“Don’t, like, waltz into your interview all casual with an iced coffee. It just looks like you didn’t have time to finish your coffee beforehand,” advised recruiter Caitlin Wehniainen in a recent TikTok video.

And so began a comment war more charged than any Yankees/Red Sox rivalry.

Comments generally took one of two forms:

ardent agreement, and surprise that this even needed to be said or that anyone would disagree

and

equally strong disagreement, and the view that the suggestion that just “being a human” and doing something as simple as drinking a coffee was an example of how broken corporate America is.

Two comments summed up the largely generational divide:

“This comment section proves that generation has lost the art of professionalism.”

“Do you guys need employees or not.”

I'll admit my bias. My morning cold brew is one of the small gratitudes I focus on each day, and iced coffee as a ritual goes back to high school, when my friend Meghan and I went to Starbucks every morning before first period and ordered the same drink from our favorite barista, Sean. (In case you're wondering: a venti skim iced caramel macchiato, with sugar-free vanilla, an extra shot, extra caramel sauce, blended.)

So I get it. Coffee is personal and emotional.

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What we can learn from this debate—especially as in-house lawyers—goes so far beyond coffee, and even beyond interview culture.

For decades, most workplace expectations for lawyers, both spoken and unspoken, were accepted, even if not everyone liked them.

We knew what "professional" clothes looked like (some law firm offices mandated suits every day as recently as the early 2000s), understood exactly how to answer our work phones, and knew what time we needed to show up for work.

When I started practicing in 2011, I got dressed up in a dress or slacks and put myself together every single day, regardless of whether I believed it made me more effective or less effective. It did not occur to me to challenge the norm or ask "why."

Because there would have been no point.

Back then, the answer to "why" was because the firm said so, and if you don't like it, we can find someone else.

But things have been changing for some time now, and Covid absolutely blew everything up for lawyers. Many of us have spent years jumping between in-person and remote work, and the old norms now require more judgment than ever.

If a sweatshirt is ok on Zoom, why not in the office?

If I get all of my work done, does it matter that I went for a run at 11AM on a Tuesday?

If it’s a Teams call, do I still answer with my full name?

Covid showed many of us that we could do great work in our pajamas, and the generations that came after me are collectively pushing back. I've written before about how being able to lawyer flexibly has made me more effective.

So if 20 years ago, an office worker would not have dreamed of walking into an interview with an iced coffee, it should be no surprise that today, some people are asking "why not?" And they aren't just asking about coffee.

I may be an elder millennial, but I'm firmly in the "let's ask why" camp, because asking is how we make the profession better and lawyers happier.

To be clear, I'm not saying the old norms were all wrong. Some of them still make sense, and some rooms still care about them a lot.

But if you're the one holding onto a norm, "because that's how it's done" isn't going to be enough of an answer anymore.