Mentoring Young Lawyers
How to Mentor
With law schools pumping out more grads than there are jobs and the employment market for young lawyers remaining stagnant, we lawyers blessed to be at firms we enjoy, earning enough to provide for ourselves and our families, owe it to younger lawyers to mentor them. Having experienced our share about the practice and the business of law and having lived through the economic upturns and downturns we have abundant wisdom to share with those starting their legal careers. If you’re not already mentoring another lawyer at your firm, please start. If there is no one at your firm to mentor, look through your contacts on social media or consider responding to one of the many applicants who send your firm resumes for jobs that have already been filled. Not getting an interview for an associate position is disappointing. Receiving an offer to be mentored instead, however, relieves some of the sting and can lead to a relationship that helps the young lawyer develop her networking skills and land a permanent job.
So, how do you mentor? Reach out to a young lawyer via e-mail and offer to be her mentor. Introduce yourself, describe your practice, why you’re interested in mentoring, why you think you can help her with her career, and put the ball in her court. Odds are, she will be delighted to have someone with whom to discuss career and practice issues. Once you have a mentee, establish some ground rules. How often will you meet? Where and when? For how long? How often will you speak to one another? E-mail? Text? These items are fluid but should be discussed upfront. I would recommend meeting at least once a month in person for coffee and speaking weekly by phone. Most young lawyers are looking for career advice. Where should they apply? What should their cover letters say? What writing sample should they use? How do they meet other attorneys in the community? How do they network? There are a lot of young lawyers hurting out there, with huge student loans and limited financial means to pay them down. Some just want to talk and hear it’s going to be OK. Some need encouragement, some motivation and some need help devising a strategic plan for their careers and their lives.
A mentoring relationship can be anything you want. Some young lawyers are looking for long term mentors. Some just need help with getting their careers launched. Some will have ethics questions. Other will have practice questions, like how to effectively cross examine a witness at deposition. Let the mentoring relationship evolve and if the point comes when the mentee would be better served with another mentor, help her find one.
You’ll be surprised by what knowledge, ideas and practice tips you take for granted young lawyers will consider invaluable. What would you tell a younger you about the practice? I post daily on LinkedIn and make myself available for early morning coffee at a Starbucks near our offices. Meet me at 7:30 and by 8:00 you’ll have several takeaways on how to increase your odds on securing an associate position. Every partner at every firm can provide the same advice and every mentee would be grateful for it.
Mentoring starts with identifying someone who could benefit from a mentor and offering to be a mentor. You don’t need special training or skills to be a mentor. You don’t need to take a class on mentoring or know exactly what to say or do. You just need time, concern and compassion. Now go out and mentor.
