A little more than five years ago, when I was President of the Boston Bar Association, I assembled a stellar group of lawyers and academics to focus on the plight of men and women who were about to enter what had become a severely diminished job market for law school graduates. We were in the midst of cataclysmic change affecting our profession, resulting from the near-crash of the nation's and the world's economies. Not only had law firms in every major city reduced their hiring targets, but many of them rescinded offers they had made to law students preparing to graduate. Thousands of graduating law students found themselves with no job prospects and overwhelmed by student debt.
I had no illusions that this task force of brilliant, accomplished leaders would find a magic bullet, but we all hoped that something could be done. Although the task force report clearly defined the problem, the small but, we hoped, manageable measures it recommended (an incubator program for a small number of new lawyers) never got off the ground. Still, our efforts helped to bring new lawyers into the bar association fold, where they could begin to develop their professional networks, and the bar association focused more of its educational programming on topics that could assist new lawyers faced with the unhappy choice of starting their own practices or leaving the profession. The task force's journey was well worth taking, even if it did not make the problems go away.
Five years later, our profession has continued to see systemic change. Law firm hiring has improved, but still has not reached pre-recession levels. Law schools are seeing fewer applications. Some law schools have addressed the problem by lowering their admission standards, while others have maintained their standards but lowered their enrollments. To maintain their academic profiles and, hence, their rankings amid the drop in applications, some highly ranked law schools compete to attract the best students by offering them merit scholarships. However law schools have adapted to change, the end result is fewer lawyers entering the profession, many still not finding jobs.
The same forces that have changed the profession of law have affected the attitudes of your generation. Last week the Harvard Institute of Politics released the report of a survey it conducted concerning millennials' attitudes toward the current Presidential candidates and the current state of American political institutions. The results are stunning. In terms of the Presidential race, they should bring great encouragement to whoever ends up being our Democratic nominee (and it is becoming increasingly clear who that will be). But more broadly, the report makes these remarkable findings:
I had no illusions that this task force of brilliant, accomplished leaders would find a magic bullet, but we all hoped that something could be done. Although the task force report clearly defined the problem, the small but, we hoped, manageable measures it recommended (an incubator program for a small number of new lawyers) never got off the ground. Still, our efforts helped to bring new lawyers into the bar association fold, where they could begin to develop their professional networks, and the bar association focused more of its educational programming on topics that could assist new lawyers faced with the unhappy choice of starting their own practices or leaving the profession. The task force's journey was well worth taking, even if it did not make the problems go away.
Five years later, our profession has continued to see systemic change. Law firm hiring has improved, but still has not reached pre-recession levels. Law schools are seeing fewer applications. Some law schools have addressed the problem by lowering their admission standards, while others have maintained their standards but lowered their enrollments. To maintain their academic profiles and, hence, their rankings amid the drop in applications, some highly ranked law schools compete to attract the best students by offering them merit scholarships. However law schools have adapted to change, the end result is fewer lawyers entering the profession, many still not finding jobs.
The same forces that have changed the profession of law have affected the attitudes of your generation. Last week the Harvard Institute of Politics released the report of a survey it conducted concerning millennials' attitudes toward the current Presidential candidates and the current state of American political institutions. The results are stunning. In terms of the Presidential race, they should bring great encouragement to whoever ends up being our Democratic nominee (and it is becoming increasingly clear who that will be). But more broadly, the report makes these remarkable findings:
- Majority of 18- to 29-Year-Olds Reject Both Socialism and Capitalism.
- 15% Believe U.S. Headed in the Right Direction; Nearly Half Say Politics of Today are Not Able to Meet the Nation’s Challenges.
- Nearly 3-in-5 Believe There’s a “Glass Ceiling” Facing Women in America Today; 64% Say Men Have More Advantages.
- Dim View of U.S. Judicial System Largely Unchanged in Past Year; Less Than Half Have Confidence That People Judged Without Bias.
- U.S. Military Only Institution That Majority Trust at Least Most of the Time; Congress, Wall Street and Media Levels Below 20%.
