“For too long,” wrote Lawyers Weekly, “law awards have focused too much on the older generation.” And so the magazine created the 30 Under 30 Awards – an awards ceremony to “highlight the excellent work of young lawyers across ten practice groups”.
With three awards per practice group, there would be 30 awards in total. Not a first, second and third place per category, but three first places for every single practice group. It would be an awards night for Generation Y: (almost) every child player wins a prize. And first prize at that.
Lawyers Weekly promoted young lawyers as having “led the charge for change on the most important issues confronting the profession” such as “depression”, but with 56 finalists competing for 30 awards, I wondered about the 26 losers. Wouldn’t they feel depressed?
The ceremony was at the Ivy. I went alone, but it didn’t take long until I bumped into some lawyers I know: the parents of a finalist. (She won an award.)
“Did you want her to become a lawyer?” I asked.
“Not really,” said the mother. “One doesn’t dream of having a family of lawyers.”
“But I suppose you ‘must’ be very proud.”
“Yes,” sighed the father. “We must.”
I even bumped into a lawyer I know who is actually under 30. (She won an award too.)
But my real interest was in the losers. The “Telecommunications, Media & Technology” category was most tantalising. With only four finalists competing for three awards, it promised to produce one particularly disappointed young lawyer.
The night opened with a slick video of finalists ruminating on their time in the law. They used phrases such as “In my experience …” and “I specialise in …” and other phrases I didn’t know lawyers under 30 were allowed to use. (Naturally, everyone in the video won an award.)
The award ceremony proper began and the MC called winner after winner up to the stage. Shielding my eyes from their grins and glistening trophies, I sought out the runners up who remained hidden in the crowd.
I found a couple of glum faces by the bar, being consoled by a colleague from their (top tier) firm. (She had just won an award.)
“How does it feel to have missed out from such odds?” I asked. “Depressing, I bet?”
“At least we can get drunk now,” said one.
“We’ve shaken off our chaperone,” whispered the other. “The head of PR.”
The orders from PR, they told me, were that winners must not drink – in case they say the wrong thing to any media on the night.
“I’ve already been told off,” confided the winner, “for something I’ve said.”
I’m sure she was about to tell me what she had said, and to whom, but the MC hushed the crowd for more prizes: lucky door prizes this time.
“Don’t you think it’s about time you let me have a business card,” complained one young lawyer to her superior. “So I can throw it in the hat and enter these things.”
We of the elder generations – with business cards aplenty – won more than our fair share of door prizes and, as the evening wound up, I found myself in a huddle of my contemporaries.
“These kids,” said one senior associate, “they need constant affirmation.”
“Plus they want responsibility right away,” said another.
“And yet they can’t draft a document to save themselves,” said a partner.
But, looking back over the room, I was struck that, for a room full of lawyers, it was remarkably unafraid and not at all sad or depressed. The room was abuzz, as were the restaurants downstairs, with victory celebrations.
Next year, I thought as I went home empty-handed, maybe the Journal should up the ante and host the inaugural 40 Under 40 Awards. It sure would be nice to take home a prize.