To the Class of ‘08:

I skipped my ten-year law school reunion in 2003. Partly I was just too busy, partly I already see a lot of my friends from law school here in Ottawa, and partly I never really got into that whole homecoming-week, relive-the-good-old days thing. Plenty of my classmates like it, however, and more power to them.

But I think we’re in the last days of the law school reunion. There are 342 Facebook groups with “law school” in the title, including one for Osgoode Hall’s 2007 graduating class that has (at time of writing) 129 members. In the age of social networks and real-time status updates on your fellow graduates’ lives, who needs the once-a-decade catch-up cocktail party in the old law lounge?

I raise this is to illustrate a fundamental change coming down the pike in how the legal profession conducts and organizes itself, and those changes are because of you.

You’re entering a profession whose culture was determined (consciously and otherwise) by the Baby Boomers. Gen-Xers like me never had the critical mass to alter that culture, so we just grumbled about it. But the generation graduating from law school these days can change things — and it will.

It’s not just about this whole “work-life balance” thing, which is overblown anyway (law is hard work, no matter who your employer is). It’s about foundational differences in how Boomers and Millennials view themselves and society. Here are some examples, all framed in generalized terms:

• Boomers viewed time as a means to an end (usually, higher earnings) and so created the billable hour system to calculate the value of legal services. Millennials view time as an end in itself — what system will you create to sell your work?

• Boomers maintained the great divide between lawyer and client — “we’re” the experts in charge, “they’re” the recipients of our wisdom. Millennials tend unconsciously towards collaboration, working with (not above) others — how will you relate to clients?

• Boomers were disturbed by the overwhelmingly white-male face of the profession and tried to make diversity a priority. Millennials take diversity for granted, and might not pay as much attention to the entry barriers still in place. How will you ensure diversity?

I could go on. With the legal profession finally undergoing true generational turnover (see our cover story), all the old assumptions are in play — everything’s up for grabs. You’re the ones who will set the rules, the expectations, the culture for lawyers for the next half-century. Go.

This post first appeared as the editorial in the 2007 Law Student issue of National magazine.