Memphis Lawyer Volume 39 Issue 1

the magazine of the Memphis Bar Association | Vol. 39, Issue 1, Spring 2022

THIS ISSUE:

BACK IN MY DAY: The Archaic Trope that is Killing the Legal Profession

By NATTALY PERRYMAN, ESQ.

As a former classmate and fellow duly licensed Tennessee lawyer so eloquently stated

recently, “There is no ‘back in my day’, the ‘day’ is today!” He’s absolutely right. “Their day”, “my day”, “our day”- in 2022, it is all obsolete. The only day we all have is today, and today looks very different than what many in the profession are used to.

Back in the day, lawyers were only white Americans. Back in the day, lawyers were only males. Back in the day, lawyers only came from the elite of the elite and upper echelons of society. Back in the day, lawyers had to take multiple bar examinations if they wanted to practice in multiple states. Back in the day, lawyers were not required to continue their legal education. However, it is rather unfortunate, yet easy to understand, why so many in the profession do not realize times have changed. According to the American Bar Association lawyer demographics from 2021, the profession is still 85.4% White, and 63% male. 1

While we can all be appreciative of the gains that have been made in the profession, we can still be objectively realistic regarding all the work that still needs to be done. Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law finally has its first Black Dean. The Memphis Bar Association passed the gavel to its first Black Female President. Although these are monumental occasions worth celebrating daily, it is a legitimate tragedy both these milestones happened within the last 365 days. While we can appreciate the rise of LGBTQ+ and non-binary persons in the profession, we can also hold our peers accountable when they vocalize frustrations over having to use preferred pronouns. Difficult conversations are just that – difficult; but difficult is not impossible. So, let’s start.

Professional hazing should be as dead as the patriarchy. We all know it is not, but that does not mean one cannot begin imploring best practices in their work

environment immediately. A great place to start is with salaries and employment contracts. Back in the day, $35,000 to $40,000 might have been a dream starting salary. But welcome to 2022 my lovelies, $35,000 to $40,0000 a year does not even begin to compensate, nor justify, attending law school in this millennium. We can all agree times are hard for everyone, but we must also all be realistic with goals and expectations. If you are a sole practitioner or smaller boutique firm and cannot afford a starting associate salary over $40,000, explore other ways to compensate your employees. For some, that may mean hiring a paralegal until the financial capital is acquired to adequately pay a duly licensed attorney. For others, offering competitive benefits or paying for bar examination fees, or additional state licensing fees are all things that could be attractive for new attorneys. Long gone are the days of expecting junior associates to put up with pennies, long hours, no benefits and no employment contract. Under those circumstances, why would anyone stay?

Speaking of the great resignation … the legal profession is not exempt. And guess what – the “back in my day” mentality is again largely to blame. Aside from being expected to stay in a toxic work environment because “everyone has to put in their time”, today’s attorneys will not put up with the litany of microaggressions from partners solely out of reverence for their age or status within the firm. As another duly licensed Tennessee colleague told me, she routinely put up with a founding

partner at her previous place of employment constantly telling clients “Oh, you’ll want to talk to Cara because she’s prettier and cheaper than me.” 2

While this partner may have laughed off these comments, they were demeaning and belittling of Cara’s credentials and abilities to do the job well. Of course a first-year associate will be less expensive than a senior partner, but an attorney’s physical attributes should never be a part of the conversation, not even in a joking manner. More importantly, what type of message is that sending to clients?

According to a 2021 Harvard Business Review article, “Employees between 30 and 45 years old have had the greatest increase in resignation rates, with an average increase of more than 20% between 2020 and 2021.” 3 In 2020, the median age of American attorneys was 47, with 45% of all attorneys falling between the ages of 25 to 44. 4

You know what demographic also falls within that age range? Millennials! Now more than ever, millennial attorneys are re-thinking what their “careers” should look like. Some attorneys are branding themselves and their marketability by becoming social media influencers, while some attorneys are exploring the world of entrepreneurship with retail boutiques, and other attorneys are leaving the profession altogether because the “back in my day” workhorse mentality just does not align with their chakras anymore. The “back in my day” mentality is not only killing the legal profession – it is also killing us, mentally and physically. We are simply not here for it!

