Thank you!
Thank you for participating in Mitchell Hamline School of Law’s 2018-2019 Mentorship Program. October is our first month of distributing the program’s newsletter. If you have suggestions for content or would like to contribute an article, please know we always want to hear from you.
Tessa, Allison, and Sharon
Looking Back
On September 24th and 25th, we hosted panels discussing the benefits of a mentor relationship. Our panels included alumni and students, Elizabeth Fors ’16, Lilia Panteleeva ’02, Jarrett Tilley ’20, Julie Le ’19, Brooke Hein ’20, Leona Ajavon ’20, Alexander Beeby ’16, Francine Kern ’13. Everyone shared great advice about mentoring. We’ve distilled some of their advice in this newsletter and hope that it’s helpful in your current mentor relationship and beyond.
If you missed the mentorship panel discussions, you can view the September 25th presentation here.
Looking forward
The mentorship program will sponsor an etiquette event in mid-November. You will learn how to network at an event, how to hold yourself out as a professional, how to ask for contact information from someone you just met, and more.
We will send invitations to this event in the next few weeks. Attendance will be capped, so if you’re interested, please sign up as soon as you’re able.
Contact
You are always welcome to contact us with questions, sugestions, or feedback.
Tessa Boury ’05
Assistant Director, Career and Professional Development
651-290-6472
tessa.boury@mitchellhamline.edu
Allison Burke ’09
Alumni and Donor Engagement Officer
651-695-7608
allison.burke@mitchellhamline.edu
Sharon Goodyear
Program Administrator and Career Counselor
651-290-7508
sharon.goodyear@mitchellhamline.edu
October Suggested Events and Articles
Suggested Events
Attend an MSBA CLE
View MHSL‘s calendar to learn about events that might interest you
Meet for coffee and talk about October’s ethics questions
Suggested Articles
8 Tips for an Amazing Mentorship Relationship (Forbes)
5 Tips to Help You Avoid Common Attorney Ethics Pitfalls (FindLaw)
October Discussion Points
First-Year Mentorship
Think about signing up for posts from The Docket to see what’s happening throughout the law school on a regular basis. You can learn about the legal profession through these events. First-year students will take a required course called Foundations of Practice during the spring that will help them learn about legal careers, professionalism, challenges in the legal field, and more. Note, first-year evening students will receive access to resources in the course, but do not have the course in their spring schedule.
Upper-Level Mentorship
In October, talk with your mentor about ethics issues. Mentors, what are common ethical issues you’ve faced in your career? What are some issues that took you by surprise? What do you wish you had known about rules of professional conduct as a new lawyer? How do you handle malpractice insurance? Do you handle client funds? What does that entail?
Mentorship Tips
Be persistent. If you don’t hear back from your mentor right away, send another message after about a week. They want to help you, but are likely very busy.
Be on time. Arrive to your meeting with your mentors (and everyone else) on time. You don’t want to look like you don’t care about your mentor’s time.
Ask questions. Have questions ready for what you want to learn from your mentor. You’ll make the most of your time with them and demonstrate your sincere interest in them and their work.
Ask “dumb” questions. A good mentorship relationship is a great place to ask questions that you might be nervous to ask of a colleague at work. Mentors can be a trusted resource when you aren’t sure what to do and you don’t know who to ask.
Be professional, but be yourself. Mentorships, like all relationships, require trust to function at their best. It is important you remember the context of your relationship, but it is also important that you let them get to know the real you.