regular readers hate it when I do this, calling me mean names like “curmudgeon” because I tend to say mean things about them. Mean, when it comes to new lawyers, is defined as anything that doesn’t build their self-esteem. Guilty as charged.
But if new lawyers feel compelled to express their thoughts publicly, they invite scrutiny. This isn’t always a nice, warm, tummy rub. A while back Seth Godin, marketing philosopher, made this point as well.
Sooner or later, you’ll ask for something or read something or expect something and you won’t like what you get. You’ll feel like I wasted your time, wasted your money or didn’t meet your expectations.
Not just me, of course. Everyone. Even you. You will disappoint someone, and the organizations you depend on will disappoint you. Expectations keep rising, and promises keep being made. We keep bringing more magic into the world, but rising expectations mean that there’s more disappointment as well.
That’s part of the deal of being in the world.
I’ve been told that I disappoint readers with regularity. It’s the risk one takes in being a blawger, and the recognition that you can’t please everyone is part of the deal. So the choices are take the risk or get out.
The alternative, I’m afraid, isn’t to choose a path where we make everyone happy and always exceed their expectations. Nope. The alternative is to hide, to fail to engage and to produce nothing.
My view of new lawyers is far longer term than most readers, especially the new lawyers themselves. When I started SJ, many of them had yet to be accepted to law school, much less practicing lawyers. This isn’t the slur most of them perceive it to be, but mere fact. Still, it’s a fact that doesn’t enhance their self-esteem and so they resist it with all their baby lawyer might.
Over the years, I’ve tried to come up with a way of explaining to new lawyers why their self-esteem may not be nearly as warranted as they think it is. One argument, that if they’re so incredibly brilliant at one year out of law school, then how will they be ten years out, twenty years out, strikes me as fairly clear.
Yet this argument hasn’t made much of a dent. They tend to chalk up the value of experience to a means of subjugation by older lawyers to keep the new lawyers down, to put them in their place. We lord it over the newbies because we have it and they don’t, not because there is any value to experience.
From this, they argue that we’re jealous of their savvy and fearful that they will steal our clients, and that’s why we go to such lengths to diminish their worth. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with a concern that they are publishing their thoughts and “advice” on the internet for the world to see, and their thoughts aren’t always as brilliant as they think they are. Indeed, sometimes they’re downright dangerous.
They complain that older lawyers are condescending. I’m certainly guilty of that too. They say we’re not sufficiently respectful, civil and sensitive to their fragile self-esteem. Guilty. But in my defense, it doesn’t matter how much you think you know now that you’ve passed the bar, filled your briefcase with brilliance and collected adoring fans on twitter.
We may be colleagues, but we are not quite peers. Your pugnacious resistance to the value of experience belies the problem; old guys find it tedious to be required to rub your tummy and make you feel valued while trying to explain why your brilliant thoughts aren’t nearly as brilliant as you think they are.
Aside: Sometimes, experienced lawyers will email or comment that they don’t see this happening as much as I say, or that they don’t see it as being as much of a problem. This is where my longevity in the blawgosphere comes into play. For better or worse, I read a lot of other blogs, mostly because people send me links to new blogs because they want me to mention them or promote them. The more I see, the more I realize both the scope and depth of the problem. If you don’t see it, great. That doesn’t change the fact that I see it. Perhaps if you saw what I saw, you would think otherwise.
The long term perspective may help to illuminate why this is. Every year, another crop of baby lawyers suddenly appears, filled with the same sense of self-importance and the compulsion to let the world know their deepest thoughts. And so old guys are constrained to repeat themselves to each new class, as if no one has ever before graduated law school and reinvented the wheel.
And like the class before you, you whine and cry and complain how we’re mean old lawyer and don’t appreciate you. And like the class before you, you parry and riposte with the same arguments we’ve seen over and over. And like the class before you, you want to insulate your world from the harsh voice of experienced lawyers telling you things you don’t want to hear.
It’s tiresome. There are some new lawyers on the internet who get it, but far more who don’t. They write their little hearts out (see how condescending I can be?) and await the applause and adoration of their fans. Should a curmudgeon stop by, it ruins their dream. No one has ever been discouraging to them before, told them they aren’t the coolest lawyer ever, or at the very least, softened the blow by first telling them all the wonderful things they are.
