How to advise an older gen x/boomer lawyer friend on modern job hunting etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ and she won’t use AI of course.

Not necessarily a bad thing.

A good thing, in fact.

It really isn’t. People who don’t use it are going to fall behind. Yes, you have to work on good prompts and revise and obviously not use for case law, but it provides surprisingly helpful background info for things and can be used by her to guide her work, especially bc she doesn’t have a firm to check in with.

No. Not for a lawyer with expertise in her subject matter.

See my post above. You are kidding yourself

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do know that boomers are the parents of Gen X?

Boomers were born in the late 1930s through the very early 1960s.

They are in their late 60s to 80s now.

People in their 40s and 50s are not "boomers"

genx/boomer same thing, we don't have symptahy for these people who didn't make the right easy choices to be rich off the backs of the youth

you sound stupid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You do know that boomers are the parents of Gen X?

Boomers were born in the late 1930s through the very early 1960s.

They are in their late 60s to 80s now.

People in their 40s and 50s are not "boomers"

Actually, boomers are the parents of millennials. Greatest Gen and Silent Gen are parents of boomers and gen x.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Boomer lawyer who has changed jobs twice in my 60s, I hate to say it but your friend is a lost cause. You can't make excuses for not using technology and not using the preferred methods of communicating. I don't much care about not having Linked In, but the other things you mention make her unlikely to secure employment. If I were you, I'd stay out of it because nothing good can come of you trying to convince her to update her skills and attitude.

Could you give some details on what worked for you? Did you have any gaps? If so, how did you deal with them? Does your resume reveal your age even indirectly? If not, how did you handle that?

Thanks.

PP here. I don't have any gaps at all and law was not my first career so if you didn't know me, what you could find out about me would make me about 8 years younger than I actually am. My resume doesn't reveal my age. Since I spent two decades with the same employer, I don't have a lot of jobs on my resume. Where you could figure out my age is by looking up my reported cases from early in my career. I did a bunch of appellate work that got reported and I also published a bunch of articles. But I actually don't think people do that. Also, my age didn't matter because for my two most recent jobs, I went to work for people who knew me and so knew about how old I am.

As far as the late in life job changes, what worked was networking. When I let people know I was looking, I got a lot of response from firms with positions that fit my skill set and I got lots of suggestions about where to apply. It was a pretty quick process for me both times. But even still, if my tech skills and communication skills were not where the legal community expects, I would not have gotten my jobs. I honestly think that is going to hold your friend back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can’t help this person if they don’t want help or are not willing to change how they do things.

They will continue their current approach and either give up or eventually realize they have to adapt.

This. And you haven’t discussed her appearance and how she comes across. There are 50-60 year olds that come across as experienced impressive wise modern and there are 50-60 years olds who come across as intellectually feeble and dusty

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can’t help this person if they don’t want help or are not willing to change how they do things.

They will continue their current approach and either give up or eventually realize they have to adapt.

This. And you haven’t discussed her appearance and how she comes across. There are 50-60 year olds that come across as experienced impressive wise modern and there are 50-60 years olds who come across as intellectually feeble and dusty

They do want help, sort of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I want to be delicate but I’m worried for her. She is on her own, and needs the money, but also very stubborn on how things should be done. She’ll often reference an approach cited by some big law partner she worked with decades ago. But times have changed. A lot. Examples:

No social media or linkedin
She wants to call potential recruiters and leads on the phone instead of emailing them or god forbid, using their intake portals (recruiters)
She advises her clients in ways that are not market standard

How to help?

Advice.
Get a linked in with a nice pic and details that don’t include years

Move away from insisting on phone calls. People communicate by email. If you insist on calls, they must be zoom or teams, not phone calls unless the client has indicated they prefer this method (some older clients might). If you refuse to put anything in email/writing, you will look inefficient, over cautious and insecure about your advice. You will also look like you are trying to pad your bill.

Use chat for organizing, repetitive and admin tasks, and for background research. Always check anything you intend to use in work product throughly

Dye your hair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a Boomer lawyer who has changed jobs twice in my 60s, I hate to say it but your friend is a lost cause. You can't make excuses for not using technology and not using the preferred methods of communicating. I don't much care about not having Linked In, but the other things you mention make her unlikely to secure employment. If I were you, I'd stay out of it because nothing good can come of you trying to convince her to update her skills and attitude.

