How much time to spend at the office and how to research the law are questions that can cause tensions between different generations of attorneys at big law firms.

But technology and, now, the recession have changed the rules for all generations -- from those trying to establish careers at big firms to those trying to preserve them, said panelists at an event, "Four Generations in the Workplace," hosted by Fish & Richardson last week.

The four panelists were: Dow N. "Kip" Kirkpatrick II, who recently retired from Alston & Bird; Earle R. Taylor III, a partner at McKenna Long & Aldridge, for the baby boomer perspective; Nagendra "Nick" Setty, the managing principal of Fish & Richardson's local office, for the Generation X perspective; and Amita A. Sanghvi, a rising second-year associate at Morris, Manning & Martin, to represent Generation Y.

Attendees at the event, organized by the South Asian Bar Association of Georgia (formerly known as IndusBar of Georgia), were predominantly Gen X-ers in their 30s and early 40s.

One big misconception about young lawyers is that they don't want to work as hard as their predecessors, said Rosalie Chamberlain, Alston & Bird's diversity manager, who moderated the panel.

Sanghvi agreed that Gen Y lawyers want to be more flexible about where and when they work, but pointed out that technological advances mean they are on call 24 hours a day. "If I go home at 6 p.m., it doesn't mean I stop working. I may have dinner with friends, but I'm accessible by Blackberry and laptop," she said.

Sanghvi said she'd rather work from a coffee shop on the weekends instead of going into the office. "That way, I feel like I'm still having a weekend," she said.

Setty, 43, said it annoyed him when he started practicing that he "had to have face time in the office."

Now that he runs an office, the Gen X-er said, "We don't have many rules." The local branch of IP boutique Fish & Richardson has neither a dress code nor set office hours and people may work from home.

By contrast, Kirkpatrick recalled that when he started out in 1970, an older partner walked the halls at 7 a.m. each day to see who was there.

Taylor, 51, pointed out that showing up at 7 a.m. was not a guarantee that one worked all day. He recalled older partners at a firm for which he clerked who came in early, worked until noon and then repaired to the Commerce Club for a three-martini lunch. "They would fool around the rest of the day," he said.

Setty and Sanghvi agreed that they want balance between their work and home lives, but added it doesn't mean they work fewer hours than their predecessors.

Setty said he gets home at 5 p.m. to have dinner with his children and help them with their homework. "But then I'm back to work at 9 p.m.," he said.

Kirkpatrick supported more balance. "I have a lot of regrets for the nights I spent working," he said. "It provided a lot of opportunities for my family, but you miss stuff."

Another rub between the generations is over research and writing. Young lawyers avoid using books, preferring to do their research online, the panelists concurred.

Kirkpatrick, a litigator, said young lawyers using a database to do their research would miss cases he knew about. "They'd say they typed in a keyword and nothing came up," he said. "We used to go to the library and sit with the books and look things up. No, it's not efficient. But isn't that what lawyers get paid for?"

Sanghvi said a partner, to her bemusement, installed a complete set of the Georgia Code on her bookshelf when she started practicing last year. "I thought I'd never use the books, since I could research online. But he said that with the books, you can see the whole code better."

Sanghvi said she uses both methods now. "With the search function, I can find other areas of the code that are applicable."

A pet peeve for the three older lawyers on the panel was young lawyers who write and edit briefs on the computer without ever looking at a printed copy. "You've got to look at the hard copy. It may look good on the screen, but then when you print it out, you'll see typos," said Taylor.

Setty said he makes younger lawyers print out a complex brief for editing. "I make them bring it in the conference room and spread it out on a table. You can't see the structure of a 20-page brief in the computer."

While associate layoffs have grabbed headlines, the panelists emphasized that the recession has ratcheted up the pressure for lawyers of every age.

Raj M. Nichani, a legal recruiter at FirstPro and the panel's organizer, said he has one client who was told after about 25 years of practice that he's got to get a book of business.

That expectation has extended down the ranks, said Nichani. "It used to be that if you were a junior associate, you were not expected to bring in business. Now there is pressure to do that."

Setty agreed that there is "very little patience" in the current marketplace. "It's all about who is contributing to the bottom line today."

Kirkpatrick, the senior panelist, said he still believes it is important to "first figure out how to be a really good lawyer. As you start interacting in the profession, you'll develop business."

By contrast, Sanghvi, the first-year, said she's already landed a client for her firm. Another member of a listserv for South Asian lawyers in which she participates needed a lawyer with health care expertise -- her practice area. "It was a small client, but a client nonetheless," said Sanghvi, who encouraged younger associates to join professional associations and get known in the marketplace.

Sanghvi said the uncertain legal market makes feedback and communication from older lawyers crucial to those like herself who are starting out. "We fear that in this economy, at the next review, we might get laid off for something we don't know about."

"We need lots of feedback and we need it now," Sanghvi said, adding that the Internet makes it important for firms to communicate developments as they happen to associates, so they don't find out about it from AbovetheLaw.com or the Fulton County Daily Report.