Does this disappoint you? It certainly disappoints me. Welcome to the real world, which is filled with disappointment and critical scrutiny. You can hide from it, but it’s still there. What you need to do is be able to take a punch and keep on trying. That comes with experience.
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I appreciate your curmudgeonly unsolicited guidance.
Get off my lawn.
I put together a brochure about my practice, and one day, I get a phone call from Scott Greenfield. I was scared to death.
He told me that he looked through my brochure and thought it was the best damn brochure he had ever seen. It was accurate, truthful and impressive. He called just to let me know that he thought I did a great job.
I asked him if I could buy him lunch, but he declined as he was too busy. I can’t tell you how much I appreciated the fact that he took the time to let me know what he thought. No one else has ever done that for me.
And this is how you repay my kindness, undermining my reputation as a scary curmudgeon? Glad you came by, Sam, and hope all is well. Maybe we’ll catch lunch soon, but my treat.
What an effective post. I will bookmark for later review.
I’m not a lawyer. So I’m just sort of spectating here, I guess.
But it strikes me that this young vs. old–er uh *Experienced* debate isn’t particularly unique to lawyers or lawyer-ing.
The only part that’s perhaps unique is that these young lawyers, being of the lawyering mindset possibly long before they became lawyers, are incredibly good at arguing and debating.
But for my part, it took me an incredibly long time to understand that being really good at winning a debate, and actually being intrinsically right about something are entirely separate things.
It’s fairly easy to see it when you are the outside observer. But whenever you, yourself are an interested party to the debate, it’s easy to fall into the false verisimilitude that if your argument wins the day, that must’ve meant you were right all along.
Well, it ain’t so anymore than the physical counterpart “might makes right”.
I ramble and sometimes my point gets buried. In case I wasn’t clear: the young ones should have some humility and stuff and not complain so much about your alleged curmudgeonly-ness, SHG. At the end of the day (and by that I mean 10-15 years from now), it might turn out that a few of the youngsters had a few good points about this or that in this particular debate. But mostly and overall, you will be vindicated as having been correct.
And that’ll be just in time for those now not-so-youngsters to be on the opposite side of the debate with the new crop of new lawyers.
So it goes.
—
Furry cows moo and decompress.
It’s hardly unique to lawyers (or lawyer-ing), but that’s the tiny niche of the world that concerns me, and so it’s where I focus. While the thrust of your point is on target, and fairly understandable to anyone who, after gaining experience, comes to understand its benefit, one of the secondary concerns I have is that the arguments haven’t been impressive. They are replete with logical fallacies and frequently irrelevant, except as an appeal to self-interest. This not only tells me they lack the maturity to realize the merit of experience, but that they aren’t nearly as good at thinking as the believe they are.
For a lawyer, whether new or old, this isn’t a good thing.
Reading this post reminded me that I don’t tell you enough that you are condescending, not sufficiently respectful, nor sensitive to my fragile self-esteem.
They say don’t forget to say the things that are important to say.
Quote SHG
we’re jealous of their savvy and fearful that they will steal our clients, and that’s why we go to such lengths to diminish their worth. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with a concern that they are publishing their thoughts and “advice” on the internet for the world to see, and their thoughts aren’t always as brilliant as they think they are. Indeed, sometimes they’re downright dangerous.
J.A.B.
given my age, I see this as a Generational flaw, where these children are told they are Important constantly from grade school on
No one is that sensitive.
I agree, and blame my generation for creating these little monsters. That said, at some point they will have to grow up and get past the award for showing up they received in third grade, or being taught that anyone who makes them feel bad is a bully.
I was just having this discussion with Sam on Lawyerist, and there is one point I think being missed…
Baby lawyers come onto blogs like SJ and Lawyerist and demanding what they feel is “cordiality.” They would prefer that other lawyers not say “What you wrote is stupid” but instead hand them everything sugar coated and say it in a nice tone. If you don’t say it nicely, and give them an A plus for voicing such precious thoughts, you’re being “mean.” If you can’t do that, don’t say anything at all.
Playing into this and trying to take a middle ground, Sam acts like the harsh commentary is a big “learning lesson” from mean ol’ Mr. Greenfield who wants to be helpful but just isn’t good at it. But perhaps if mean ol’ Greenfield were a bit nicer about things, the poor millenials would listen a little bit better and become less sucky lawyers. He could be so much more helpful if he would just be a little nicer about it, since millenials don’t deal well with meanness.