What is the preferred method of communicating? I worked with someone who was only a few years older than me and she insisted on phone calls for everything. I found it disruptive and inefficient, but she seemed to think everyone else was wrong. She was laid off a few years ago, and I don’t know if she’s worked since. Hopefully she had a good nest egg. She was a nice person, just stubborn.

[Anonymous]

She is a solo practitioner? You are trying to help her get more clients?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I want to be delicate but I’m worried for her. She is on her own, and needs the money, but also very stubborn on how things should be done. She’ll often reference an approach cited by some big law partner she worked with decades ago. But times have changed. A lot. Examples:

No social media or linkedin
She wants to call potential recruiters and leads on the phone instead of emailing them or god forbid, using their intake portals (recruiters)
She advises her clients in ways that are not market standard

How to help?

Advice.
Get a linked in with a nice pic and details that don’t include years

Move away from insisting on phone calls. People communicate by email. If you insist on calls, they must be zoom or teams, not phone calls unless the client has indicated they prefer this method (some older clients might). If you refuse to put anything in email/writing, you will look inefficient, over cautious and insecure about your advice. You will also look like you are trying to pad your bill.

Use chat for organizing, repetitive and admin tasks, and for background research. Always check anything you intend to use in work product throughly

Dye your hair.

Good advice.

[Anonymous]

I am late 40s and just got a new job as a lawyer. The best way is still, and has always been, personal connections. I don’t have a LinkedIn page but I don’t need one. My new gig is very prestigious.

[Anonymous]

Where to start with this ageism?

Legal recruiters always want to speak on the phone. If someone is serious about recruiting me, they want me on the phone; that’s SOP even in 2025.

Most of my clients have outside counsel guidelines that explicitly forbid me from using AI/LLM for their work. Their choice, not mine. At some point law firms will be pushed to buy internal LLMs and in that situation I can see the clients changing their position, but we’re several years away from that.

[Anonymous]

for a relatively senior lawyer, using a recruiter seems pretty normal and wanting to talk with that person some on the phone does too. your friend might have a difficult job search because of her age but its not clear that shes necessarily doing anything wrong by not just indiscriminately spamming her resume all over the place

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Boomer lawyer who has changed jobs twice in my 60s, I hate to say it but your friend is a lost cause. You can't make excuses for not using technology and not using the preferred methods of communicating. I don't much care about not having Linked In, but the other things you mention make her unlikely to secure employment. If I were you, I'd stay out of it because nothing good can come of you trying to convince her to update her skills and attitude.

Could you give some details on what worked for you? Did you have any gaps? If so, how did you deal with them? Does your resume reveal your age even indirectly? If not, how did you handle that?

Thanks.

PP here. I don't have any gaps at all and law was not my first career so if you didn't know me, what you could find out about me would make me about 8 years younger than I actually am. My resume doesn't reveal my age. Since I spent two decades with the same employer, I don't have a lot of jobs on my resume. Where you could figure out my age is by looking up my reported cases from early in my career. I did a bunch of appellate work that got reported and I also published a bunch of articles. But I actually don't think people do that. Also, my age didn't matter because for my two most recent jobs, I went to work for people who knew me and so knew about how old I am.

As far as the late in life job changes, what worked was networking. When I let people know I was looking, I got a lot of response from firms with positions that fit my skill set and I got lots of suggestions about where to apply. It was a pretty quick process for me both times. But even still, if my tech skills and communication skills were not where the legal community expects, I would not have gotten my jobs. I honestly think that is going to hold your friend back.

Very helpful and informative. Thanks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do know that boomers are the parents of Gen X?

Boomers were born in the late 1930s through the very early 1960s.

They are in their late 60s to 80s now.

People in their 40s and 50s are not "boomers"

Actually, boomers are the parents of millennials. Greatest Gen and Silent Gen are parents of boomers and gen x.

No, I'm 54, born in 1971, so right smack-dab in the middle of the Generation X band. My parents are boomers. They were born in 1946 and 1948.

My children are 22 and 20. They're Generation Z.

This is a common scenario.