I have been thinking a lot about mentors, and how the ones I have had have been so important to me, both in my legal career and, before then, in my years as a broadcast journalist. I learned from every one of them, and that’s why I think mentoring is so important, both as mentor and mentee.
In my broadcast news career, my mentor was the news director at the all-news radio station I worked at. Norm Woodruff was gruff, unsparing in criticism, but, to use a trite expression, his bark truly was worse than his bite. He believed that knowledge was power, but that knowledge was to be shared and not hoarded.
When I was training to be the morning news editor, which was an eight-hour shift of deciding what stories to run and when, massaging egos of anchors, reporters, and writers, while keeping ears on the police scanners, and eyes on the teletypes. For those of you millennials who don’t know what teletypes are, in the days before the internet, the wire services, AP, Reuters, and UPI, along with other news sources, would send stories using teletype machines. Imagine the noise of a dozen or so clattering away all the time, phones ringing that you had to pick up immediately, if not sooner, plus the general noise bedlam of a newsroom.
What I remember most about Norm is the advice he gave me while in training. I asked him why he was emptying his brain of what was needed to do the job, to share that knowledge with me. His reply in his usual succinct and brusque manner: “If I keel over while sitting at the editor’s desk, I expect you to kick my body aside and take over.” He wanted a seamless transition. His words made an impression on me more years ago than I care to remember. They still do.
There are lessons in Norm’s words for us as lawyers, lessons about leadership and mentoring, and how to help lawyers entering the profession to be the best they can be. It’s so much harder today, starting out as a lawyer, harder to get a job, harder to know how to do basic procedural things without guidance, harder to learn how to evaluate cases, speak with clients, and the myriad other things we have to do every day.
Just so you know, I don’t think it ever gets easier. If you think it does, I disagree. Just when you think you have something nailed, you don’t. There’s always an opposing counsel, a judge, a brand new case that eviscerates your theory, or a client who has Googled. There’s always something new to be learned, hopefully at neither your client’s expense nor yours.
When I was a baby D.A., I was lucky enough to have several mentors, all male, but that’s how it went in those days. One mentor has been on the appellate court here in California for years. He and another senior deputy D.A. were always available to talk, swap ideas, strategize about case handling, and just be there for the newbies in the office. Their doors were always open.
Reasons that associates leave their firms? They include the lack of training and the lack of mentoring. That’s not to say that some firms don’t provide one or both, but it’s frustrating when you want to do your best work, but you’re not given the tools with which to do it. Both law firms and corporate legal departments rail about how law schools fail to prepare law students for the practicalities of practice, but if the law schools fail to do that, someone has to take up the slack, and on-the-job training and mentoring becomes an essential part of the job descriptions for firms and in-house. They don’t necessarily want to do it, but what’s the choice? The last thing to be desired is a “whoops” that costs the client time and money and costs the lawyer the client.
What I’ve noticed about millennial lawyers is their apparent reluctance to ask questions, to ask for help. We can all agree that some dinosaur lawyers when asked for help from younger lawyers do rebuff the overtures. What does that tell you? That person is definitely not someone to ask for help, to ask for mentoring, but even more, what does that tell you about the person? Uncharitable, unwilling to help, short-sighted, because the newbie attorneys being rejected will either 1) ditch the firm and go somewhere more hospitable and open minded to train and mentor, thus the firm being unable to recover its sunk costs of whatever training it did do, or 2) stay with the firm and make avoidable mistakes because no one wants to take the time and effort to prevent those mistakes. It’s all about billing and collecting, and non-billable time spent in training the next generation is exactly that, non-billable, but it’s a case of tunnel vision. Mentoring younger lawyers invests in the future of our profession.
When I approach young women lawyers at an event and offer to have coffee, the initial reaction is enthusiastic, but I’ve also found that there’s usually very little follow-up. Perhaps they think getting together is a waste of time, that they have nothing to learn from me. What I’ve learned over my many years is that there is always something to be learned, that if even you come away with only a single new nugget of advice or single new nugget of information, that’s more than you had before. (I think that’s especially true of dreary MCLE webinars.)
So how to mentor? Suggestions for the mentor: create structure, and don’t take over. Suggestions for the mentee: be willing to listen, don’t be defensive, don’t fret over mistakes made, and don’t be bashful about asking lots of questions. That’s how you learn.
And given the recent Paul Hastings self-congratulatory email, would it make sense to suggest that young women lawyers should choose women mentors? Your thoughts?
Jill Switzer has been an active member of the State Bar of California for 40+ years. She remembers practicing law in a kinder, gentler time. She’s had a diverse legal career, including stints as a deputy district attorney, a solo practice, and several senior in-house gigs. She now mediates full-time, which gives her the opportunity to see dinosaurs, millennials, and those in-between interact — it’s not always civil. You can reach her by email at [email protected].
