Lexpert magazine features articles and columns on developments in legal practice management, deals and lawsuits of interest in Canada, the law and business issues of interest to legal professionals and businesses that purchase legal services.
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78 LEXPERT MAGAZINE | JANUARY 2013 LAST WORD LAW SCHOOL REUNIONS are a special breed of anxiety- inducing event. But, like the start of a New Year, they also offer the chance to reflect on what's gone before and what's yet to come. Last fall was the 20-year reunion of my LL.B./J.D. class, and the 10-year reunion of my grad school cohort. Both elicited the usual sport of comparison and one-upmanship: "Wow, that divorce was rough on him." … "You know, that outfit confirms that black is not necessarily a slimming colour." … "Oh, you're not going to believe this. So-and-so is now a senior partner / department head / university vice-president / multi-millionaire / judge / inventor of Post-it notes." ... "Really?!" What really struck me, though, was how both groups represented a historical snapshot of life in the legal profession. e high-flying Class of '92 entered the market at a time of reces- sion aer the late 1980s boom and had to deal with the unprecedented shame of low hire-back rates, renewable one-year (or six-month, or one- month) contracts, or the pursuit of "alternative careers." While things turned around, this group of "best and brightest" faced adversity from the start, along with the sense that what had been sold to us as the security of a career in law should have been a voidable contract. We took the roughly equal numbers of men and women in the class for granted, even if a surprisingly large number of us – and particularly women – fled big-firm practice quickly. For the graduating Class of 2002, the Silicon Valley bubble had burst, and the expectations of instant riches of just a few years' prior had evaporated. Once again, economic im- peratives meant that neither the traditional career path, nor the late '90s version – which had made instant millionaires out of a number of in-house counsel with stock options – was open. Downsizing was the name of the game. So what's it like looking forward? On the personal side, this amazingly accomplished group is human: dealing with the usual mid- life stories of dashed expectations, reframing goals, wondering whether the professional sacrifices have been worth the personal cost. Perhaps we're a little more relaxed about ourselves; the impressions of the people we thought we knew in law school replaced by updated versions, with more grey hair and additional padding around the middle. e competitive instinct is hard to let go, but time and tribulations per- mit us to be more generous. Facing our own mortality will start to do that as well. e class- mate who passed in his late 30s of a brain tumor, and the other who battled breast cancer twice before succumbing, are all-too-present reminders that a life in the law is still a life, and it can pass in an instant. Now is what we get. So what are we doing with it? Professionally, aer 20-plus years of hyper-achieving, folks are tired, yet still fighting (even if at times uncertain what we're fight- ing for). Once again, we're in the midst of a paradigm shi. Cana- dian firms are being swallowed into international conglomerates like Pac-Man (remember Pac-Man?), with FMC soon to be part of "Dentons," Ogilvy Renault now Norton Rose and soon to be merged with Fulbright Jaworski, and others looking nervously over their shoulders. Partners speak of KPIs rather than the "noble pro- fession." Billable targets still haunt us. We devour e End of Law- yers?, forgetting that the author put a question mark in there. I had a look at original photographs of both cohorts to remind myself of who we were before all of this. I remain amazed at the energy, fire and drive in the eyes of my classmates. A big part of me wishes we had the chance to do some of it all over again. e chal- lenge is building on wisdom and experience even as the profession shis around us like so much quicksand. I ended up not being able to attend either reunion, as it turned out, and that's okay. e lessons are there anyway. | COLUMNS | BY PAUL PATON Paul Paton is a professor at the University of the Pacific's McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento, California. He can be reached at ppaton@pacific.edu. ILLUSTRATION: DARCY MUENCHRATH Mid-Career Weariness Nothing like a law school reunion to remind us of all we've achieved, and all we haven't > AFTER 20 YEARS, FOLKS ARE TIRED, BUT STILL FIGHTING (EVEN IF UNCERTAIN ABOUT WHAT WE'RE FIGHTING FOR)