I am approaching the heart of this book with two theses, both simple. The first is that good writing consists of mastering the fundamentals (vocabulary, grammar, the elements of style) and then filling the third level of your toolbox with the right instruments. The second is that while it is impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad writer, and while it is equally impossible to make a great writer out of a good one, it is possible, with lots of hard work, dedication, and timely help, to make a good writer out of a merely competent one. (Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, 2000)

One of my many jobs is to teach our lawyers how to be better writers, which includes helping them learn to research. I shouldn’t have to teach them this, but they don’t seem to know how to do it. Or at least do it well enough to explain to others. Unfortunately, I fall more into the category of a “doer,” and so I will admit that I’m not that great of a teacher. Though I do try to be. Despite these limitations, there are just some things, in my opinion, that even the greatest teacher can’t overcome with Generation Y, one of them being unabashedness.

Now, I suspect you could berate or throw things at these kids enough to work it out of them, but everyone knows that we can’t do that anymore. No, we need to take seminars to learn how to motivate and work with them, or throw them balloon parties on Fridays so they know they are respected. And that would be fine, I suppose, if they actually could feel embarrassment about the quality of their work. At least then we’d know that they care.

Consider this anecdote. You’re pressed to get a CLE paper completed for an upcoming seminar. There are a number of new legislative developments you’ve identified that need to go into the paper. You call in one of your new associates to update the paper. A few days later the associate is back in your office, papers in hand, and asks you—

“What do you want me to do with this?”

Now, I suppose there are a lot of ways you could react to this question. Here are a few:

1. Give the associate an uncomfortable stare until she goes away.
2. Ask the associate what the fuck she thinks you want her to do with it, then throw something at her.
3. Tell the associate that if she can’t figure it out on her own, to turn in her resignation now.
4. Tell the associate to forget it and do the update yourself.
5. Apologize for not giving her clear instructions, schedule a meeting with her to go over all of the legislative changes, and help her write the update.

Based on what I’ve seen on the Tubes these days, the correct answer is #5. This will help get you on the list of the “Top Places to Work,” which is a bit of irony because I’m not sure much “work” gets done in those places, so maybe it should be “Top Places to Stay During the Day Where Other People Older Than You Work.”

I’m not opposed to young lawyers having questions. They should have questions, and you should be concerned if they aren’t asking. But in the anecdote above, the associate should have said—

I’ve read all the new statutes, pulled what legislative history was available and read over that. I also ran a blog search just to see if any other firms or lawyers have written about these changes, and I got zip. Despite these efforts, I’m still having difficulty determining exactly how we should incorporate some of these changes into the paper. Before I spend anymore time on this, I was hoping you could look over this with me real quick and point me in the right direction.

Or something like this. Anything that suggests you gave my request even the smallest bit of attention. Anything that would save you from embarrassment.

And this gets me to the title of this post. The individuals whom I’ve met or heard about over the last couple of years that have formed the basis of this opinion are smart people, and in some cases, exceptionally smart people. At least, that’s what I can tell from the importance of their jobs or the successes recounted on their resumes. These were people vetted through multiple interviews, and determined to be well-suited to their legal jobs. In short, they weren’t just the “man off the street.” And yet, their attitude suggested they were stupid. This is something I clearly cannot teach you how not to be. No lawyer can. To be un-stupid you have to feel embarrassment, or fear, like the fear of losing, the fear of making a mistake, or the fear of looking like a complete ass.

But maybe it’s like King says, it’s impossible to make a competent writer out of a bad one. Perhaps it’s equally impossible to make someone respect their job when they don’t respect how they are perceived. If that’s the case, the majority of the Gen Y’ers, Millennials, Slackoisie, or whatever you want to call them could be sunk, and our succession plans along with them.

{Questions for your Book Club}

1. How much training should one get before he or she can get saddled with the unabashedness label? It seems plenty of law firms have taken up new training programs for their associates, but I’m not sure how much of that is in response to increased client pressure not to pay for on-the-job training versus perceived deficiencies in the firms processes to begin with.

2. Where are the lines between coddling, teaching, and watchful neglect? The partners I learned under weren’t much into teaching, unless you count “don’t fuck it up” and “go to the library” as good training.

3. What does it say about you, Mr. Bigshot Lawyer, that you can’t find one good egg in the bunch? Is it fair to blame a generation, or can we just blame MTV’s The Real World?