St. Thomas Law Mentor Blog

One of the challenges to being a great mentor is thinking of experiences to show your protégé.  A frequent comment I get from mentors is that they are happy to participate and enjoy being a mentor but wonder if they have anything interesting to show a student.  My next tip is that for a new lawyer or student, everything can be interesting.  Show students all the different things that you do in your practice even if they seem “ordinary” to you.  That seems obvious, but we often forget about huge chunks of our legal practice because they seem elementary or even boring to us.  That can lead to the mistaken assumption that a student would not want to see that part of our practice.  However, if you put yourself in a student’s shoes none of the routine or ordinary for us as practicing lawyers is routine or ordinary for them. 

Answering discovery may seem like a run of the mill task to a season litigator, but for a student it can be very interesting to see an actual set of interrogatories or the answers to those interrogatories when all they have seen before is the rules of civil procedure.  Similarly, a transactional attorney might see a number of different contracts as ordinary or boiler plate.  For a student interested in transactional work, though, it can be a great experience to review one of those “ordinary” contracts and then sit down with the mentor to discuss why those contracts are drafted the way that they are.  

Those same concepts can apply to the day-to-day workings of a law firm. It can be very helpful for a student to sit in on a practice group meeting or understand how a firm performs its conflict checks.  Again, those types of tasks quickly become ordinary for a practicing lawyer but are essential concepts for new lawyers to understand. 

So, as we kick off the year in mentor externship and you are wondering what to do with your student, I urge you not to forget the “ordinary.”  Those experiences can be some of the best that a student can have.

Another of our graduates, Graham Martin, has a written guest post on Lawyerist. Graham shares some of thoughts on practical advice for marketing.  Given the blog posts about marketing here and on JDs Rising  it was nice to see a UST graduate sharing some tips with other lawyers.

As we get ready to kick-off another year of mentor externship I am preparing our annual mentor training session.  Every year we offer voluntary training for our mentors on mentoring in the legal profession.  So over the next few weeks I am going to use the blog to share some thoughts how to be a great mentor. 

Here is one initial thought to get the ball rolling.  I think that being a great mentor begins with understanding three basic mentoring functions: career mentoring, psychosocial mentoring, and professionalism mentoring.

Career mentoring is the concept that mentors help their protégés develop key skills, knowledge and opportunities to excel in their careers.  Career mentoring may involve sharing the unwritten rules of the legal profession, it may involve helping the protégé with specific skill development like legal writing, allowing a student to observe a deposition or court appearance and then explaining how to perform each of those activities with excellence, or helping the student network and connect with key members of a profession.

Psychosocial mentoring helps the protégé develop the psychological and emotional confidence to excel in the profession.  Psychosocial mentoring may involve helping the protégé through a difficult time, congratulating them on their successes, and commiserating with them about their mistakes. 

Finally, the professionalism function, which we view as unique to the legal profession, identifies how mentors help protégés develop the professional identity and values of a lawyer.  It is a combination of role modeling great behavior, counseling the protégé about our professional values and ideals, and helping them understand “gold standard” professional behavior in the context of what lawyers actually do. 

Once a mentor understands the key three mentoring functions then the next step is honest and candid self-assessment about which of those functions the mentor can best offer the protégé.  We all have strengths and we all have weaknesses.  No one mentor is likely to be excellent at all three mentoring functions.  In reality most protégés understand that and only expect mentors to give what they can.  So as a mentor, give some thought to which of the mentoring functions you are ready and able to provide and communicate honestly and clearly with your protégé.

Check back in the coming weeks for more thoughts on being a great mentor.

St. Thomas Lawyer magazine recentlypublished its summer of 2010 edition.  The edition features several articles on different aspects of the University of St. Thomas Mentor Externship.  You can read an electronic copy of St. Thomas Lawyer here.

One of our graduates, Maggie Green, has a great guest post today on Lawyerist about building your own practice.  Maggie offers some great advice including finding mentors and getting their help.  You can read her full post here.