As Gen Z lawyers enter the workforce, they are reshaping expectations within the legal profession. From purpose-driven work and ESG commitments to flexibility and mental health, a new set of priorities is emerging.
In part two of this series, we explore what young lawyers are looking for in their careers, drawing on findings from the IBA’s Future of Legal Services Commission (FOLSC) report, ‘Is the law still an attractive career to Gen Z?’ and additional global research. Building on Part 1’s exploration of entry into the profession, this piece focuses on what happens next: what shapes early‑career decisions and long‑term retention.
We explore both common themes and areas of divergence across regions to understand what young lawyers want from a career. This is crucial for employers, educators, and policymakers seeking to attract and retain talent in a changing legal workforce.
Diversity and Inclusion: A Workplace Non-Negotiable
For many early-career lawyers, diversity and inclusion are no longer viewed as aspirational goals but as baseline indicators of a credible workplace. Having grown up and trained during a period of heightened visibility around race, gender, disability, sexuality and social mobility, new entrants are often more alert to how hierarchy, bias and informal culture operate in professional settings. Global research suggests, however, that this expectation is not articulated uniformly. In the UK, North America, and parts of Europe, young lawyers are more likely to expect formal policies, reporting mechanisms, and leadership accountability on inclusion. In some emerging legal markets, respondents place greater emphasis on job security, institutional reputation and technical training. What cuts across jurisdictions, however, is a growing intolerance for overt discrimination and unchecked workplace behaviour, even if cultural norms shape how concerns are raised.
Purpose: Meaningful Work and Career Impact
Purpose-driven work is a significant motivator for new entrants. Global surveys consistently show that alignment with values is now a central factor in career choice, rather than a secondary consideration, particularly among younger cohorts entering professional services. They want to feel that their work has meaning and contributes to something larger than themselves.
The FOLSC report highlights that early‑career lawyers consistently emphasise the value of understanding how their research, drafting or advisory work contributes to solving the wider client problem, transaction or public interest outcome. In some jurisdictions, this translates into demand for pro bono opportunities, access-to-justice work and human rights practice. In parts of Latin America and Eastern Europe, for instance, new entrants express their purpose differently, often through the desire to contribute to institutional reform or to serve underrepresented communities in emerging economies. Young lawyers are increasingly drawn to firms that prioritise purpose over profit and engage meaningfully with social, environmental, and ethical issues. Purpose is closely linked to progression: meaningful work is reinforced when lawyers can see how skills development today translates into opportunity and responsibility tomorrow.
Financial Security: Stability Meets Flexibility
While financial security remains important, many young professionals prioritise earning enough to sustain a balanced lifestyle over accumulating wealth. They express their desire for a work-life balance and are willing to make trade-offs if it means achieving one. The pandemic accelerated this shift by demonstrating that high‑quality legal work can be delivered outside traditional office‑centric models. But the picture is not uniform. In high-cost-of-living cities like London, New York, Sydney, and Singapore, financial pressure remains acute, with student debt and housing costs shaping priorities in ways that complicate any straightforward narrative about “values over pay.” Recent data reinforces how expectations are shifting alongside pay. Two‑thirds of UK Gen Z and millennial workers now prefer hybrid or remote working models, suggesting that working patterns sit alongside salary as a core consideration rather than a secondary benefit.
For many new entrants in developing legal markets, the question is less about work-life balance and more about basic professional stability. But what does appear consistent across contexts is that competitive pay is now treated as a baseline, not a differentiator. What sets employers apart is what sits alongside it.
Resilience and Mental Health: A New Priority
Young lawyers are notably more vocal about mental health issues, partly due to the challenges they faced entering adulthood during the COVID-19 pandemic. High levels of work-related stress and burnout are significant concerns for this generation, who often prioritise mental health as part of their career considerations. According to the FOLSC report, more than three‑quarters of respondents said they would consider looking for a new job if required to work onsite full time, underlining how strongly working structures are linked to wellbeing and retention.
This does not mean lower resilience, but rather a greater expectation that employers take proactive steps to manage risk and support wellbeing. Here again, global differences matter. In some regions, hybrid and remote models have become closely associated with mental health and retention challenges, while in others, physical presence remains central to professional credibility. The common thread is a growing awareness that resilience is shaped as much by organisational design as by individual coping strategies.
Social Values: Standing Up for Sustainability
In addition to personal mental health, many early‑career lawyers express concern about the state of the world. They are passionate about environmental sustainability and social responsibility. They expect their employers to engage in ethical practices, adopt sustainable operations, and positively impact communities. In a recent survey, 62% of Nordic workers in this age group believed reducing work hours could reduce negative environmental impact, underscoring their holistic view of sustainability. This illustrates how sustainability is increasingly understood not just as a reputational issue, but as something embedded in how work itself is organised.
While priorities differ across regions, the expectation that legal institutions engage meaningfully with broader societal challenges appears to be gaining ground globally.
Key Takeaway for Employers
What distinguishes many Gen Z lawyers is not that they reject traditional incentives such as pay or prestige, but that they are more explicit about the trade‑offs they are willing, and unwilling, to make across them.
The common thread across all five themes is that new entrants want to work for firms that mean what they say.
- Inclusivity must be visible in culture and practice, not just stated in a recruitment brochure.
- Purpose needs to be tangible, whether through pro bono work, access to justice initiatives, or substantive exposure to areas like human rights or environmental law. Progression should be a genuine conversation, not a distant promise.
- Competitive compensation is a baseline rather than a differentiator. What sets firms apart is flexibility through hybrid working, accessible wellbeing support and a culture that treats employee experience as seriously as billable hours.
- ESG is increasingly a talent issue as much as a reputational one. For many young lawyers, sustainability and social impact are deciding factors.
Employers who respond thoughtfully by investing in supervision, making development pathways clearer, supporting mental health, and recognising the global influences shaping today’s legal workforce are more likely to attract and retain talented young lawyers. Those who rely solely on tradition, prestige or generational shorthand may find that these signals resonate less than they once did.
What’s Next for the Legal Sector? The final part of this series will explore how these evolving expectations are likely to reshape not just recruitment and retention, but the structure and delivery of legal services themselves.
Sources
IBA Future of Legal Services (FOLS) Report
Deloitte Global Gen Z and Millennial Survey 2026
2023 Gen Z and Millennial Survey | Deloitte Global
Understanding Nordic Gen Z : Trends & Insights | JobTeaser
Two thirds of UK Gen Zs and millennials opt for remote and hybrid working | Deloitte UK
