A new associate passes the bar, survives orientation, and expects to land in the version of litigation they've been picturing for three years of law school. Instead, they're across the desk from a partner who still prints out his email, wondering whether the gap between expectation and reality is normal or a warning sign.

In a new piece for the ABA Young Lawyers Division, Steno Legal Solutions Manager Sierra Van Allen lays out five priorities that define what Gen Z attorneys look for in a firm: modern technology, work-life flexibility, transparent compensation and career progression, structured mentorship, and values alignment. For each one, she breaks down what a firm getting it right looks like, how an associate can adapt if their firm isn't there yet, and how to recognize when it's time to leave.

On work-life flexibility, Sierra reframes what firms owe associates once technology speeds up the work. The old bargain was that efficiency gains flow straight to the bottom line. Gen Z isn't interested in inheriting that bargain along with the billable hour:

Technology has streamlined legal work, and Gen Z's reasonable expectation is that some portion of those recovered hours benefits the people doing the work, not just the firm's bottom line.

That same expectation of real infrastructure, not just goodwill, shows up again in how Sierra addresses mentorship. She doesn't frame supervision as a nice-to-have that makes junior associates feel supported. Instead, she frames its absence as a liability that runs both directions, for the associate and for the client:

Throwing a first-year associate into a complex matter without adequate supervision is a competence problem, and leaving them to figure things out on their own is a malpractice risk.

Sierra ends with what happens when a firm won't meet an associate in the middle, and why walking away from one that won't isn't a failure to stick it out, but a choice with consequences for the profession beyond that one associate.

Read the full piece on ABA Young Lawyers Division.