Why can’t Scott just see that?
Because you’re missing the point. This attitude of an entitlement to kindness is the type of crap that has created a culture of entitlement and produces sucky young lawyers.
Law is a profession where judges write scathing opinions about your poorly written brief, and don’t even give you an A for effort. Lawyers get sanctioned, disbarred, and sued for malpractice for making mistakes.
And when clients get hurt, the state bar association or malpractice doesn’t “chalk this up to a learning experience” like used to happen on GI Joe. (“Gee Duke, I’ll never play with matches again! Thanks for teaching me how dangerous it is!”) No, lawyers get fired, disbarred, sued, and sanctioned. All of these things are less than pleasant, but they are a very real threat.
That is why I find it so amazing that Sam and the others have basically demanded that the profession and lawyers like Scott bend over backwards to accommodate their delicate sensibilities, rather than having to adapt to the realities of the profession.
You’re not entitled to niceness and being mean is not a misguided “learning lesson”. If you think you’re entitled to niceness, you are utterly unprepared to cope with the reality of practicing law. It also means you are in ineffective lawyer who cannot deal with with how vicious the profession can be.
Sigh. Toward the top of my sidebar, I have blurb that reads “I invite thoughtful comments, but please keep it civil and respectful.” Every once in a while a commenter, typically a marketer or baby lawyer, will try to throw my words back in my face, informing me that I am not being sufficiently civil and respectful to them. The problem is these blithering idiots don’t comprehend that I am the arbiter of civil and respectful here, and they are here at my sufferance.
The nice/mean dichotomy is an interesting problem in that its meaning is relative to the sensibilities of the other party. If they have fragile sensibilities, any hint of criticism is mean. If they are tough, they can take a punch in the gut and shrug it off. And there is a spectrum in between.
You are right that being a lawyer isn’t a profession for wimps. You are also right that, for the most part, the Lawyerist’s readers are comprised of delicate millenials who are butthurt at the slightest scent of disapproval. To them, I am a mean old man who makes them very angry because I don’t appreciate how awesome they are.
Before I started commenting over there, I called Lawyerist “a mile wide and an inch deep,” as its content was utterly pathetic. When I started commenting, I found the readers so shockingly delicate that the only thing they were able to handle was sheer, unadulterated validation. It was like watching a bunch of toddlers play with a loaded gun.
To some extent, I played the mean old man purposefully, trying to get the baby lawyers to build up some tolerance to language that wasn’t unwaveringly approving. To some extent, I chose not to sugarcoat my words, because they are lawyers and should be tough enough to handle some disagreement. As you say, judges aren’t going to spare their feelings, and it’s never a good idea for a lawyer to burst out in tears because the judge was mean to them.
It appears that Sam has decided that he needs to protect his coddled masses from the harsh tones that real lawyers use. Saying that he learns more from people who coddled him may be true (or not), but the reader doesn’t dictate the tones of the writer so their pleasing to his delicate eyes.
On the other hand, the Lawyerist is Sam’s blog, and as his blog, Sam gets to define the level of civility he wants. Given that he needs to cater to his delicate, if youthful, readers if he’s to make money off advertising, he wants to make sure than no one hurts the baby lawyers’ feelings. And so be it. The Lawyerist can return to its former status as a cess-puddle, with no one there but toddlers and a loaded gun. And hopefully, his readers won’t do too much damage to clients, whether because of their ignorance or their inability to deal with language that makes them feel bad about themselves.
It’s getting worse. It’s not just lawyerist. That’s just a sliver of the bigger problem – a new generation of lawyers that don’t want to get their feelings hurt. They never have.
When I was a baby lawyer I had just won a trial. The judge called the prosecutor and me back in to chambers for a critique. I waited for my props. Instead, I got “I thought you asked a lot of dumb questions.” I still keep in touch with that (retired) judge. Now she would be called a “bully.”
Criticism and honesty builds character. Being nice just means you are being nice, and usually lying.
And I don’t care if your stupid ass agrees nor do I care what that 2010 graduate Rushie says. Idiot that he is.
You do realize that your mother never loved you. Remember that one time she said she did? She was lying.
Now my name is emitteda stock? I must have entered the captcha code as my name. I may do that from now on. It may help my personal brand.
