Whippersnappers

In this episode, Josh Aaron and Dave explore why younger lawyers may struggle with risk, anxiety, and the discomfort that comes with learning the practice of law, while discussing how COVID, remote work, and broader cultural shifts have shaped the next generation of professionals. They make the case for embracing in-person mentorship, taking risks, and treating law as a craft—one where growth comes from stepping into uncomfortable situations and finding purpose in serving people well, not simply chasing outcomes.

 FVF Law is a well-credentialed, overwhelmingly 5-star reviewed personal injury law firm in Austin, TX. FVF strives to be the educational resource for the injured, available to guide those with questions about what comes next. It is FVF’s mission to ensure clients are prioritized and informed throughout the injury claim process, and to secure the best possible outcome. Josh Fogelman and Aaron Von Flatern founded FVF Law to offer a different kind of injury law firm, and a dignified alternative in the marketplace. They hope to show injured Texans that consulting a lawyer after an injury is a natural, and responsible thing to do.

Transcript

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0:00:01.2 Aaron: Hey, Josh.

0:00:02.6 Josh: Hey, Aaron.

0:00:03.4 Aaron: Let me tell you about how young lawyers are just a bunch of whippersnappers.

0:00:07.6 Josh: Whippersnappers. I mean, that's pretty bold statement, sir.

0:00:12.1 Aaron: It's true.

0:00:12.9 Dave: Are you saying that this means that y'all are no longer young lawyers? 

0:00:16.2 Josh: I have definitely am not a young lawyer.

0:00:20.2 Aaron: Producer Dave is onto us.

0:00:22.2 Josh: I mean...

0:00:22.6 Dave: Yeah, I think it's a good step forward, right? You're embracing your elder statesman identity. In the world.

0:00:31.1 Aaron: There's two types. There's Josh's type who's like, not going to acknowledge that they're young whippersnappers and gonna do his best to try to guide them into mastery of the practice. And then there's like old cranky guys who just like, whippersnapper this and whippersnapper that.

0:00:47.1 Dave: Little crusty.

0:00:48.1 Aaron: Yeah. That's kind of where I'm headed.

0:00:50.9 Dave: Okay.

0:00:53.5 Aaron: That's it.

0:00:54.0 Josh: Why are they whippersnappers, Aaron? 

0:00:56.0 Aaron: Let me tell you, there's a past generation.

0:01:00.9 Josh: What kind of Whippersnapping conduct are they engaging in? 

0:01:03.7 Aaron: It's what they're not engaging in Josh.

0:01:05.3 Josh: What have they whippersnapped to you about? 

0:01:09.4 Aaron: It's what they've failed to snap. Truth is, there's, you know, the greatest generation who at the ages of 17 and a half and 18 were like shipped off to war and came back highly traumatized, by the way. But nonetheless, they came back and kind of had this matter of fact demeanor about literally everything. You know, you could like get grandpa to go in and like wrestle a crocodile if necessary to clear the way for like a slip and slide or something. You know, they would just do that and not a lot of talking about it, not a lot of thinking about it. No anxiety.

0:01:45.4 Josh: Just do.

0:01:46.1 Aaron: Just do.

0:01:47.2 Josh: See alligator. Wrestle alligator. Submit alligator. Proceed to slip and slide.

0:01:53.9 Aaron: Yeah, keep. Yeah, let's. Let's slip and slide right now. That's it.

0:01:58.3 Josh: Kinds walk right past this alligator that I have subdued.

0:02:02.3 Aaron: Pay no mind.

0:02:03.7 Josh: Don't worry, I got it.

0:02:05.7 Aaron: Yeah, that's real blood. It's fine. That's... That was like. What was that? Three generations. So then. Then there's like my folks generation a little more introspective. They're thinking about, you know, what it all means. And then our generation thinking way too much about what it all means. And then like, the next two generations are at a point now where there's a lot more thinking than doing and for good reason. We're in the thought economy, you know, Everything is based on creativity and being responsive to each other's needs and connecting parties, like social relationships are very important. Social networking is very important. Positioning yourself as some sort of broker of relationships can be very important in today's economy. And everything's kind of geared and pointed that way. Social media is pointing us towards content generation. But that is a form of performance rather than just like a thing that it's not a wrench that you turn, you know, so there's not as much orientation in the culture towards the doing of the thing. And so...

0:03:15.4 Josh: I have decided that I'm gonna start a new social media app and it's gonna be called Whippersnap.

0:03:23.7 Aaron: I love it. I'm in.

0:03:26.3 Josh: Just saying, I already have...

