Practice Management

January Is National Mentoring Month

By chucknewton

... And, Harvard School of Public Health Center for Health Communication (what a mouth full) runs The Harvard Mentoring Project (much easier to say).  National Mentoring Month is a collaborative, public-private initiative sponsored by nonprofit organizations, media companies, and government agencies. National media partners include ABC (Disney), CBS (Viacom), Fox (News Corp.), NBC (GE), and several divisions of AOL Time Warner.  The goals of National Mentoring Month are to: raise awareness of mentoring in its various forms; recruit individuals to mentor, especially in programs that have a waiting list of young people; and promote the rapid growth of mentoring by recruiting organizations to engage their constituents in mentoring. Research has shown that programs that rely on volunteer mentors can play a powerful role in reducing drug abuse and youth violence, while greatly enhancing a young person's prospects for leading a healthy and productive life.

There is nowhere that mentoring is needed more (at least among adults) in helping solos and Third Wave attorneys get off the ground successfully.  I tend to think, from my experience, that Big Law and governmental agencies do not mentor as effectively as people and law students think.  You get a job and they tend to throw files at you and tell you to get up to speed quick.  But, at least you can get a hallway consult or advice from a partner or someone that tends to know something about the practice area (read the paralegals, secretaries and assistants).  You can get some direction.  This is what a solo often lacks, especially when they are just coming out of law school.

I know mentoring is priming the competition to a degree, but it is vitally important that we providing this mentoring.  One thing worse than getting some new competition in a community is having someone floundering around and making matters worse in your practice area.  Mentoring helps prevent this.

And, the truth of the matter is that other solos and lawyers in small firms are typically great about mentoring any attorney that will just ask for help or advice.  It does not mean that they will run your practice or handle your cases, but young lawyers need to know that you can establish relationships that allows you to call, go by or email another more experienced lawyer with issues.

A practice area listserv can help as well.  Is it amazing to see the number of lawyers that will get on and offer advice and guidance on these sites when they do not have to do it -- when it offers then nothing in return.

When I started practicing, I had a good number of lawyers that I could call on.  i could call or go by their office and ask, and they offered their advice freely.  Oh, I had to buy a few of them a hamburger for lunch so as to find time to talk to them, but that was not the end of the World.

The theme of this National Mentoring Month is "Who mentored your?  Thank them ... and pass it on!"

This is really great advice.

Full post as published by Chuck Newton on January 10, 2008 (boomark / email).