Sounds like that website “Top Law Schools” where potential law students run around and tout their ignorance, making statements about how important it is to attend a T1 and what it means to work in biglaw. Despite, you know, having no idea what a legal career entails. It’s funny to watch just how ignorant potential law students are.
Then when a real lawyer comes in and says something blasphemous but true, like “it doesn’t matter where you went to law school” or “young lawyers make next to nothing” or “there are no jobs available but document review” they get banned.
But hey, Top Law Schools wants a “cordial” environment where everyone is entitled to their ignorance. Cuz that’s what makes money, and realty is, well, kind of a bummer. Who cares about giving potential law students good information and food for thought – let’s just keep the precious ad revenues flowing in.
Sounds like Lawyerist is doing the same – content to let young lawyers wallow in their ignorance, because God forbid their delicate sensibilities get hurt and they go post somewhere that no one will challenge their untrue reality.
How cool.
I’m a 2008 graduate.
It certainly couldn’t hurt your personal brand.
Like I said, it’s Sam’s blog, and if his expectations for it are so low, I’m sure he will reach them.
Don’t talk back to me
Geez, don’t get all butthurt over a couple of years.
Scott’s error is in not finding a way to frame his criticism in a way that is superficially positive. So, for instance, instead of writing “what you said was stupid,” Scott should consider being more constructive, like “what you just said wold be extremely persuasive and appealing to stupid people.”
What a great idea!!! I will write something, send it to you, and you can translate it into Slackoisie! Cool!!!
In my experience, both direct and otherwise, the most incompetent lawyers
are 40+ years old. Ditto the most corrupt.
I don’t know that lawyers over 40 are the most incompetent or corrupt, but there is no question that there are incompetent and corrupt lawyers over 40.
We’re not all like this, though. I can’t help but think there’s a certain amount of sample bias here, as in you don’t really see the less annoying new lawyers because they actually keep their mouths shut. I’ve been practicing for a little under two years now, and even just recently won my first jury trial. I follow the “blawgosphere” and occasionally kick around the idea of starting a blog, but I honestly don’t feel that I have the gravitas to pull it off yet. What business do I have blogging about criminal defense – or any other type of law – when I only have one trial under my belt? Maybe if it was explicitly themed as a new lawyer blog, that would make sense… but I wonder how useful that would be to anyone.
While the owner of this joint takes a much-needed surfing vacation, you’re stuck with scrubs and scabs addressing your comment.
1. You’re right. Many of the more conscientious and competent new lawyers are quiet professionals. However, those of the ilk he describes are becoming louder, demanding more recognition and more shoddily-manufactured credibility. Some even prey upon the more inexperienced and vulnerable in our profession. A counter-point from the more experienced sector of the profession is essential.
2. Congrats on your jury trial win. Take a few moments to enjoy it. Then get the hell back to work.
3. Start a blog only if you enjoy writing and would be OK with putting your ideas out in the open for everyone to crap-upon. Blog about whatever you want.
4. Don’t betray those blue-collar roots. Ever. So far, so good.
Paper credentials are pretty, but aren’t worth the ink used to print them or pixels of light used to generate then when you are in court or dealing with clients. As one of my law school instructors told me, “When you leave law school you will never know more law and never know less about the actual practice of law.”
All of us earn respect according to our efforts and being humbled is part of the learning experience. I still remember the terror I felt the day I walked into the senior attorney’s office without a pad and paper. She tore me to shreds, gave me a pad and pen as well as a copy of Strunk & White. I was told to take that book with me everywhere I went, including the restroom. Since then I have never failed to take notes and the Strunk & White is on my desk now nine years later. I remember a judge suggesting I go back and read a case again because I obviously didn’t understand it properly. I now read and re-read the statutes and case law every time I take on a new client even if I have read them a hundred times. I am amazed each time how much I missed in my prior reviews. These humbling experience help make me who I am and their memory helps me improve the quality of my work day by day. And, most importantly, being smacked down helps you to avoid becoming an overconfident buffoon who risks his client’s case for his ego.
Humbling experiences are what we’re made of. Only the very young and naive think they’re brilliant and have nothing to learn. In time, they realize how foolish they were and how foolish they look to others. And it repeats itself with each new crop of brilliant, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed new lawyers.