How do you find a mentor early on in your legal career?

As young lawyers, we’re often told that we should try to find a mentor, but how? Networking can feel strange. If you’re lucky to find someone you have worked with in the past that remains willing to help you then that’s great but what if you didn’t really get along with your old boss, or it’s been so long that you feel out of touch with them and you were never that close with them in the first place? I encourage you, like others to attend networking events when you can because you never know who you might meet and it’s healthy I think to get to know others especially in the field. However that still doesn’t solve the “mentor” thing because you can’t just ask someone out of the blue to be your mentor right?

I often try to make an effort to help others out when I can. Have you thought about how you can help someone else or mentor someone else? When I was in the LPP, I tried to help my peers out including people that weren’t in my group. When I was doing my placement, I helped others who had just started their articles that I saw and had met during a bar exam prep class and today still when I meet others at events, not only do I hand out my business card introducing them to my blog, I often try to see what stage they’re at and see if I can answer some of their questions with my own little experience whether it’s been in relation to preparing for the bar exams or getting through the LPP or article experience… Let’s change the field to an environment that promotes everyone to try to be a mentor. This environment helps everyone.

You might not find a mentor right away for yourself but at least you can feel good about being a mentor to someone else. As a NCA LLM grad, you have plenty of experience for those starting their LLM journey, as a 3rd year law student you have a ton of wisdom for a 1L or 2L… And you aren’t someone whose far removed as someone whose been practicing for many years trying help a 1L. So you’re actually a better mentor to others in that way. Many don’t realize they have the ability to be mentors themselves. When you’re a mentor to others you build confidence yourself, and others will take notice. Your own peers can be mentors for you and you can be mentors to them. For instance, you only have so much time to learn and you never know when that small detail or administrative thing that you need to do comes up yet your peer might know because they’ve done it and they can show you. A mentor doesn’t have to be someone that is years ahead of you. You can mentor each other. When there are problems that you would like a second opinion on or want someone to help you brainstorm, you can look towards your peers. Just being able to talk about it with someone else creates a better learning environment. You also might be able to find a peer who has a mentor that they can ask your question to.

When you are in an environment with others that are ahead of you, you will have the confidence to talk to them. When you do find someone who you can ask anything to or even certain things to, hold on to the relationship. I know it’s tough out there. Help each other out, mentor someone else, and if you’ve been mentored, pass it on. Stay in touch with your peers.