Generational Age Gaps and Communication in the Legal Industry and Workforce

By Reva Naidu.

Reading time: three minutes

In today’s legal field, most lawyers must not only navigate complex cases, challenging clients, and corporate conditions, but also understand how to communicate with their fellow co-workers – who often are a part of an entirely different generation.

Later retirement and early recruitment practices have given rise to this unique situation. This emerging generation gap is evident, through the following data points published by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)- displaying that 58% of lawyers are between the ages of 25 and 44, and 46% are between the ages of 25 and 34 overall. The ages of 55-64 comprise 14% of all lawyers. Smaller firms tend to have a larger percentage of lawyers in this bracket as compared to large city law firms. The age distribution also varies according to the legal sector – with the real estate field consisting of older lawyers compared to corporate. Considering the age distribution of partners, a third are between the ages of 44 and 55.

It is clear that multiple generations work concurrently in the legal field – from a few members of the ‘baby boomers’, to a majority being ‘Gen X’, and ‘Millennials’, with the youngest generation being ‘Gen Z’, who have begun breaking into the legal field recently. Since age is a protected characteristic under Section 5 of the Equality Act 2010, age discrimination is against the law. Therefore, law firms and employers must ensure that their management and communication techniques do not breach this legislation at the risk of lawsuits.

The following table includes the commonly accepted birth years for each of the aforementioned generation:

How Communication Differences Manifest

Communication is one of the most essential aspects of a lawyer’s daily work. As a result of the diverse social inputs, educational facilities, and global conditions, each generation differs in terms of mindset, attitudes, and outlooks towards professional development and work scenarios, which may be increasingly beneficial to law firms. It has been observed that Gen-X and Baby Boomers tend to show more loyalty to their employers, with their average tenure being a decade, while Millennials had an average tenure of two and a half years – a significant reduction.

Communication barriers are defined as obstacles or problems that interfere with the effective dissemination of information between parties. These may manifest amongst co-workers with generational gaps due to perception, stereotypes, or cognitive biases.

In 2018, The Economist published a report which found that 42% of communication errors in the workplace stem from generational gaps. Thus, managing four generations may serve as a challenge to law firms as these generations have also adapted to a certain range and type of communication – these methods may cause confusion or miscommunication in the workplace. Even small changes in punctuation and emailing formats may be interpreted in vastly different ways depending on the age of the recipient. For example, older generations, on average, prefer face-to-face communication while younger workers might be more comfortable with digital and online communication. This difference is particularly notable in the rise of the popularity of remote working options since the Covid-19 pandemic, with 98% of Buffer’s 2023 State of Remote Work survey respondents preferring to continue working from home. Virtual communication, especially by Gen-Z and Millennials, may involve more casual elements like abbreviations and emojis, which could be considered unprofessional by older employees. Gen-Z and Millennial employees could also be less tolerant to direct phone calls. As seen in the SRA’s survey data, partners tend to be older than junior lawyers on average, and thus, such communication differences may particularly manifest between partners and associates, or associates and trainees, and so forth.

Actionable Steps for Firms and Legal Employers

Through a survey conducted by AARP International in 36 OECD countries, it was found that nearly 83% of global executives acknowledge the importance of a generationally diverse workforce for successful growth of a company, but only 6% of these companies have included age in their DEI manifesto.

The best method to avoid communication conflicts between generations in the workplace is to raise awareness of the potential areas of difference. An effective step taken by Cooley LLP, a global law firm based in London, is the setting up of an age-diverse staff panel that discussed such differences and how best to tackle them in order to ensure close collaboration across all the generations represented at the firm, encouraging authenticity. Similarly, magic-circle giant, Linklaters, has recently developed supervisory training methods and resources for inter-generational collaboration, emphasising inclusivity. Other law firms and businesses are encouraged to foster similar meaningful conversations to ensure compatibility between co-workers.

Benefits of Multi-Generational Teams

Despite a few challenges, multi-generational teams provide manifold advantages to productivity and fresh ideas. ‘Older’ workers should not be stigmatised as ‘out-of-touch’, as traditional work ethics and outlooks are as essential as new ideas. A sweeping generalisation should not be made of such people being considered technologically weaker in comparison to the young Gen-Z and Millennial workforce. The incoming workforce will benefit significantly through the mentoring from experienced workers, learning hands-on approaches to problem-solving. This knowledge-sharing is a two-way street – newer generations may encourage a better work-life balance and newer innovations and mechanisms.

An employee’s age should not be utilised to ascertain their competency, and all ages must be encouraged to collaborate and work together to provide their employers with the best solutions. Experience and enthusiasm are a powerful combination. After all, age is just a number!