Our world and our profession have changed profoundly since many of us entered into the legal profession.
When I became an attorney back in 2000, AOL email was standard (and I admit I still have my old AOL account), camera phones were just coming out, and Google was just starting to gain widespread popularity. Even as a Gen Xer, I remember typing on typewriters, using books for research, and having court hearings … in courthouses.
These days, it feels like we are facing constant uncertainty over how to appropriately balance the new opportunities new technology affords us with the connection, life lessons, and compassion our profession demands.
Artificial intelligence can now summarize cases, analyze contracts, organize discovery, draft emails, and help lawyers complete in minutes tasks that once took hours. Even more important than making our jobs easier, technology is rapidly expanding access to justice in new, almost unimaginable ways.
Thanks to the rapid technical advances of the 21st Century, Michigan residents have access to reliable and accurate legal tools anywhere they can get an internet connection at michiganlegalhelp.com.
In FY 2025, Michigan Legal Help’s do-it-yourself tools were used 157,625 times — providing critical support for residents who otherwise would have been stranded trying to navigate our courts.1
It really is great. Really. It is.
But …
We also need to acknowledge we’ve lost something in this vast, rapidly changing technological world. This doesn’t mean that we should reject technology or even bemoan its advancements; it does mean we need to be aware, identify our shortcomings, and continue to evolve so that we can best serve our clients.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about — and hearing from attorneys as I travel around the state — how these changes have affected our newest lawyers.
Many attorneys who entered practice during or after the pandemic have had a very different introduction to the profession than those of us who started our careers a generation ago. They have mastered technologies and efficiencies many of us could not have imagined when we were new lawyers. Yet they have also missed experiences that, while sometimes inconvenient or even frustrating at the time, served as important training grounds.
They never had to spend a morning in a crowded courthouse waiting through motion call, posting names on courtroom boards, or running from courtroom to courtroom trying to make sure every matter was heard. They have participated in fewer in-person hearings and have had fewer opportunities to simply observe experienced attorneys in action. They tend to have seen far fewer trials than previous generations. And because so many of us work from home, and most of our work now occurs remotely, they have had fewer chances to stop by a colleague’s office, ask questions, watch a seasoned attorney handle a difficult client, or absorb the countless unwritten lessons that are passed down through observation and watercooler conversation.
Not surprisingly, recent research suggests that many judges and attorneys recognize this challenge. In this issue of the Michigan Bar Journal, Michigan Supreme Court Chief Justice Megan K. Cavanagh discusses the findings from the Conference of Chief Justices’ CLEAR report.2
The report found that 54 percent of more than 4,000 judges surveyed nationwide agreed or strongly agreed that attorneys in their first five years of practice need additional training before they are prepared to practice in their court.
Attorneys themselves reached similar conclusions. Nearly 68 percent of lawyers with fewer than five years of experience — and almost 58 percent of more experienced lawyers — reported that the bar exam does not adequately test the skills needed in actual legal practice.
Those findings should not be viewed as criticism of our newest lawyers. Rather, they should be viewed as a call to action for the rest of us.
If technology has changed the way young lawyers enter the profession, then we must adapt the way we help them grow within it. That means making mentorship a priority. It means inviting younger attorneys to hearings, depositions, negotiations, and trials. It means creating opportunities for observation, feedback, and professional development. It means sharing not only our legal knowledge but also our judgment, professionalism, and understanding of what it means to serve clients and the justice system.
In a somewhat ironic twist, expanding technology has made our out-of-office relationships matter even more. Volunteering, joining a section, serving on a committee, and attending your local bar association meeting are now critical functions to strengthen and maintain our profession.
Technology does make us more efficient. It does expand access to justice. It does improve the delivery of legal services in remarkable ways. It does not replace the wisdom gained through experience or the value of one lawyer investing in another.
Our profession has changed profoundly since I graduated in 2000, and it will continue to change in ways we cannot yet imagine. Whatever the future holds, our responsibility remains the same: to leave the profession stronger than we found it by investing in those who follow us.