Category Archives: Generations

Time bomb

By Jordan Furlong | Published: July 8, 2009
“This,” says The Economist in a recent special report, “is a slow-moving but relentless development that in time will have vast economic, social and political consequences.” Peak oil? The fiscal crisis? Climate change? None of these  — it’s the fact that the world is aging. Specifically, people are having far fewer children and living much longer [...]
Also posted in Demographics | 4 Comments

How to work with Boomer lawyers

By Jordan Furlong | Published: May 21, 2008
Dan Hull at What About Clients? has apparently had it with the ruckus over Generation Y. In a post yesterday (HT to Legal Blog Watch), Dan responded to a seminar pitch on “learning to work with Millennials” with this riposte: It’s your problem, Gen-X and Gen-Y. Not ours. Work, figure it out, ask questions, and we’ll [...]
Also posted in New Lawyers | 6 Comments

Ban the law school lecture

By Jordan Furlong | Published: May 20, 2008
The simmering debate over whether to allow laptops into the law school classroom came to a head in March, with the decision by the University of Chicago Faculty of Law to ban wireless access in class. Follow those links, as well as this one from Paul Caron’s TaxProf Blog (HT: Dennis Kennedy), and you’ll be [...]
Also posted in Law School | 2 Comments

Why your client’s generation matters

By Jordan Furlong | Published: May 5, 2008
In one of last week’s posts, I talked about inter-generational tension within some law firms and how it can undermine these firms’ succession planning efforts. But as important as it is not to alienate good young talent through something as silly as generational resentment, law firms that are clueless about demographic differences risk an even [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, Clients | 3 Comments

Surviving a succession crisis

By Jordan Furlong | Published: May 1, 2008
Law.com’s Small Firm Business features an article today about succession planning for law firms. I’ve seen a lot of these articles lately, talking about the importance of transitioning clients from one generation of lawyers to the next, encouraging leadership development among younger lawyers, and motivating more senior practitioners to mentor the younger ones and share [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, Management | 3 Comments

Beyond work/life balance

By Jordan Furlong | Published: January 18, 2008
Seth Godin, whom you’ll see linked fairly often in this space, writes about the new workaholic, the person who’s motivated not by fear but by passion: “The passionate worker doesn’t show up because she’s afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it’s a hobby that pays. …[T]he new face of work, at [...]
Also posted in Big Firms, New Lawyers, Purpose, Satisfaction | Leave a comment

Millennial fever

By Jordan Furlong | Published: January 8, 2008
This post first appeared as an article at Slaw on October 1, 2007. During the past 50-odd years, the North American legal profession has been notable for a ready supply of labour. The post-war population boom and increased access to post-secondary education, combined with the enduring lure of a legal career, ensured that there would always [...]
Also posted in New Lawyers, Talent | Leave a comment

To the Class of ‘08:

By Jordan Furlong | Published: January 8, 2008
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 [...]
Also posted in Law School | Leave a comment

To the Class of ‘08:

By Jordan Furlong | Published: January 8, 2008
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 [...]
Also posted in Law School | Leave a comment

Going to town

By Jordan Furlong | Published: January 8, 2008
There’s been a lot of discussion lately about the numerous factors leading to the continuing contraction of the legal profession in smaller urban centers and in rural outposts. Here’s another one: competition for legal talent. Large-center practice is operating at unprecedented levels of profitability these days; even if small-center practices were still reasonably feasible, large-center [...]
Also posted in Careers, Competition, Small Centers | Leave a comment

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