Are law firms ready for Gen Z lawyers?

Generation Z is no longer the generation law firms are preparing to recruit. They are already trainees, paralegals, newly qualified solicitors and junior associates, and their expectations of working life are beginning to influence how legal businesses recruit, manage and retain their people.

Much has been written about Gen Z being more demanding than previous generations. They want flexibility. They expect regular feedback. They are more willing to discuss mental health and workplace culture. They are comfortable questioning established ways of working and, perhaps most importantly, they appear less willing to accept that extremely long hours and significant personal sacrifice are simply the price of a successful legal career.

It is easy to frame this as a generational problem. For law firm leaders, however, there is a more useful question to ask: are traditional approaches to managing junior lawyers still suitable for the people now entering the profession?

Long hours remain part of the profession

There is an obvious tension between what many younger lawyers say they want from their careers and what some areas of legal practice continue to demand.

Research published by Legal Cheek in 2025, based on responses from more than 2,000 trainees and junior lawyers, highlighted the long working days experienced at some of the UK''s leading firms. At certain elite US firms, average working days stretched beyond 11 hours.

For firms paying substantial salaries, there will inevitably be an expectation that lawyers are available when clients and transactions require them. Gen Z has not changed the commercial realities of corporate legal practice.

What may be changing is the willingness of junior lawyers to accept those conditions indefinitely.

Salary remains important, but younger employees increasingly talk about flexibility, career development, workplace culture and work-life balance alongside remuneration. That creates a challenge for firms whose traditional retention proposition has essentially been: work extremely hard now and the rewards will come later.

The partnership carrot may simply not have the same appeal to everybody entering the profession today.

A generation more willing to talk about work

There is another significant difference between today''s junior lawyers and previous generations: they have grown up online.

Social media has blurred the boundary between private conversations about work and public commentary about employers, careers and industries.

That was illustrated dramatically this month when a junior lawyer in Melbourne was reportedly dismissed following a TikTok video in which she described legal practice as "soul-sucking" and discussed issues including pressure, working hours and work-life balance. Her employer disputed the characterisation of its workplace culture.

The circumstances concern an Australian firm, but the wider issue is just as relevant to UK practices.

A dissatisfied employee once complained about work to friends after leaving the office. A dissatisfied employee today can potentially discuss their experience with hundreds of thousands of people before arriving home.

That creates legitimate concerns around confidentiality, professional obligations and reputational management. Firms need sensible social media policies and junior lawyers need to understand that posting publicly about their employment can have consequences.

But simply attempting to prevent employees from talking about workplace culture is unlikely to solve the underlying problem.

Employer reputation is becoming increasingly transparent. Prospective trainees can research working hours, salaries, management styles and employee experiences before submitting an application.

Law firm culture is therefore becoming part of the firm''s external brand whether management intends it to be or not.

Is there really a generational clash?

Research previously reported by Legal Cheek has also identified differing workplace attitudes between generations as a significant challenge for junior lawyers.

Younger lawyers have been associated with a preference for regular feedback, skills development and more collaborative approaches to leadership.

That can conflict with the traditional legal training model.

Many experienced lawyers developed their careers in environments where juniors were expected to observe, learn quickly and avoid taking up too much of a partner''s time. Feedback might arrive when something went wrong rather than through regular structured conversations.

That approach becomes difficult when managing employees who expect to understand how they are progressing and what they need to do next.

It doesn''t necessarily mean one generation is right and another is wrong.

A partner managing ten people cannot reasonably provide constant reassurance. Equally, a junior lawyer receiving little meaningful feedback for six months may reasonably question whether they are developing.

Good practice management probably sits somewhere between the two.

Should Gen Z become more resilient?

Some organisations are approaching the issue by preparing younger people for the realities of professional life.

Freshfields has previously worked with universities on resilience training designed to help students prepare for City law careers.

There is an argument for this.

