Office of Bar Counsel, 1216 WYBJ, Vol. 39 No. 6. 12

AuthorMark W. Gifford, Bar Counsel

Office of Bar Counsel

No. Vol. 39 No. 6 Pg. 12

Wyoming Bar Journal

December, 2016

Mark W. Gifford, Bar Counsel

How Much Seasoning is Too Much? Practicing Law at 50 and Beyond

Half the practicing lawyers in Wyoming are over the age of 50. One in three is over the age of 60. There are more than 100 active practitioners over the age of 70.

As one who has just completed his sixth decade on the planet and recently passed the 35-year mark as a Wyoming lawyer, I find myself pondering the questions every lawyer must face eventually. Am I past my “best by” date? Am I still on top of my game? Will I know when it is time to pack it in? Will my exit be a graceful one?

How Much Seasoning is Too Much?

The Wyoming statistics above bear out what was forecast in a 2014 Joint Report of the National Organization of Bar Counsel (NOBC), the Association of Professional Responsibility Lawyers (APRL) and the ABA Commission on Lawyer Assistance Programs (CoLAP) on Aging Lawyers. Buried in a footnote to that report is the following, startling prediction: [I]n 2005, for which the most recent statistics were provided, thirty four percent of practicing lawyers were age fifty-five or over, compared to twenty-five percent in 1980…. Likewise, the median age of a practicing lawyer in 2005 was forty-nine as compared to thirty-nine in 1980. Given the large percentage of baby-boomer lawyers this trend is likely to continue such that within a few years more than fifty percent of lawyers will be in their fifties or older.1

In Wyoming, we are already there.

All who have studied the problems posed by the “senior tsunami” – and the challenge of formulating steps that every bar should take to identify and effectively assist the increasing population of aging lawyers, while protecting the public – recognize that seasoned lawyers have much to offer: “[A] lawyer who is 65 or older has likely been practicing 40 or more years. Such a lawyer will have a wealth of valuable experience and institutional knowledge about the practice of law in his/her jurisdiction. The ability to share this experience with newer members of the bar, and provide a resource and connection for newer members represents a tremendous opportunity for both the bar and the older lawyer.”2

On the other side of the age statistics is the sobering reality that age-related dementia, and specifically Alzheimer’s, typically begins to appear in individuals...

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