As a mentee, the leaders I worked with gave me the freedom to both model their spirit and explore what would become my path in practicing law. I mentor to pay it forward and help others find their way.
As a mentor, I stick to these three ideas to keep both myself and my mentee on track and have us both get the most out of our time together:
1. I model self awareness and humility. Criminal defense requires rigorous self awareness – a clear understanding of what makes you a strong and effective litigator and knowledge of what you need to avoid in order to advocate for another person effectively. Some of this can only be gained through trial and error but the mindset of honest inquiry about my strengths and weaknesses was the baseline quality I needed to get there. Both me and my mentee need to possess this quality in order to work together closely. I don’t want my mentee to just try to be me. I want to teach them how to be THEM, and me being ME is their example of how to do that.
2. I emphasize facilitation, not idolization. Facilitating, connecting, boosting and amplifying are the healthy mentor’s tool kit. My mentees come to me considering the criminal defense path and it’s my job as a mentor to understand where they want to go in their career and connect them to the resources they need to get there. As a mentee, I got to try out things and observe things that were suggested to me based on what I wanted to explore. And because I wasn’t mandated like “you must do xyz to become the person you want to be” I could taste things and let them influence me. I got to explore more variety because, thankfully, my mentors didn’t claim that their way was the only way.
3. I am realistic with what I can offer. Different attorneys have different styles and a mentee may want to imitate my style because they see that I’m effective. But if it’s not authentic to them to work in that style, it won’t teach them what they need to know. A mentee needs to be directed towards THEIR authentic style. Even if they end up being totally different from me. But that also means I need to be realistic with what I can offer them. Mentoring someone who wants structure, and specific steps to follow isn’t my favorite thing. It’s not my style. And I don’t think that mentee would like working with me, either. It isn’t a good match. When this happens, I need to be humble enough to connect them with the resources that will truly help them be their best. Maybe that means they should mentor with someone else! And if that’s going to best serve them, that’s what I want to do.
Mentoring is as much about you as a mentor as it is about the mentee – but not in a glamorous, imparting your eternal wisdom upon your mentee kind of way. It’s really about being a person that can lead someone into themselves, by being yourself and by getting out of the way enough to give them what they need. If you can do that, you can be an amazing mentor. Good luck!
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