Never have young people had life so easy. Yet, youngsters seem to whine all the time, whether as students or associates in law firms.Just compare with those growing up in the 70, 80s and 90s. Life was a lot hard back then, with no internet and smartphones, limited career opportunities and less wealth. It was unthinkable back then to have air conditioned classrooms (I believe most classrooms have AC these days), or wifi on campus and offices where you can access Manupatra and Westlaw easily. In law firms and chambers the working hours were even tougher than today and the facilities were much less. But these generations worked hard without complaining. Nowadays youngsters complain about the smallest things possible, even when they have the privilege of working/studying from home. I put the blame on snowflake culture and mindless consumerism.

From Wikipedia:

"Millennials, also known as Generation Y or Gen Y, are the demographic cohort following Generation X and preceding Generation Z. Researchers and popular media use the early 1980s as starting birth years and the mid-1990s to early 2000s as ending birth years, with 1981 to 1996 being a widely accepted defining range for the generation."

Pretty much all persons working in law firms right now (except for partners graduating from before the batch of 2004 across law schools) are millennials - unless you want to rant about 95 per cent of the workforce in law firms, your rant is pretty pointless.

Some research, boomer, goes a long way. And I used the internet for this. Get with the times.

The whole point of cultural evolution is to make things better than they were/are. We have made certainly made great leaps of improvements in certain areas (such as, in your own words, air conditioners and the internet), whereas in other areas (like horrible work hours, crappy bosses who wish juniors' lives were just as miserable as theirs had been) we've lagged behind, and the younger generation is just demanding that we improve these things as well.

Think about it this way, the older generation had to seemingly work long hours because they did not have the internet, Manupatra, etc. But now even though we have all these tools that were supposed to (and actually do) make lawyers' lives easier, why are we still having to work just as long as the older generation did?

It's quite ironic that you start by accusing youngsters for whining too much and then go on to whine for an entire paragraph about how standard of life has improved over the years (as if that's a bad thing).

If you were a white guy in the USA today, I'm sure you would be complaining about how horrible it is that African-Americans are demanding equality these days and how things were much better in the earlier times when their ancestors would put their heads down and do whatever they were asked to do without asking questions.

Agree. However, it is also a fact that a lot more law students, interns and junior associates now completely lack responsibility of any sort. They don't lack the ability to do the work, but some of the basic requirements such as keeping the team informed of delays on their part, not casually disregarding deadlines (I'm against the concept of artificial deadlines as created by some bosses), not taking on more work than they can handle and then just casually leaving midway when they can't cope (this is more true for students than associates of course) and so on. I won't put the blame on millennials though. It's more about CLAT attracting the wrong set of students and then the law schools doing bugger-all to teach these people some basic professional manners and responsibility. Rarely do I come across a student (even from the top NLUs) these days to whom you can entrust some work, and then expect the person to turn the work in duly, having put in their best efforts. Less a problem with the rough diamonds and more with the cutting and polishing process I would say. A lot more handholding also seems to be expected by them, for which, again, they alone can't possibly be held solely responsible.

I do agree with your point about CLAT, in recent years, in the past few years, it has mainly been students from upper middle class families who have scored well and gotten into NLUs. And it could be possible that they are a bit lethargic.

However, I think we at law firms are equally in the wrong when we expect the same standards of diligence, knowledge and hard work from interns as we do from associates. I'm sure most students do corp law internships (or even litigation or in-house ones) to get a feel about how the work is (or just to pad up their CVs), and if they don't like it in the first week or two, they are going to slack off. It should rather be quite acceptable that only 3-4 interns in a year are going to be sincere and knowledgeable, and those are the ones to whom any firm should give subsequent internships and job offers. If there is a minimum standard that all interns are expected to follow, there should be consequences that follow if those standards are not maintained. A good practice would be for firms to give out personalised internship completion certificates / recommendation letters with a performance review, which hardly ever happens at any firm.
Given that these incentives/disincentives aren't present at any firm, it should be normalised that students who are paid peanuts by firms will only do work that is just about acceptable.

If it's at the associate level that you are facing this problem, I'm sure you can fire such slackers and hire better ones. And if you aren't finding any better ones, it's the voice of the free market that has spoken. Either your pay is low or the work culture so bad that better people do not wish to work at your firm.

About the point about artificial deadlines, I'm glad that you aren't one of those who do that, but having interned around quite a bit at firms large and small, I have observed that there are in fact a lot of bosses who give artificial deadlines. And I'm sure quite a few interns / junior associates stop taking them seriously after a while. Though I do believe seniors should always be kept in the loop regarding all such delays.