Legal practice can be demanding. Clients have urgent problems. Courts impose deadlines. Transactions do not necessarily conclude conveniently at 5pm. Difficult conversations, criticism and pressure cannot be completely engineered out of a legal career.

Resilience is therefore a valuable professional skill.

But firms also need to be careful that "resilience" does not become shorthand for tolerating poor management or unnecessarily difficult working environments.

The more interesting question may be whether both sides need to adapt. Junior lawyers need realistic expectations about professional practice, while firms need to consider whether every longstanding working practice remains necessary simply because previous generations experienced it.

AI could create another challenge for law firms

Technology adds another dimension to the generational shift.

Reuters recently reported on lawyers moving away from conventional legal practice to work as "legal engineers" within AI businesses. These roles can involve lawyers helping technology companies build systems capable of performing or assisting with tasks such as due diligence and document review.

For law firms, this raises an interesting retention problem.

Much of the discussion around artificial intelligence has concentrated on whether AI will reduce the amount of work available for junior lawyers.

The opposite question deserves attention too.

Could law firms lose some of their most technologically capable young lawyers to the companies building legal AI?

A junior lawyer who enjoys technology but dislikes repetitive document-heavy work may increasingly have alternatives that allow them to use their legal training without following the conventional associate-to-partner career path.

Law firms are therefore competing for talent not only with other firms, but potentially with legal technology businesses, alternative legal service providers and entirely new types of legal career.

Firms that successfully integrate technology into their own practices may consequently have an advantage when recruiting this generation.

AI is also being used to train junior lawyers

Technology may help firms address some of the management challenges created by changing working patterns.

Perkins Coie, for example, has introduced AI avatar-based training designed to allow younger lawyers to practise conversations with senior colleagues and develop communication skills.

The idea might initially sound unusual, but it addresses a genuine practice-management issue.

Hybrid and remote working have reduced some of the informal learning opportunities junior lawyers previously received simply by being around experienced practitioners.

Listening to a partner speak to a client, watching a negotiation develop or having an informal conversation after a meeting can all contribute to professional development.

Technology cannot entirely replace those experiences. It can, however, become another training tool.

The firms that manage Gen Z most effectively may therefore be those that combine technology with more deliberate human supervision rather than assuming development will happen naturally.

The partnership model may need to sell itself again

Perhaps the biggest long-term question is what younger lawyers actually want their careers to look like.

For previous generations, partnership represented the obvious pinnacle of private practice. Years of demanding work could ultimately lead to status, significant earnings and ownership of the business.

That remains attractive to many lawyers.

But it is no longer the only credible route.

Legal technology, consultancy, in-house roles, alternative legal businesses, freelance practice and portfolio careers all provide different possibilities.

If a talented junior lawyer looks at the partners above them and sees long hours, constant availability, management responsibilities and pressure rather than a career they want to emulate, simply promising that they could become a partner one day may not be enough to retain them.

Law firms may need to become much better at explaining why building a long-term career within their organisation is worthwhile.

Gen Z isn''t necessarily the problem

There is a temptation whenever a new generation enters the workplace to conclude that standards have changed.

Perhaps they have.

But some of the things associated with Gen Z – wanting good management, useful feedback, career development, sensible use of technology and a degree of flexibility – aren''t particularly radical expectations.

The challenge is finding the balance between those expectations and the realities of providing professional legal services.

Law firms cannot promise that every day will finish at 5pm. Junior lawyers cannot expect to avoid pressure, difficult feedback or demanding clients. At the same time, firms cannot assume that younger employees will tolerate inefficient working practices, poor communication or limited development simply because previous generations did.

The firms that recognise that distinction may have a significant recruitment and retention advantage.

Gen Z lawyers are not waiting outside the profession asking it to change for them.

They are already inside it.

And as they become associates, managers, partners and eventually law firm owners themselves, the bigger question may not be whether Gen Z will adapt to traditional legal practice.

It may be how much legal practice changes with them.