Vol. 29, No. 3 #1 (June 2006). Talkin' 'Bout My Generation.

• Author: By Mary Angell

Wyoming Bar Journal

2006.

Vol. 29, No. 3 #1 (June 2006).

Talkin' 'Bout My Generation

WYOMING LAWYERJune 2006/Vol. 29, No. 3Talkin' 'Bout My GenerationBy Mary Angell

Wyoming's lawyers span three generations: those well past retirement age, those not long out of law school, and the ones in between. As products of different periods of history, they differ in their lifestyles and work habits, but surprisingly, not when it comes to the ideals they hold dear. The attorneys who recently spoke with the Wyoming Lawyer all value a job well done, community service and good mentors. Who are the generations?

A generation is an age specific segment of the population whose members share core values and characteristics derived from the societal influences and experiences of their formative years. Their attitudes toward life affect their lifestyle choices and the way they function as professionals.

Psychologists have broken down the generations living today into several classifications and made the following generalizations about them.

Traditionalists, born between 1901 and 1945, were children during the Great Depression and WWII, and as a result, are characterized as well disciplined, patriotic, loyal and fiscally conservative. Although many are retired or nearing retirement, 304 still practice law in Wyoming.

Baby Boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, are the product of the post WWII population explosion and grew up in an era of economic prosperity. A greater number of young people than ever before were able to afford a college education. Americans moved into the suburbs and enjoyed a steady stream of new household appliances and inventions. This environment produced a generation of individuals categorized as competitive, ambitious and idealistic. The largest number of Wyoming lawyers--1,079--is Baby Boomers.

Generation X, or the Gen Xers, born between 1965 and 1981, is characterized as independent and self-reliant because the majority of them were "latchkey kids," raised in dual-income families. Having spent less time with their parents than previous generations, they feel a stronger bond with their peers than older people and a greater determination as adults not to be the workaholics their parents were. Generation Xers marry later in life and divorce less often than Baby Boomers. Among this generation, large numbers of women--and an increasing number of men--are choosing to stay home to raise their children. Gen Xers are

also more technologically literate than previous generations because they learned to use computers in the classroom and grew up with the electronic devices their parents learned to use as adults.

There are 615 Gen X lawyers practicing in Wyoming.

The Millennials, the youngest generation to graduate from law school, were born between 1982 and 2000; as yet, the Wyoming Bar has no Millennial members.

Wyoming attorneys differ from one generation to another primarily in their view of how they manage their work week and their level of comfort and dependency on technology.

How do the generations spend their time?

Wyoming's Traditionalist and Baby Boomer attorneys tend to put in more hours a week at the office than their younger counterparts, despite the fact they would like to spend more time with their families.

"You work your tail off to build the law practice," said fellow partner Greg Dyekman, a Baby Boomer. "When you've built the kind of practice you wanted to have, you have to keep working it off. All of us older guys in the firm still work awful hard. We all love it. That's why we are still doing what we are doing. For us, that is how we are defining success: having a really busy serious law practice."

"Unfortunately when you do that, you're living on other people's schedules, and that makes it harder to travel and play golf," he continued. "It would be nice to slow down a little, whatever that means, but at this point, it's pretty realistic to say that's a ways off."

Dyekman said he has managed to whittle his work week down to about 50 hours.

Baby Boomer Greg Weisz, partner at Pence and MacMillan in Laramie, said what his life priorities are and what he would like them to be are two different things.

"Number one, unfortunately, is work," he said. "Family has taken a distant second. I'd like it to be the other way around."

The father of two, Weisz joined the firm soon after Hoak MacMillan had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Weisz and other members of the firm took on a greater caseload in MacMillan's absence.

"We were working 70 to 80 hours a week in 1997," he said. But at 65 to 70 hours a week, his work week hasn't...