The real whiner are not Gen Z or milliensls, its you and the one who started the post .oh plzz, stop calling us whiners and rotten.You guys still had some life even with all the hard work involved.we literally have none because you guys ensure that,we work non stop to the extent that we reach break down point and then we just want out( or rather away from you guys).The WFH model is just terrible,it's never ending because you guys have made it that way.Law firms in I did have such bad work hours,it's making students run away at the internship stage itself.So stop dumping all your work on us and if not,at least don't rant about our"whining" and "irresponsibility" when you are pushing us to a break down point.

Nobody is making you intern at a gun point. If you think that you cannot do the job, or the demands of it are getting too much for you, then you can either choose other career options in law, or you can campaign for an improvement in working conditions. That doesn't give you the license of taking up a responsibility and ditching it midway. Regardless of whichever career option you choose, if you can't behave like a responsible professional, then you would make a sorry lawyer.

If you cant cope with the "whining"(read work needs) of the new workforce ( read whiny millienals) then maybe you can campaign for less whiny kids/millienals ,Oh yes you already are.But if that doesn't go well since the whiners are whining even more, you too can choose other options in law where you don't have to put up with whiners or millienals.

Actually, I happen to select people whom I would work with more carefully now, focusing on responsibility and sincerity rather than pedigree. Even if that means not picking students from 'top NLU', because that clearly doesn't mean much anymore. As for whining, I don't really mind that so long as people fulfill the responsibility that they have signed up for. Be it interns or associates.

Buddy, great that your solving in your own smart way, it's ........unwhining.But your on the wrong thread altogether.This one's about whining out the the Gen Z or Millienals or whoever who cannot be controlled from voicing (read whining) and who are deemed casual, irresponsible since they refuse to allow their lives to be controlled (or killed) by deadlines of crappy bosses.

@Ditto: Your comment is yet another example of the problem. Nobody is claiming that Indian law firms are good places to work at, or that people working there shouldn't demand basic humane treatment. The comment that you responded to clearly said that doing all those is fine, but taking up responsibilities, and then letting the team down by ditching those midway, not keeping others in the loop etc. are not. I don't know which sector you work in, but every professional place would respect that position.

@Ohhplz point is on the unreasonable work hours and the WFH model becoming like a non-stop work cycle.Tangential comment on lack of responsibility or professionalism by misreading in a dramatic assumption of someone/ intern "ditching" assignment midway is also sorry lawyering.

I agree with this. Almost any party or other social gathering that I go to with lawyers in it, especially the ones working in corporate law firms, love to whine about how terrible their work-life is, and how they will soon quit and move on to greener pastures soon. But guess what, most of them would still stick to the same old job for years, and others would jump to another firm, but the whine/rant continues.

While this also tells a lot about Indian law firms on how they don't take the extra step to make the workplace happier, but a lot is on the lawyers on how they want to deal with their professional life. I've seen an associate whining all day about how she has a terrible partner, and an SA in the same team, who used to drop into office by 8.30 and leave by 6 and almost never whined.

You're right, thanks for pointing out, both are of course trollish in intent and language.

Interestingly, it seems like this inter-generational pecking is nothing new. Boomers also thought Gen X was undisciplined and lazy, and the parents of the hippies/boomers thought the same about that generation.

Fact is, times and standards of work and life change, and perhaps the younger generation has increasingly understood that there is more to life than just money and working hard, and that other pleasures in life are as or more important. And that's not necessarily a bad thing and might eventually also bring very tangible benefits to the rights of boomers in workplaces (even if only belatedly so).

In short, you might not understand them (or each other), but try to be kinder to each other.

You are right in terms of every generation thinking that the youngsters have got it easier than they did. However, as someone who has been both satisfied and disappointed with the younger lot working under him, what I feel is that there's nothing wrong with someone seeking better work/life balance or enjoying time outside work. It is just that they shouldn't then feel entitled to all the rewards that their contemporaries might be getting for doing more work rather than less. If someone is putting in 12 hours of work every day and another is putting in 8, the two are entitled to different compensation, although both are still definitely entitled to their due share of respect. The private sector cannot probably be told to cap working hours at 8 and ensure that everyone works that much only and not more.

Yes. However much one whines and justifies it internally, fact is to get good at any job is a lonely and punishing journey. That won’t change with any generation, I guess the point when one realises that keeps changing. For my parents generation, they sobered up at early 20s. I did right after college late 20s when I realised whatever I thought was cool about me will never help me get where I needed to, at least in a traditional law firm set up. There’s a diff between college, office, and so on, and I have no problem paying the price till the time the scale weighs positively for me. Also I’m aware I don’t live in Europe which some Indian professionals forget.
So I guess this generation will realise what it takes a bit later than us, some of the younger folks decide not to work at all but from my anecdotal experience at least of Delhi most of them don’t ‘need’ to work financially anyway. This category is quite vocal about work life balance coincidentally.