If partners expect (or at least hope) that associates will stick around their firms for a while, they should consider establishing law firm mentorship programs.
Most law firm associates do not receive any kind of formal support as they begin their first few years as practicing attorneys. At some law firms, junior lawyers are thrown into the deep end and are expected to complete their tasks with little or no support from partners. Indeed, at several of the law firms at which I worked before starting my own practice, I was expected to just pick up the skills I needed to know on the job, and I was not assigned any mentors. However, when I was an associate in Biglaw, I was part of a law firm mentorship program. More law firms should consider hosting such programs since associates and partners can benefit from this approach.
While working in Biglaw, my law firm mentoring experience began as a summer associate. At the time, I was assigned two law firm mentors, one was an associate who was several years older than me and the other was a partner who was decades into his career. I met with each of my mentors once a week, and if the circumstances permitted, we would grab coffee or lunch outside of the office so that we could have less restrictive conversations.
The mentorship experience was very beneficial to me. The associate mentor told me about his own experiences starting out at the law firm and gave me valuable advice about how to be a more effective law firm associate. Perhaps most importantly, the associate mentor gave me tips about how I could navigate some of the bigger personalities around the office, which was very helpful in ensuring that I was liked by the partners who had the most “juice” at that shop. The partner mentor told me about all of the steps I would need to complete to be considered for partnership and gave me other feedback that people who were decades into their careers would know.
When I joined that law firm as a full-time associate, the mentorship program continued. As I got busier with work, I met with my mentors less and less, but I still met with the associate and partner mentors on a regular basis. In addition to these two mentors, I also had a writing mentor who would give me tips about my writing. I regularly get trolled online for how poorly written my Above the Law articles are, so perhaps this mentor did not do such a good job! However, this mentorship was really meaningful to my training as a lawyer.
After I wrote a memo or a brief section, my writing mentor would review the piece of legal writing and provide notes. Often, we would spend the better part of an hour going over my writing, and my mentor gave me tips on how to economize my language and format my writing to be more easily digestible to the reader. The person who was designated as my writing mentor was a great writer himself, and he wrote some of the most important briefs and other pieces of legal writing at our office. I won’t say that I ever reached his level of proficiency with legal writing, but my writing mentor gave me numerous tips about legal writing that improved my writing as an associate at that firm and that I continue to use in my legal writing today.
Law firms might not want to have established mentorship programs for many reasons. Lawyers have limited amounts of time, and most law firms are focused on billing the most hours possible rather than developing associates into better attorneys. At many law firms, associates rarely stay at the shop for more than a year or two, so it does not make too much sense to invest so much time on training these lawyers to be better practitioners. Moreover, some legal work does not require much emphasis on writing, so this component of the mentorship program I experienced might not be appealing to some lawyers.
However, if partners expect (or at least hope) that associates will stick around their firms for a while, they should consider establishing law firm mentorship programs. Such programs can help new associates build connections with a law firm that can make it more likely that lawyers will stick around a shop for a longer time. Moreover, law firm mentorship programs can help associates improve their skills and become more seasoned practitioners, which can have a positive impact on the work these associates perform for clients.
Author: Jordan Rothman, Partner of The Rothman Law Firm
Source: AboveTheLaw
