Millennial Feminisms: How the Newest Generation of Lawyers May Change the Conversation About Gender Equality in the Workplace

Much has been written about the “millennial generation” and how it is reshaping the modern workplace, including the legal profession. This body of literature ranges from heralding the millennial generation as the vanguard for a new age of creativity and work-life balance, to decrying the millennials as technology-obsessed, entitled and lazy. And while some characteristics attributed to the millennial generation have dubious support at best, an increasing body of reliable research supports the anecdotal evidence emerging from the legal marketplace around the country which suggests that millennial lawyers do share an identifiable set of characteristics that make them unique from prior generations. These characteristics include an ease with technology heretofore unimaginable, a desire and an expectation that they will rise rapidly through the ranks of the profession, and a commitment to an expansive definition of work-life balance that exceeds the desire to not only balance work life with family life, but instead that values a wide range of non-work pursuits and relationships. Perhaps from the perspective of progressive Baby Boomer lawyers, however, one of the most alarming trends is the perceived disinterest on the part of the millennials in pursuing explicitly social justice-focused careers. This includes the perception that young millennial women, specifically, are not as concerned as their feminist foremothers with fighting for gender equality in the office and in the courtroom. They may not even (gasp!) call themselves feminists at all. But even assuming that millennials are less likely to have an explicit focus on justice or equality as they enter their legal career, the sheer force of the mass entrance of these millennials into the legal market, along with their unique expectations of the workplace, may do as much or more as previous generations to alter business as usual in the law firm. The avalanche of publications dedicated to advising firms on how to recruit, manage and retain millennial lawyers suggests that the notoriously entrenched legal workplace is very interested in changing to meet the demands of the millennials. And the three characteristics outlined above – ease with technology, expectation for rapid advancement, and a commitment to an expansive definition of work-life balance – have enormous potential to fundamentally affect gender equality in the workplace, even absent the specific intention of millennials to have such an affect. What could be better for young female lawyers than the ability to have flexibility in their work thanks to technology, the ability to rise more rapidly through the ranks so they don’t have to choose between becoming mothers and partners at the same time in their life, and an understanding that everyone wants time away from the office whether they are men or women, parents or not? Such a law firm would be a more feminist workplace, even if the methods employed to get there are not explicitly feminist. What if the oft repeated rallying cry of feminists that it is only “a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens” who can “change the world” turns out to be false? What if changing the world instead takes the largest generation in American history all demanding apparently gender-neutral changes to the workplace that just happen to have the effect of easing some of the traditional points of tension for female lawyers? Through a review of the available literature and in-depth interviews with both millennials lawyers and those that supervise them, this paper examines these questions and discusses potential commonalities between millennials and previous generations of feminists and lawyers.