0:03:28.8 Aaron: Just don't make it too fancy.

0:03:30.2 Josh: Before you said you were in, I already had three VC firms offer $2.4 billion for the idea so...

0:03:38.6 Aaron: I feel left out, you know.

0:03:41.6 Josh: I'm just saying you were a little late.

0:03:44.9 Aaron: Whippersnapchat was my idea. I just wanna remind you. Okay, but getting back to what's really important about these whippersnappers is that they just.

0:03:55.1 Josh: Dave, do you know what Aaron's talking about right now? 

0:03:57.3 Dave: Whippersnapper. I was about to, I was actually about to ask the question of like this started of these young lawyers aren't doing something and then you started talking a lot. So what is it that they're not doing? 

0:04:10.0 Aaron: I think the thing is that they're actually doing it.

0:04:13.6 Josh: Or do you not remember what they're doing due to your old age? 

0:04:17.4 Aaron: It could be, it could be. I don't know, my perception. And I guess this all comes from recently I had the opportunity to be on the news. Okay? 

0:04:27.8 Josh: Yeah.

0:04:28.4 Aaron: I was a famous person on the news for a hot minute.

0:04:32.2 Josh: I remember.

0:04:33.1 Aaron: And someone came and interviewed...

0:04:33.1 Josh: I remember asking you for your autograph.

0:04:34.8 Aaron: And they were a young person and they approached this very heavy interview and it was like one of 10 interviews they were trying to knock out as if it was just routine. They had no nerves. They walked in the room, they set up everything themselves because, you know, news agencies can't afford to pay like camera crews anymore. It's just like one reporter...

0:05:01.2 Josh: All you need is an iPhone.

0:05:02.2 Aaron: You put everything on your back and you set up all the lighting yourself and all that stuff. And this person just like knocked it out. And I was like, wow. You know, there's just, I didn't detect any of the lead up that I think people kind of need today. A lot of people are just like, I'm gearing up to do this big scary thing. And they, there's nerves, you know, there's anxiety. And I think the hallmark of maybe three generations ago was they just didn't think, they just did. And now we're all caught up in our own thoughts. So I'm kind of joking about young whippersnapper lawyers not feeling comfortable going to trial, not feeling comfortable talking to judges, not feeling comfortable defending motions or even responding to emails from a mean opposing lawyer. And part of that is that things have become more public. So every time you write something online, you feel like the whole world's gonna see it. Every time you make a statement, you feel like it's gonna be videoed and maybe put out there and everyone's gonna see it. So I don't really know where it's coming from, but I think what, I would like to do with our lawyers, and I mean, we're already hopefully doing this, but with the new generation of lawyers that are coming out of law school right now, I'd like to convince them to set their anxiety aside and just put it in a box over here and to plow forward and see how it goes. Because most...

0:06:22.1 Josh: Take some risk.

0:06:23.1 Aaron: Because most of the time the law doesn't kill you.

0:06:27.1 Josh: Yeah, I think that's one of the most interesting things about law. And you know what? This was kind of beaten into us at Baylor, which is for those of you who may be listening.

0:06:36.2 Aaron: Hook em horns.

0:06:37.9 Josh: Yeah. Well, we went to UT for undergrad. We both went to Baylor for law school. The reason we chose to go to Baylor for law school, one of the reasons we chose to go to Baylor Law School was they're nationally ranked for trial advocacy. It's a trade school for trial lawyers. And it made it less scary. Right? It made it less scary to, once you got out of there, made a little bit less scary to understand the anatomy of what a trial looks like. And you were over prepared by the time you got out. And you, knew at least the roadmap to getting to trial. But trial's a scary thing. Being in court in front of a judge is a scary thing. Under, not knowing what you don't know, which is everything when you walk into trial about what kind of mood is the judge gonna be in that day, what kind of questions is the judge gonna be asking? What is the opposing counsel gonna pull out that they haven't disclosed to us? What's their strategy? It's a scary and imposing thing.

0:07:43.6 Aaron: Yeah. With a lot of permanency Attached to it.

0:07:45.9 Josh: Yeah, it's heavy. It's heavy. And, you know, I think the only way you get more comfortable doing that is by taking the risk and putting yourself out there and being really vulnerable. And you're not hiding behind a screen either. Right? You're not text messaging your argument to the judge or posting it on social media. You're there in the hot seat the whole time. And it's an interesting dynamic.

