A generational divide rivaling the Grand Canyon is one of the most impactful architects of the modern legal workplace. The law firm environment we know and revere is as equally steeped in history and tradition, as it is mired by an unflinching resistance to change. While these circumstances have long held fast for the legal world, much of the corporate landscape, either by choice or survival, is already evolving, bringing with its evolution advancement in values, best practices, and hierarchies. The result is a legal industry that finds itself struggling to maintain the vestiges of its underpinning, while conceding the necessity for change.

For many, a career as an attorney carries with it a level of prestige, a tremendous sense of accomplishment, and an assumption of reputable community standing, however, this was not always the case. The colonial lawyers of the 1700s, often from backgrounds of more modest means, battled with the British governors and aristocrats for legitimacy, engaging public opinion via the power of the press, and ultimately facing numerous attacks of malignment and denunciation as pettifoggers. As the American Revolution raged on, an exodus of loyalist lawyers took place. After the war, lawyers were required to take an oath of loyalty to the United States. Those who remained, played a powerful part in shaping our nation, with 25 of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence belonging to the profession. Lawyers would go on to constitute 31 of the 45 members of the Constitutional Convention and 10 of the 25 senators in the first U.S. Congress of 1789. This also included 17 of the 65 representatives, quite literally scribing the profession’s place and stature in history.

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