Login
Evergreen and emerging challenges facing young lawyers
The legal profession has always faced its fair share of challenges, but these obstacles have become increasingly complex and demanding for young lawyers navigating today’s rapidly changing landscape.
Grace Robbie
Speaking on a recent episode of The Protégé Podcast, Grace Oakley, the president of LIV Young Lawyers, delved into the pressing issues and unique challenges that young lawyers are currently grappling with.
Oakley explained how she distinguishes these challenges into two categories: “evergreen” obstacles, which are longstanding and timeless issues that have been part of the profession’s evolution, and “of-the-time” hurdles, which have arisen in response to the rapidly changing dynamics of the legal landscape.
One of the most enduring challenges for young lawyers, as highlighted by Oakley, is the highly competitive culture within the legal profession and the constant pressure to prove their value.
“From the evergreen perspective, it’s going to be that competitive nature, really eager to please, eager to support and prove their value,” she said.
Oakley noted that young lawyers are often characterised by having “type-A personalities”, “initiative”, and “conscientiousness”. While these traits are crucial for success in the high-pressure environment of the legal profession, she also noted that it could contribute to an “atmosphere that could raise some problems ... that covers a couple of different spaces”.
She said: “There’s not only the wellbeing aspect and that tendency that you put work before everything else to not look after yourself, not think about yourself, because you’re trying to prove that value to your partners or colleagues if you’re in a less hierarchical firm.
“That then manifests in significant burnout rates [and] significant numbers of young lawyers leaving the industry within the first five years, which I always find astounding. You get this massive attrition as a result, and you’re not really getting those good operators before proceeding through the firm.”
From the “of-the-time” perspective, Oakley identified the increasing reliance on artificial intelligence (AI) and automation in the legal profession as an additional layer of pressure that young lawyers must navigate.
She emphasised how young lawyers are acutely aware of how the evolving technology landscape is impacting the legal profession and the associated risks that it presents for them.
“That piece around proving their value is probably even more felt by young lawyers and trying to keep up and keep relevant because there’s this concept that the first people to go are kind of going to be the young lawyers or the grads or the paralegals who are trying to build themselves up in the industry,” she said.
“That’s a piece that young lawyers are acutely aware of, but also acutely anxious about. So it’s keeping track of that.”
Another issue Oakley identified, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, is the increasing concern that young lawyers lack the practical skills essential for success in the courtroom and client interactions.
“The other issue and challenge that we’re seeing, particularly out of COVID, and I’m hearing from not only kind of the young lawyer’s cohort but then also the more experienced cohort and kind of your special counsel, your partners, your directors of firms as well, is those real-life skills,” she said.
Oakley highlighted one area where this concern is particularly pronounced: the prevailing perception that young lawyers lack the requisite advocacy skills to navigate the legal profession effectively.
“There’s this feeling that young lawyers themselves don’t feel equipped to be able to do things like advocacy or court etiquette or how to navigate that space,” she said.
“It’s kind of felt across the profession, and I think that’s acute post-COVID because we had that sort of nature of all of those lockdowns and moving completely online and virtual where some courts and commissions haven’t come back to in person.”