0:08:18.8 Aaron: Yeah. And I think, you know, all jokes aside about the new generation, they've been put in a weird spot. You know, COVID kinda forced us all to live a virtual life instead of a real one. And when we got back into being in person, you know, we just sort of looked at each other differently. It's like, wait, do we have to report to this weird box every day for eight hours? And, you know, where are the new lines? Where are they drawn? You know, where do I fit in? I think that's a common question for young people in any corporate setting. But in a law firm especially, it's, you know, it can be a lonely practice. And now you're kind of made more remote than you were before, working in a silo, trying to sort of learn to do something really tricky from books, from websites, from videos, and not just sort of getting the conditioning. It's like trying to learn to play baseball by watching tv, you know, just not gonna happen.

0:09:24.2 Josh: Yeah. I mean, and we've, you know, one of the things that we have observed through COVID and in the aftermath of COVID when we all thought, oh, yeah, you know, people can be trained, we can do this, we can learn it remotely, we'll have virtual meetings, we'll do this, we'll do that, and everything's gonna be fine is we really have kind of began to really understand how important it is to be face to face. When you're learning a trade, which is what you're doing in the practice of law, you've got. It's a specific skill set. There's lots of questions, there's lots of collaboration. And a lot of that is best done in real time and in person, where you can handle the exhibits, you can handle the documents, you can read through things together, you can sit across and laugh and joke and collaborate, which is one of the reasons we're going back to the office at least part time, which I'm excited about.

0:10:35.8 Aaron: I am too.

0:10:36.7 Josh: And I think, you know, everyone, I mean, the young lawyers should be excited about that because the opportunity for mentorship is just better that Way.

0:10:49.0 Aaron: Oh, yeah. Way better.

0:10:50.6 Dave: Well, I'll jump in 'cause I'm the age of.

0:10:54.1 Aaron: Yeah, we know.

0:10:56.3 Dave: Of the young whippersnapper.

0:10:57.8 Aaron: Snap away.

0:10:58.5 Dave: If I was a lawyer...

0:11:00.1 Josh: You are no young whippersnapper.

0:11:01.1 Dave: If I was a lawyer, I would be considered a young whippersnapper.

0:11:05.5 Aaron: A man wise beyond his years.

0:11:07.2 Dave: Well, hopefully...

0:11:09.5 Aaron: Sitting that orange chair over there.

0:11:09.6 Dave: Hopefully this lives up to that. Thank you. I agree. I think COVID kind of compounded this idea of distance between distance from responsibility, and there's a lot of kind of compassion for lack of professionalism because of COVID Right? I just that the nature of that gave all of us a lot of excuses, and sometimes those were legitimate and necessary, and we needed them, and we needed that extra compassion, sometimes I think people took advantage of the just acceptance of people not necessarily producing at the same rate and use that as just reason to maybe not be as effective as they could have been. But I actually think, and I'll say this 'cause I'm a part of the generation that I think this is true for, but there's a culture, and it probably starts from, like, a parenting perspective, where when I was in school, I would regularly see parents go to war with their student's teachers for them, about most things. And so I would see my friends or people younger than me complain to their parents about some level of injustice they were feeling about how their teacher was grading papers or what they said about when things were due and whatnot.

0:12:33.0 Dave: And I have just seen parents go to battle for their kids for the entirety of their life. And I believe that it's created this kind of belief, especially in my generation, of if something has gone wrong or something isn't going the way I want to, it's because someone's out to get me, or if someone else is somehow doing something against me, that's unfair. And if my circumstance is challenging or I'm feeling tension, that must be someone else's misdeeds against me, rather than life is hard, work is hard. People have different opinions, and you have to contend with those things in a healthy way. And so I just think, in general, we have a culture of people kind of my age and younger who are not used to having to kind of self-advocate for their own success, because they've grown up with a lot of support, where their feelings when they were in school were always validated as true versus, like, you know, in my house and when I was growing up, at least, like, my. Any adult's words were more significant than mine. So if another adult in the world said, Dave did this, then according to my parents, that was true.

0:13:55.7 Dave: And there was no level of like, no, I didn't. Versus I see a lot of times where parents will just believe whatever their kid says, regardless of what the world says. And so I say that to say I think that probably definitely predicated COVID in the sense of when it comes to like stepping into the workplace, the idea of having to fail or having to have someone push back or tell you that what you're saying is not true, or maybe you don't necessarily have the experience that just to speak to what you're claiming to have the experience in that conflict creates immediately anxiety instead of pursuit and resolve to learn more and to be better. And so we shut down instead of saying, oh, I didn't know something, or I was wrong. What can I learn? How can I learn? How can I be better? And so that to me is so much more indicative of maybe this young whippersnapper kind of lack of ability to take on risk because the anxiety and the emotions feel so much heavier. Because if your perspective is someone's against you versus just this is the nature of the difficulty of learning and growing, that's a lot harder, it's a lot scarier if you actually feel like a victim of someone else's, you know, acts against you that are negative versus like, oh no, as I'm growing and I'm experiencing new things, I'm realizing what I don't know.