I do not profess to be a sociologist or a political scientist, nor have I reviewed the historical data to determine whether they support what I am about to say. But my gut reaction to these findings is that they mark the first time since the youth movements of the 1960s and early 1970s that such large swathes of persons in these age brackets have lost faith in our political system and our institutions of government. At that time, much of the disillusionment was driven by the Vietnam War and the compulsory draft, which pulled young men out of college and sent them to fight in what would become a futile effort that many of them opposed. (I mean no disrespect to our Vietnam Veterans, many of whom acted from a sense of patriotic duty, not compulsion, and all of whom deserve our continued gratitude and support today.) The pressure, first on LBJ and then on Nixon, to end American involvement in the conflict crescendoed at least until 1970, when the killing of four Kent State University students by the Ohio National Guard took some of the air out of the anti-war bubble. But hard-core anti-war activists persisted until the fall of Saigon ended the war in 1975.
The civil rights movement, which remained a force to be reckoned with in the early '70s, also reflected a strong dissatisfaction among college-age people, and especially (and appropriately) black students, at the impotence of government and educational institutions to eradicate the effects of racism. The baby boom generation's faith in government reached an all-time low during the Watergate years, although Congress' ability to force Nixon's resignation (supported by the Supreme Court's unanimous order that the White House release its smoking gun tapes) also suggested that the system worked, even if it took extraordinary heat from two branches to punish the crimes of the third.
The causes of today's cynicism among American youth are, at least in some respects, different from the causes of the movements of the '60s and early '70s. Most obviously, today there is no draft. No Americans are being forced to choose between war and jail, no young men are being deprived of the freedom to pursue their educations and careers for the sake of ideological military conflict. Racism is still a significant factor, of course, although it is manifested in newly visible ways. In today's world of smart phones and body cameras, we all have front row seats to brutal, sometimes fatal, attacks on innocent young black men and, less often, women. Our criminal justice system has led to a severe overcrowding of our jails, which also disproportionately affects young black men. The rumor that we live in a post-racial society is greatly exaggerated.
But the root of much of the current disillusionment is economic. The same economic inequality that sparked the Occupy Wall Street movement not long ago has fueled Bernie Sanders' popularity among millennials, many of whom correctly perceive that they lack the opportunities for economic advancement that their parents enjoyed. As best they can tell, the American Dream has skipped a generation, and they will be working hard all of their lives not so much to be prosperous, but just to meet their basic needs. Assuming, that is, they can find employment.
Which brings me to you (or at least to those of you who are in the 18-29-year-old age bracket). Your generation's disillusionment with American politics and government institutions presents both a challenge and an opportunity. It is a challenge because it must be tempting for young Americans to give up in the face of seemingly intractable forces. But it is an opportunity because millennials are crying out for change. They want, it seems to me, all the right things. A politics that works in meeting the nation's challenges. True gender and racial equality. A fair, unbiased judiciary. Governmental and financial institutions that can be trusted.
And here's the point: No one is better trained and equipped to effect this change than you. Your legal education, your training in constitutional law, your familiarity with government, your understanding of the rule of law, and your training in advocacy all qualify you to be the agents of change that your generation cries out for. A good argument can be made that the generations before you have blown it. Despite the many advantages we have enjoyed, despite the '60s themes of peace and love, despite the financial resources our economy has had available to keep the American Dream alive, we seem to have ground the political system to a halt. But the conditions you deplore can be fixed, and you are just the people to fix them.
So go to your jobs, pay down your debts, and support your lifestyles, but make time for more. Make time to participate in the political process. Make time to lobby your elected leaders for positive change. Identify the organizations that support your views and support them with your time, your talent, and your treasure. Volunteer in your communities. Help educate the public about the political process and help to get out the vote in election years. Use your knowledge of technology and social media to advocate for change. If you can afford to work in the public sector and are so inclined, do so with spirit and purpose. And never forget to devote time to pro bono service, even if it means effecting change only one person at a time. It all counts, it all matters. And if enough of you do it, it all can change the world.
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