Why should you participate in a mentoring program?
It gives you an opportunity to review your own past and present
Last year I wrote that a major study of US law firms had found that women leave law for three main reasons:
- lack of mentors
- exclusion from informal firm networks
- difficulty balancing work and home life.
The study, by Catalyst US found law firms that have been successful in retaining women lawyers and encouraging their career development in the firm reported they had adopted these strategies:
- Provide mentors
- Provide control over an individual's work
- Offer development and advancement opportunities
- Award for time spent on practice management contributions as well as billing hour
- Permit part-time commitments
Mentoring
When some of us were young practitioners there was no talk of mentors, but in recent years mentoring has become a commonplace in the business world. Many legal institutions are beginning to appreciate that mentors perform a service to the profession.
In addition to transferring skills and knowledge, a mentor shares wisdom on how to avoid those breakdowns in the lawyer/client relationship that are the top cause of claims against lawyers.
Mentoring builds the legal community through example, showing how professionalism requires both collegiality and civility. Insurers recognize the contribution mentoring makes to loss-prevention and risk-management,
Benefits of Mentoring
Mentoring benefits the junior professional in both personal and career arenas. The support of the mentor engenders increased self-confidence, beneficial self-reflection, and a conscious approach to balancing work and life. Mentors also provide career guidance and help with goal setting.
Who would not prefer the advantage of mature guidance and advice to trial and error learning?
For the law firm, mentoring benefits include enhanced communication that promotes competence and enhances morale. These contribute to career satisfaction and associate retention. The economic benefit that flows from formal mentoring programs is contributing to their expansion.
A mentor can be assigned to a lateral hire to facilitate integration into a new firm - to help the newcomer learn procedures, get introduced to clients and contacts of the firm. A mentor in the home office can be assigned to a lawyer transferred to a foreign office - to keep the emigrant informed of home office activities, protect the absent lawyer's interests there and be available to help on the lawyer's return.
New hires might be given two mentors within the firm:
- one in the practice area to provide technical expertise
- one, outside the direct line of reporting, to inculcate corporate culture and advise on career issues.
It might seem like mentoring is all work to the mentor, but they also receive benefits. Not the least of these is the refresher course in law, strategies and attitudes required to translate one's own successes and failures to the benefit of the mentored. Mentors also report tremendous personal satisfaction, learning, and personal growth.
What is Mentoring?
Participants in voluntary mentoring relationships can define their own terms. The partners can actively design and redesign the relationship as time passes and needs change. Most mentoring relationships last a couple of years but they can be redesigned and extended.
In formal programs, mentoring is a structured one-to-one relationship with a focus on the needs of the mentored with the aim of helping the mentored to develop to their fullest potential. The WLF Mentoring Program has established guidelines for the participants in its own program.
Candidates for mentoring should realize that the terms of relationship usually include the promise of:
- Mutual respect and commitment
- Commitment to communicate openly
- Sharing and honesty
It is helpful to enter into a written agreement that anticipates some of the possible hurdles and deals with issues like confidentiality and obligations of disclosure to 3rd parties.
The boundaries of the relationship are subject to negotiation but the following are often considered outside bounds:
- Direct involvement in dispute resolution
- Acting as an advocate for career advance
- Lending money or discussing financial matters
- Personal issues (unless agreed in advance)
- Excessive instruction in substantive law
- Client confidences
Are you a good candidate for a mentor?
Would you welcome an opportunity to reflect on the significant events in your life, your successes and failures, and the obstacles you overcame and the lessons you learned?
Does one of these roles appeal to you?
- Coach - for transfer of skills
- Confidant and sounding board
- Counselor - to explore consequences of potential decisions
- Facilitator - to create opportunities to use new skills
- Networker - to refer mentored to others for their expertise or needs
Can you provide:
- Personal discussion
- Intense commitment
- Problem-solving assistance
- Referrals
- Safe haven
Don't let your own self-doubts hold you back from helping another lawyer avoid your own mistakes. Even a mediocre mentor can be helpful by providing knowledge, experience, and access to information and referrals. A superior relationship can be built with developed listening skills, problem-solving abilities, and a grasp of people and politics.
If you would like to mentor, but you don't have the time… it can be an opportunity to address your own time management skills. Mentoring may only take 1 or 2 short phone calls weekly or less frequent face-to-face meetings. This should be about quality time rather than quantity so you should use your time together efficiently.
Here is one way to make the time for mentoring:
- Prioritize a list of your daily activities.
- Identify the bottom 15%.
- Delegate those tasks.
- Use the saved time:
- Use 5% to monitor the delegation.
- Use 10% for mentoring.