0:15:22.1 Dave: And that process can be hard, but it's not about my like, identity is like, I'm not good enough. It's like, no, I'm just learning. But for most of us, most people my age and younger, in my experience, they immediately just go to anxiety and fear and oh no, my identity is being questioned and therefore I'm just gonna give up because it's too scary otherwise.

0:15:42.3 Aaron: Yeah. And I think maybe, maybe it's true that people in that position whose parents maybe have gone to battle for them to fight perceived injustices, have also been told, hey, maybe implicitly, you know, essentially, well, you know, everything's stacked against you, so you're going to have to get an advantage somehow, therefore it's gonna be okay to cheat a little bit on this or that low stakes thing. And the problem with that, of course, is that it's a slippery slope. And pretty soon you have sort of a person operating without any kind of code who's just sort of looking at a system and trying to manipulate it to their favor but not really wanting to step into the fray. And do the thing. You know, that being said, I don't wanna sound like the old whippersnapper hater that I claim to be. The truth is, I recognize that this generation who's coming up essentially is facing a totally different world than I did.

0:16:46.3 Dave: Yeah.

0:16:47.4 Aaron: You know, the belief in agency that I had was so resolute that nothing was gonna get in my way because I knew there was a payoff. And if I gotta be honest, if I was 20 years old right now, I don't know that I would be so confident that good old hard work and hard headedness and diligence and, you know, jumping in and doing it that, you know, that that was actually gonna result in a payoff because the sort of networks that are, you know, controlling the economy right now are so advanced, you know, superstructures upon superstructures.

0:17:34.5 Aaron: We just, you know, had this other podcast episode about the Global Logistics Network and what happens when you click Purchase now and how many different entities click into place with all their contractual agreements and all the regulations. Looking into that and saying, I can see where I can create value and profit from creating that value is just, it's daunting. I can see the other thing, which is if I cut enough corners, I might get into a lucky position where I get super rich, you know, and that seems to be the model. It's either I completely fail or I've become like the next Jeff Bezos. And so I can see if I was 20 years old, that would just be so demoralizing. And I guess maybe I can bring this full circle to say that the law is an arcane practice. And so this is one of those rare areas where until we get legislated out of existence.

0:18:29.5 Dave: Or AI'd out of business.

0:18:31.3 Aaron: Or AI'd completely out of business, there still is room for someone who's ready to roll up their sleeves and do something that takes some bravery, just gets out there, you know, good things can happen.

0:18:44.0 Dave: It's still a craft.

0:18:45.2 Aaron: It's still a craft.

0:18:46.1 Dave: And those values, you know, when you were talking about the payoff is what motivates you. I think the other thing that's true, and I think this is what makes FEF so unique, is that it's not just about the outcome, it's about the way we serve and the value we can guarantee by our relationship and by doing the right thing. So it's like if your primary motivation is to do things correctly with principle, with value, with mission, then you can guarantee some level of purpose and success. In that, apart from a specific outcome that you're hoping for, and that's what's sustaining. Because if you are only sustained by some kind of objective financial outcome or career outcome, then the nature of the puppet masters being so great that they control so much that you have no ability to navigate on your own with any sort of agency that is overwhelming and removes hope. But if, regardless of what the puppet masters may be able to control, if you can know that you are serving people well, caring about them, meeting their needs, answering their questions, and ultimately doing everything you can, even if the outcome isn't what you think it should be or what morality suggests is the best, you still can be sustained in your agency because you are doing what is necessary and what is meaningful and purposeful for you.

0:20:20.0 Aaron: That the means justify the ends.

0:20:21.4 Dave: Yeah, exactly. And I think that's also, I think that's how we do things. Like, that's how our attorneys do things. And that's why it's such a different place than just a here's all the great money we've made for people. It's like, no, here are the lives we've changed because of how we've treated them. And that's so much more special.

0:20:38.0 Aaron: I hope so.

0:20:39.2 Josh: Well, Aaron and Dave, I appreciate your yapping about the whippersnapping.

0:20:46.9 Aaron: Oh, that's good. That's too good. Let's cut that out, Dave. All right.