If you have made it this far, you might be asking yourself – “So now what? What are we supposed to do with the information we gain from all of these difficult conversations?” Well, a great starting point is acknowledging that CLEs are simply not enough. Maybe “back in the day”, a law license was enough, but that day is long gone. CLEs are a start, but fifteen credit hours of one’s personal choosing is far from an efficient way to make sure we stay abreast of current trends. On October 18, 2017, the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners filed a petition seeking to amend Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 7 by adopting the Uniform Bar Examination (UBE); which the Tennessee Supreme Court granted per curiam on April 18, 2018. 5

Yet here we are in 2022, and not only do the majority of attorneys in the state not know what UBE stands for, they have no clue how valuable UBE scores can be to their law firm, legal department, or practice. The ability to carry multiple state licenses with

ease is an invaluable resource to not only the attorney, but their employer as well. If you do not know what the UBE is, or have not taken it, I suggest not criticizing anyone who has.

To put a nice little bow on this bar exam conversation, the “back in the day” mentality is no longer applicable to recent test takers. With recent test administrations being remote while two years into a global pandemic, judging recent exam takers and their scores by metrics and mentalities from decades ago simply is not plausible. Since the world shut down in March of 2020, Tennessee Bar Exam scores have been all over the place. As reported by the Tennessee Board of Law Examiners:

For the October 2020 assessment: 5

• out of 677 overall takers, 74.89% passed

• out of 567 first time takers, 82.36% passed

For the February 2021 assessment: 6

• out of 306 overall takers, 45.42% passed

• out of 163 first time takers, 60.74% passed

For the July 2021 assessment: 7

• out of 720 overall takers, 62.36% passed

• out of 599 first time takers, 70.95% passed

To further put these stats into perspective, the October 2020 assessment was administered remotely (after being canceled and rescheduled several times), and did not result in test takers receiving a true UBE score because it was only a “half test”, with reciprocity only offered in select states. The February 2021 assessment (which I am still dealing with PTSD from), was a fully remote examination, never before implored, and taken under vastly different standards than a traditional examination. The July 2021 assessment was also remote, but took place over a year into a pandemic that was originally projected to last about eight weeks. Only the most recent February 2022 administration was back in-person. As we await those numbers, I implore you all to imagine what it would have been to take a two-day exam solely in front of a screen with no ability to go back to previous sections, and with the constant fear that if you touched your face or looked away too long, the software would flag your scores and your months of studying would be

for naught. NOTHING recent law graduates and newly licensed attorneys have experienced is comparable to anything “back in the day.” Let us not forget that the Class of 2022 only experienced one “normal” semester of law school before the world, and the legal profession, changed as we know it.

My last article, THE INEVITABLE DEMISE OF THE 2020 LAW GRAD: And What Hiring Attorneys Can Do to Help, was written within the first six months of the pandemic shortly after my virtual COVID graduation. At that time, I had accepted a post-law school position with a small firm, but had not yet sat for the bar exam. In my previous article, I implored hiring managers and partners to begin rethinking how they approached recent graduates and new attorneys. However, as I approach my one-year mark in the profession, I realize my peers and I are STILL encountering so many of the same aggressions and microaggressions based upon our “status” as recent graduates or newly licensed attorneys. The “back in my day” mentality is archaic and should be done away with. I would be absolutely miserable if I abided by the “back in my day” standards and did not advocate for myself. I refused to accept a salary less than what I was worth. I refused to stay in a toxic work environment just to “at least put in a calendar year” so there would be no gaps on my resume. I refused to let an employer jeopardize my law

license and put my name and bar number on documents of which I had no knowledge. Now, I am fortunate to work in my desired field where I have awesome growth opportunities, benefits, and a healthy work environment. And within my first year of licensure! My happiness in my profession is because I always reject the “back in my day” mentality.

Now we can all debate for hours about which phrases should be deleted from the work environment depending on who read what and when. I posit the most important phrase to immediately delete is “back in the day.” All we have is today. To shamelessly edit one of my favorite memes: we cannot go back and change the beginning, but we can start TODAY and change the ending. �

Nattaly Perryman is a 2020 graduate of the Cecil C. Humphreys School of Law. She is currently a Staff Attorney at the Tennessee Department of Education where she focuses on issues related to civil rights and non-traditional education programs.

All names used have been changed for confidentiality purposes.

Disclaimer: This article was prepared by Attorney Perryman in her personal capacity. All opinions and views in this article are personal and belong solely to the author and do not represent those of people, employers, institutions, or organizations the author may or may not be associated with in professional or personal capacity, unless explicitly stated. Any views or opinions are not intended to malign any group, association, company or individual. All opinions and statistics are based upon information the author considers reliable.